2009 Worlds: Results From MAG Qualifications

If you click here you can get live updates from MAG Prelims.

ALL RESULTS ARE HERE

Kohei Uchimura leads so far.  Jonathan Horton is doing well, trouble on pommels, very good hugh bar routine, he ends with 5th place overall.  Maxim Devyatovsky was the leader in the first round, he is second as of right now, Daniel Keatings is in 4th, just in front of Horton.  Oh my!  I just learned that so far USA’s Tim McNeill is in 3rd place!!!!  Ahead of Horton???

EDIT/UPDATE-  Uchimura still leads.  Unfortunately Diego Hypolito ended up ninth on FX and out of the final, one of my faves Marian Dragulescu may be the leader on FX (will post official lists soon as I find them) and I believe will qualify to VT finals as well.  Danell Leyva beat Horton on HB (15,450 I believe).  Steven Legendre was 6th on FX last time I checked….should make finals.

One sub division left!!!

At the end of the day, I will make a post with my commentary.

I will do this EVERY day of Worlds, minus Saturday.  I will not watch any Event Finals until Sunday when everyone leaves my house.  (Hey now, it’s Gator Homecoming, what can I do?)  But on Sunday I will make a huge post.

I have so much work to do…I really want to do a WAG Predictions and Hopes post….we will see if I have time.

Live From Podium Training!

I can barely wait competition to begin!

Click here to receive live updates from Podium Training.  Finally some news on the Chinese Team!

Looks like Yang Yilin cannot be counted out!  Sui Lu looking pretty good.  Bridget Sloan looking good, no news on Rebecca Bross. He Kexin‘s bars look great!  No surprise!  And Beth Tweddle may be doing  a double double bars dismount?

Who will be the big surprise this year?

PLEASE DO THE FRONT TRIPLE BRIDGET!

Afanasyeva Withdrawn. Hambuchen Injured, May Not Compete.

A big long sigh…..

Fabian Hambuchen rolled his ankle and was taken away during podium training.  Unknown at this time whether or not he will compete.  This is terrible, as I love this gymnast, he is partially responsible for my up and coming interest in MAG.

For those of you who read this blog a lot last year, I have always heavily favored the athletes who are respectful and nice.  Hambuchen is the epitome of those things, he only gets mad at himself.  One of my ‘Heatbreaks of the Games’ I was devastated for him at the Olympics.  And not to mention I completely believed he would walk away with a couple of medals (I honestly think an AA and HB medal would be a definite) this Worlds.

Let’s all hope for him……hey!  He should at least be able to compete high bar right???

Oh my gosh, I forgot….. Ksenia Afanasyeva is out.  I have no idea if this is correct, but it appears to be.

UPDATE:  Afanasyeva is definitely out, and thanks to MMR, we know that this is official and Russian is NOT replacing her.  This I don’t like, because I am in this phase of Russian love, and am looking for the Russians to emerge as a gold medal threat this quad.

Also, MMR is an amazing blog writer, you should check out his skating blog and his gymnastics blog.  Although his gymnastics blog hasn’t been updated in some time, if you like ice skating, MMR always provides EXCELLENT rundowns/commentary and would be a good place to read in this Olympic Skating Season.

Rumors From World’s Podium Training

Here is the word on the street…

–Bridget Sloan has been rocking the DTY’s couple stuck, the full twist on the DLO looks great too.

–Kayla Williams doesn’t appear to have thrown the Amanar yet, Rudi is being thrown, legs a bit messy. Changed around floor, triple twist isn’t a a side pass.

–Rebecca Bross is looking well, good DTY, a little trouble on bars, but good releases and stuck landings.

-Ivana Hong– late bar turns, low Tkatchev, what’s new? 🙂 I must say I love Ivana though! I will be rooting for her on beam. Hopefully she’s fixed up that full turn!

Training Photos can be viewed here

Also, a really great preview can be found here

I am insanely excited! I will be blogging all throughout Worlds, and I think it is safe to say….”I’m back.” One of my grad school classes is Internet Technology/Instruction and I am learning A LOT! I have to make a customized search engine, and I am going to make a gymnastics one! It will be posted on my site when I am done with it, which will be before midnight on Sunday because that is when it is due!!!

