So Gymnix? It didn't go so well, but it wasn't a disaster either. The Americans dominated as I suspected, but my little swans managed to grab a few medals, team silver most importantly. The Canadians won bronze in front of a home audience.
(Is it just me or do the Russians look a bit cranky there? Practicing that Russian bitchface I'm sure. Can't move to senior level without it. But I'd be cranky too if I was wearing a leo with weird boob tentacles.)
The Americans also swept the all around podium even with their best gymnast, Jordan Chiles, having an incredibly rough day and finishing way down the standings. Anastasia Ilyankova scored highest out of the Russians, but came in 4th after a low score on uneven bars, her best event. Event finals ended with gold for Nastia on uneven bars, and silver for Varvara Zubova on beam (yay!).
Little Zubo was definitely my favorite. She has an amazing beam routine with flow and actual choreography. No fear or hesitation, and no falling off. I just love her. I didn't like her floor routine quite as much as some of her former ones, but it's still charming, something out of an different era of gymnastics. It reminds me just a tiny bit of baby Aliya from 2004.
Valeria Saifulina also impressed me with her floor exercise. Her form on tumbling is questionable and switch half terrible, but there's something that reminds me of Ksenia Afanasyeva about her in style and performance. A bit of that cheekiness and drama perhaps. And her end pose pointing straight at the judges! I loved it.She has no idea what she's doing on bars though. She could have such lovely lines, but no.
Ulyana Perebinosova still has her bird themed floor exercise with clean tumbling and juniorish charm. On bars she drives me crazy with missed handstands everywhere and a very Russian tkachev. Her ezhova looks nice though.
Nastia has officially moved to the senior realm: uninspired floor and the usual beam set (with nice aerial cartwheel + layout step-out combo though). I couldn't find any video of her bars :( She didn't score that well though.
FloGymnastics has plenty of videos, but they are for (rich) members only. YouTube has few, here are the ones that I know of:
Ilyankova: BB, BB, FX, FX
Zubova: BB, FX
Perebonisova: UB, FX
Saifulina: UB, FX
The complete results of the meet are here.
There weren't that many pictures, but here's Nastia on the uneven bars podium with Gabby Perea and Deanne Soza.
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End note: I was feeling really reluctant and uninspired writing this post and to figure out what was wrong, I just stopped and went to take a shower. In the dark. Because that's what I do. When you sit under a hot shower with the lights out and wonder about your life, you make some discoveries.
So I thought I'd be all excited stanning my baby swans but I'm not and that's a scary thought. How can I not be passionate about them? Whether they are great or a complete disaster I'm always passionate about it! But they weren't great, and not a disaster either, just...meh. But on the other hand, there weren't that many videos to get excited over. I have to start improving my programming skills so that I can one day hack FloGymnastics. Or you know, just make enough money to get a membership... And it wasn't just the Russians, I was too tired to care about Sae Miyakawa having a disaster on floor, the Americans having some great juniors and Eythora Thorsdottir being her usual inconsistent but beautiful self. I'm even too tired to complain about the Russians competing with their white socks on. No wait, I wasn't ;)
I'll just blame my apathy on the lack of quality videos and my eternal existential crisis chipping away parts of my emotional capacity reserved for anything to do with Russian gymnastics. That must be it.
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