--They actually upgraded! And Melka is back to normal! And it wasn't a disaster! And the Mustafina is back!
I'm so happy about this. Buuuut... I'm also worried. It's too good. It's Russia, so they are supposed to look like a disaster, that's how we know they're going to do well. So many mixed feelings right now. At least Aliya managed to be shaky on beam. That needed to happen. Thank you my Queen. She was also not-so-good on floor. Oh, and Seda fell on beam. What a surprise.
Aliya did only one vault, a DTY as expected and her leg form looks actually improved. She landed with her feet together instead of one foot in front of the other, didn't go for the stick. On bars she actually upgraded! The mustafina dismount is back and looks as good as ever, maybe even slightly better. She always did the last half twist really late, but based on the bad quality clip I saw, it might have been a bit earlier this time. I also read that she replaced her maloney with komova II, which would bring her difficulty to 6.8 (!), but there are some contradictory reports on that, so I'm not sure if it's true or not. On beam she was hesitant and shaky and broke some connections, but I still feel good about it. That's how she always looks during podium training. Her routine seems to be the same as in Russian Cup. She connected the two front aerials without problems.
Her floor routine was still easy. The double L looks a lot better, at least her heel didn't hit the ground. She had enough rotation in her mustafina, but fell out of it and wasn't able to connect the double turn. She took out the double attitude and replaced it with a memmel to a double turn. She hit it perfectly (great control for once), but it's still a bad idea, because if she doesn't get the mustafina around, she loses a lot of difficulty (and her difficulty is already low). There is of course the possibility that she did it only because it was podium training and she wanted to have another go at the Y-to-double connection, or that she will do the memmel only if she's sure that her mustafina earlier was completely around. But I hope that the double attitude (is it called semenova?) comes back. As said, her tumbling was still easy, full-in (very good), 3/2+1/1 and a double tuck. She did some whip+full-ins afterwards though. I was predicting that the 5/2+1/1 would come back, but apparently she didn't do it even after the actual routine, so maybe it's not coming back after all. Her twisting form looks very clean for the 3/2, so maybe they think that she would lose the extra difficulty in execution if they went for the 5/2? Ironically, the most trouble she had on floor was with a normal triple spin, something she could do perfectly when she was 13. She fell out of it during her routine and afterwards tried it several times, but didn't hit it even once. Oh well, it's Russia.
Seda did two okay DTYs and a good lopez, unfortunately no mustafina in sight. On bars she had a close call with the bhardwaj, but saved it. Unfortunately she's back to rolling out of the double front dismount. Ugh. On beam she fell on the full, surprise. She also put her hands down on the full-in dismount, but had a second go at it and made it. I'm sure she will kill me during quals and team final. I'll have to get drunk and hide behind my pillow when she's up, it's the only way I can make it through with her on the beam. On floor there was nothing new, apparently some out-of-control landings, no news on whether or not she made her turns.
Melka seemed to be almost back to normal. She started carefully on vault with a few FTYs, and then did an overrotated DTY. On bars she tried out some upgrades, I don't know if we will see them in the competition though. If the report was correct, she connected komova+pak+van leeuwen, and dismounted with a mustafina! For a while it seemed like the mustafina was never coming back, but now we have two, thank you GymGods. She missed her jaeger like during the Russian Cup, I hope it's not a common occurrence. On beam she had problems with her layout, again, like in every competition. Ugh. She also overrotated her double pike, but the rest was good. She also did a front pike, something new, apparently a pulled hamstring didn't stop her from upgrading. On floor she had a spotter to help her with tumbling, probably because of the injury. No surprises there.
Dasha is going to have a busier-than-thought qualification, it looks like she is doing beam and floor along with bars, a lot for a one-eventer. It makes perfect sense that they don't want to risk qualifications with scratches, but still, this is the Olympics... She had her old routine on bars, like she said she would, no mustafina from her. Everything looked good and she spent some time fine-tuning her dismount. She fell on beam and had some wobbles, but repeated her routine later and hit it. On floor her routine was super easy, 5/2+front tuck, double twist and double tuck. It's the Olympics.
Masha seems to have recovered from her back pain enough to do two decent vaults. She did a good cheng, and several decent DTYs. There wasn't any footage of her amanar, but apparently it was very good.
As I said, the podium training was better than expected, and it had me slightly worried. But now that I think of it, they had plenty of mistakes, so we're good.
I just can't believe that Rio is actually here. I want to watch the opening ceremony live, but the time difference makes it really difficult. I'm fine staying up late, and I'm fine waking up early, but the ceremony takes place in that terrible time slot between really late and really early. I wouldn't be able to fall asleep when it ends and I would have to stay up 40+ hours. It was easy when I was young, but now staying up that long makes me feel like I have the worst hangover.