Get Ready for Worlds!

The US announced Sunday that the World Team will be Bridget Sloan, Rebecca Bross, Ivana Hong, and Kayla Williams.  The alternates will be Kytra Hunter and Mackenzie Caquatto will be the alternates.

A few interesting notes:

-Although placing 1st on bars and 2nd on floor at the Final Selection Camp, Cassandra Whitcomb was not even announced as an alternate.

-Kayla Williams will perform an Amanar and a layout Rudi vault!  In my opinion, if she puts both to her feet, that is a guaranteed medal.  And those vaults can DEFINITELY challenge for the gold.

-Bridget put her full twist back into her bars DLO dismount, and added another jump on beam, and a turn on floor.  I am still wanting her to throw the triple front full if she gets to FX finals (which she should with a clean prelims performance).

-I am wondering if Ivana and Rebecca have upgrades.  I would very much like to see Ivana’s double front back on floor.  She has lost a bit of time to a sore ankle and a bout of the flu.

Can’t wait…Prelims in a week!

Rio, Chellsie, Russian Juniors, and Other Tidbits

I have been trying to get back into blogging.  I think about it all the time, but quite frankly graduate school is kicking my ass at the moment.

So Rio won the 2016 Olympic bid.  I have family near Chicago and really wanted an Olympic Games in my backyard.

Chellsie Memmel announced her withdrawal from the Worlds Selection.  WHY?  She was rumored to have a 6.7 D score on bars.  Damn it.  I just love Chellsie Memmel and want to see her with as many medals as possible!  She also supposedly had all her skills back on beam….which wouldn’t surprise me anyway.  Sigh, as much as I don’t want to wait, Chellsie is STILL VERY VALUABLE to team USA as long as she’s got bars.  Weird that our once strongest event is now our weakest….

Wuth Memmel’s announcement I am now sure of 3/4 Worlds Team members; Bridget Sloan, Rebecca Bross, and Ivana Hong.  Sloan and Bross will do AA, And Hong will do all but vault.  I see the last spot to go to Kayla Williams for vault only, OR Kytra Hunter (who I would prefer and who will be on UF’s gymnastic team in 2010!) who could possibly take away Ivana’s floor spot.  Either way I don’t think it matters; Bross and Sloan with clean performances will both advance to FX finals.  let’s look these girls possibilities:

Bridget Sloan-  definitely could win AA, has a good chance for UB and FX finals.  UB I don’t even think she will medal (and that’s if she advances) but FX on the other hand I think she could actually win gold on.  ESPECIALLY if she throws the rumored triple front twist.  I think she should, her Randi looked over rotated at Nationals.

Rebecca Bross-  Gymnastically, Bross is my favorite right now.  I love her ‘WOGA arms”, the way she hooks her hand as she goes into round off, and all her beam correography at the beginning to the standing arabian always gets me.  I think some of it needs to be improved on floor, but I love her National Teasure Suite, her bars, etc. etc. etc.  What I DON’T love about Bross is the fact that she is a Wogette.  I can’t have WOGA producing 3 Olympic champs straight; they will rule to the world.  No. No, no, no.  But I still root for her. She has the potential to make UB, BB, and FX finals though I think her only shot of a medal is FX.

Ivana Hong- Has a shot at a beam medal.  That’s about it.  I LOVE her on beam.  She has the prettiest Onodi.  Other than her turn, her switch leap needing a bit of work, and the low chest on the dismount, Ivana’s E score should be good, and a 6 or 6.1 D score is pretty solid.  Unfortunately Deng Linlin has a 6.7 and with a clean routine I think will hands down be the gold medalist.  Watch Deng’s current beam routine here

Kayla and Kytra battle it out mostly through vault.  Whomever has TWO vaults goes.  Rumor is that Kayla has a DTY and a Rudi.  I think she has the edge.  I really would like to see Kytra as a backup floor person in case Bross or Sloan waivers, I love her piked double arabian front.

