Nastia was clearly the star of the team, she actually outscored her teammates on every single apparatus during the team/AA competition, and took home the most medals. Gold on team, AA and floor, silver on bars and beam. I have really mixed feelings about her on anything else than bars, but she's definitely improving. She showed a new floor routine with a very...traditional Russian feel, and I actually like it. It's weirdly fitting that they are going back from whacky music selections to the safe past. I just wish she'd fix her form. The tumbling isn't any worse than her teammates, but those leaps... She either has her back knee really bent, or the leg is straight but trailing way under horizontal. For a Russian-themed floor from a Russian, those are some terribly un-Russian leaps.
She had a new routine on bars too and it was very impressive with its endless opening combination. And she's still junior and already a member of the pak+shap club. I love that she keeps defying the Russian norms with her skills too. Who needs another piked Jaeger, when you can have an ezhova as your front/reverse grip requirement. Once she gets her pak and ezhova in control, this routine is going to be beautiful. I really miss her sky-high tkatchev, but it was inconsistent and at least she kept her other release. And who knows, maybe it's coming back when she's more comfortable with the changes.
Her beam was downgraded but as messy as usual (that uhmm "layout" will make me blind one day, and the leaps again...), I really don't like it, and her FTY is clean, but doesn't really look like it's ready for an upgrade. She has a 1.5 if I remember correctly, but I don't think she has enough power for a DTY. This quad the gymnasts who didn't have a DTY byt the time they turned senior never got their DTY, I hope the next quad isn't going to continue the tradition.
Actually, let's think about it for a second. Melka and Seda are the only ones with a consistent DTY, and it looks like Seda is hellbent on turning hers into an inconsistent one. Then we have Shelgie and Dasha K., but their DTY's are terrible on their best day. So is Lena's. So for a best case scenario team final (without a comeback from Aliya, Vika, Afan or Beefarm), we have 2 1/2 DTY's. Ouch. We need Nabs to come save us. We can always rely on Nabs.
But back to Nastia. Her gold medal winning floor from the finals was pretty much the same as team competition, but she unfortunately missed a connection on bars. Her silver medal worthy beam was slightly better perhaps. I dare you to watch that "layout" in slow motion.
Lena, who beat Nastia to the AA title at the European Championships earlier this year didn't have as good a day as Nastia. She too had a new floor exercise (she already showed it a few weeks ago during St. Petersburg Championships), but compared to her last one, it's really underwhelming. It has a lot of recycled choreography and it just doesn't look like she's enjoying performing it. Maybe it will improve once she has more time with this routine. It wasn't her best performance either, very messy and she missed the punch after the 3/2 to 5/2 line.
Her bars have been changed to better suit the new code. Her jaeger is now piked (and quite nice actually) and she swings to handstand from her maloney instead of a cast. She now also has a van leeuwen as an upgrade. I don't know where her ricna went, but I hope it's coming back when we get back to competition season. Or, maybe we'll get the nabieva instead. She still has minor form breaks everywhere, but I like those handstands.
Her beam was really shaky, but I love how she doesn't need any time to set up for the BHS+LOSO+LOSO. I actually started laughing out loud when she messed up during her mount sequence choreography, and now I feel bad.
On vault she went for the 1.5 instead of her DTY, but tucked it quite a bit. Her second vault was a decent FTY. She made it to the vault finals and actually managed to get a silver. Her form on the 1.5 was better than in team competition, but the landing was short (VT1 and VT2).
Seda and Dasha spent the majority of the day trying to see who could be the biggest disaster and you guessed it, Seda won. No one can beat her when it comes to meltdowns. She scored a fabulous 51.900 and placed 13th. Wow.
Her floor was even messier than usual, but she survived it without an incident and actually qualified to the final. She also qualified to the vault final with a FTY as a first vault and lopez as a second. Then she visibly struggled through her bar routine, but managed to keep it together until her worst enemy, beam. I'm just going to say that viewer discretion is advised...
And about the finals... She fell twice on floor and once on vault (VT1 and VT2). So only 3 more falls. In one day.