I only saw a few routines, floor, beam, vault and UB dismount from Aliya, and UB from Spiri. The rest of the info comes from International Gymnast Magazine's Facebook.
Aliya did only one vault, a DTY as expected and her leg form looks actually improved. She landed with her feet together instead of one foot in front of the other, didn't go for the stick. On bars she actually upgraded! The mustafina dismount is back and looks as good as ever, maybe even slightly better. She always did the last half twist really late, but based on the bad quality clip I saw, it might have been a bit earlier this time. I also read that she replaced her maloney with komova II, which would bring her difficulty to 6.8 (!), but there are some contradictory reports on that, so I'm not sure if it's true or not. On beam she was hesitant and shaky and broke some connections, but I still feel good about it. That's how she always looks during podium training. Her routine seems to be the same as in Russian Cup. She connected the two front aerials without problems.
Her floor routine was still easy. The double L looks a lot better, at least her heel didn't hit the ground. She had enough rotation in her mustafina, but fell out of it and wasn't able to connect the double turn. She took out the double attitude and replaced it with a memmel to a double turn. She hit it perfectly (great control for once), but it's still a bad idea, because if she doesn't get the mustafina around, she loses a lot of difficulty (and her difficulty is already low). There is of course the possibility that she did it only because it was podium training and she wanted to have another go at the Y-to-double connection, or that she will do the memmel only if she's sure that her mustafina earlier was completely around. But I hope that the double attitude (is it called semenova?) comes back. As said, her tumbling was still easy, full-in (very good), 3/2+1/1 and a double tuck. She did some whip+full-ins afterwards though. I was predicting that the 5/2+1/1 would come back, but apparently she didn't do it even after the actual routine, so maybe it's not coming back after all. Her twisting form looks very clean for the 3/2, so maybe they think that she would lose the extra difficulty in execution if they went for the 5/2? Ironically, the most trouble she had on floor was with a normal triple spin, something she could do perfectly when she was 13. She fell out of it during her routine and afterwards tried it several times, but didn't hit it even once. Oh well, it's Russia.
Seda did two okay DTYs and a good lopez, unfortunately no mustafina in sight. On bars she had a close call with the bhardwaj, but saved it. Unfortunately she's back to rolling out of the double front dismount. Ugh. On beam she fell on the full, surprise. She also put her hands down on the full-in dismount, but had a second go at it and made it. I'm sure she will kill me during quals and team final. I'll have to get drunk and hide behind my pillow when she's up, it's the only way I can make it through with her on the beam. On floor there was nothing new, apparently some out-of-control landings, no news on whether or not she made her turns.
Melka seemed to be almost back to normal. She started carefully on vault with a few FTYs, and then did an overrotated DTY. On bars she tried out some upgrades, I don't know if we will see them in the competition though. If the report was correct, she connected komova+pak+van leeuwen, and dismounted with a mustafina! For a while it seemed like the mustafina was never coming back, but now we have two, thank you GymGods. She missed her jaeger like during the Russian Cup, I hope it's not a common occurrence. On beam she had problems with her layout, again, like in every competition. Ugh. She also overrotated her double pike, but the rest was good. She also did a front pike, something new, apparently a pulled hamstring didn't stop her from upgrading. On floor she had a spotter to help her with tumbling, probably because of the injury. No surprises there.
Masha seems to have recovered from her back pain enough to do two decent vaults. She did a good cheng, and several decent DTYs. There wasn't any footage of her amanar, but apparently it was very good.
As I said, the podium training was better than expected, and it had me slightly worried. But now that I think of it, they had plenty of mistakes, so we're good.
I just can't believe that Rio is actually here. I want to watch the opening ceremony live, but the time difference makes it really difficult. I'm fine staying up late, and I'm fine waking up early, but the ceremony takes place in that terrible time slot between really late and really early. I wouldn't be able to fall asleep when it ends and I would have to stay up 40+ hours. It was easy when I was young, but now staying up that long makes me feel like I have the worst hangover.
I only saw a few routines, floor, beam, vault and UB dismount from Aliya, and UB from Spiri. The rest of the info comes from International Gymnast Magazine's Facebook.
Where did you find all the footage? I'm still searching it and I didn't find a video of Rio nor of London. Since NBC showed some images in a fluff about Aliya, all of this has been recorded. If you know where I can find PT videos, please let me know. Most of those upgrades has not been competed so I would like to see it.
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