Spiridoz may have lost the disaster contest, but who can blame her when the opponent is Seda. She fell on floor, but that's given with her, it would be strange if she didn't. Her FTY was low and piked and like Seda, she looked out of shape on bars. She made it through her routine until falling out of handstand and sticking her dismount with legs as wide part as Kocian's.
I don't know what kind of voodoo she did to stay on the beam in Rio, but it looks like she did it again. A few big balance checks and a very low landing, but no falls.
The very low landing however wasn't enough in the beam finals and she turned it into almost-hit-my-head-on-the-ground landing.
Needless to say, Seda and Spiridoz are clearly beyond done. But since the Russians haven't learned their lesson about Olympic training and subsequent injuries and burnouts, they're still competing even though they look like they could die at any moment. Just let them go back to Mallorca to relax for awhile and then come back refreshed for nationals next spring, they've earned it. There's no need for this torture.
Nastia and Lena did good, but I feel like this meet didn't really give us any more insight into whether or not they'll make good seniors. My favorite is still Lena, but Nastia was in far better shape this time and looked ready to slay. The most impressive thing was that they both made it through the competition without any big mistakes. It was even more impressive since the team "leaders" were falling apart and Nastia and Lena had to carry the team on their tiny shoulders.
The next meet for the Russians is going to be Voronin Cup, they usually let their top juniors compete so we'll probably see Lena and Nastia there, maybe Ulya. Hopefully Seda and Dasha won't be there, but some anon said that they are going to Toyota International in Japan. BAD IDEA.
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LINKS:
Full results are HERE.
Most of the routines are HERE and HERE.
On vault she went for the 1.5 instead of her DTY, but tucked it quite a bit. Her second vault was a decent FTY. She made it to the vault finals and actually managed to get a silver. Her form on the 1.5 was better than in team competition, but the landing was short (VT1 and VT2).
Seda and Dasha spent the majority of the day trying to see who could be the biggest disaster and you guessed it, Seda won. No one can beat her when it comes to meltdowns. She scored a fabulous 51.900 and placed 13th. Wow.
Her floor was even messier than usual, but she survived it without an incident and actually qualified to the final. She also qualified to the vault final with a FTY as a first vault and lopez as a second. Then she visibly struggled through her bar routine, but managed to keep it together until her worst enemy, beam. I'm just going to say that viewer discretion is advised...
And about the finals... She fell twice on floor and once on vault (VT1 and VT2). So only 3 more falls. In one day.
Spiridoz may have lost the disaster contest, but who can blame her when the opponent is Seda. She fell on floor, but that's given with her, it would be strange if she didn't. Her FTY was low and piked and like Seda, she looked out of shape on bars. She made it through her routine until falling out of handstand and sticking her dismount with legs as wide part as Kocian's.
The very low landing however wasn't enough in the beam finals and she turned it into almost-hit-my-head-on-the-ground landing.
Needless to say, Seda and Spiridoz are clearly beyond done. But since the Russians haven't learned their lesson about Olympic training and subsequent injuries and burnouts, they're still competing even though they look like they could die at any moment. Just let them go back to Mallorca to relax for awhile and then come back refreshed for nationals next spring, they've earned it. There's no need for this torture.
Nastia and Lena did good, but I feel like this meet didn't really give us any more insight into whether or not they'll make good seniors. My favorite is still Lena, but Nastia was in far better shape this time and looked ready to slay. The most impressive thing was that they both made it through the competition without any big mistakes. It was even more impressive since the team "leaders" were falling apart and Nastia and Lena had to carry the team on their tiny shoulders.
The next meet for the Russians is going to be Voronin Cup, they usually let their top juniors compete so we'll probably see Lena and Nastia there, maybe Ulya. Hopefully Seda and Dasha won't be there, but some anon said that they are going to Toyota International in Japan. BAD IDEA.
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LINKS:
Full results are HERE.
Most of the routines are HERE and HERE.
I know it's the off-season and all, but watching Seda I wonder if she's in the middle of a growth spurt.
ReplyDeleteI just put her poor performance down to a combination of the comedown from the Olympic training, off-season and her usual shenanigans, but you could be right. It wouldn't be unusual to have a growth spurt after the Olympics and it does seem like she's gained a bit of weight too.
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