I will post Worlds Predictions soon.

And my current hope is that for this quad, is Russia is coming back?  I want to see them be gold medal contenders by London 2012.  Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova have both stolen my heart.  They are BAD ASS juniors.  I think they will be eligible in 2011?  God, I hope its next year…..I need to look up that information.  Also, Tatiana Nabieva interests me vault and bars-wise.  Komova and Mustfina could be in the running for the AA podium this worlds had they been eligible…..

That’s it for now.  Time to go slave some more over school.

Ahhhh, I have missed my blog!

2009 European Championships Begin

I have been gone quite some time from the gymnastics blogging.  I return.  I am still getting over the Olympics.  But I will get to that in a second.

No surprise to me at all that Ksenia Semenova leads the pack in the Qualifying round.  She also qualified to the event finals in 3 events (no vault).  She fell on a Pak salto in her UB routine.  She will win the All Around in my opinion.  I do believe that I blogged during Beijing, about her being one of the next superstars until this quad gets seriously underway.  Early to say, but I honestly believe she will be in the next Olympics.  Here are my random items from what I know so far about the 2009 European Championships:

• Youtube videos are already popping up here.
• Vanessa Ferrari looks completely different.  BTW- she went back to her 06′-07′ FX routine. (Not the tumbling!)
• I think scores here are LOW!  And I know the D-scores (formerly the A-score) are lower with the new code, but the E-scores (formerly the B-scores) are just insanely LOW to me.
• Semenova is definitely going to be one of my faves for the quad.
• Go Beth Tweddle, leading the pack on UB and qualifying into the FX final as well.

This is all I can say for now about the Europeans.  Now onto why I have been absent.   Yesssssss, I am a big dork and had to pull away from gymnastics for awhile.  The outcome of the Olympic Games was a bit much for me.  I don’t think there could ever, ever be another Shawn Johnson.  I can’t believe how much admiration I have for someone who is 10 years my junior.  I really wanted her to have the AA gold.  And I am hoping upon hope that she will return to the elite gymnastics scene.  But the sadness of the Olympics is also that I waited 4 years for it!  And since gymnastics has a different ‘season’ than most sports, the tendency is for the sport to only be wild the year before and of the Olympics.

Here is an incomplete list of what broke my heart during the Games:

• The broken US team.  Notably Chellsie Memmel.  I really wanted to see her compete 4 events.  And i was so excited about her comeback.
• Alicia Sacramone‘s TF performance.  She has gotten a lot of crap about it.  I was simply saddened for her.
• Cheng Fei‘s EF performances.   Same way I felt bad for Alicia.  With every major title on vault for the whole quad, it sucks to see her fall on her two main events.  Cheng should have had 3 gold medals.
• Scoring aggravated me.  Too much detail to go into for now.

So for now, I will wrap this post up.  I have too much to do at the moment.

The Seminoles Get Slaughtered

Oh what a weekend.  I cried as I watched the Gators exit the field Saturday night.  The last game of the regular season, and possibly the last time I see the Gators on the field for another year.  Most likely the last time I see Percy Harvin and Brandon Spikes on the field, also could be the last I watch Tim Tebow play.  Of course there is always a possible National Title Game to attend, but I am focusing on next week’s SEC Championship Game against Alabama.

A few highlights about Saturday:

– From approximately 2pm to 9pm, I stood in freezing rain.  The weather was MISERABLE, but it accurately painted the picture of the Seminoles and Tallahassee for me.

-So with 51 seconds left in the first half, RIGHT after Aaron Hernandez‘s touchdown, I decide to go to the bathroom.  Well, in the ABC broadcast, the final shot of fans right before halftime is the three people I attended the game with!  I came out JUST as the Gators were exiting the field, which was right there where I came out.  I saw them up close and was a bit starstruck, especially when I saw the commanding presence of Brandon Spikes.

-I was a bit scared that day.  The heavy rain, the fact that two of my friends lost tickets sometime before we arrived on the tailgating scene, made me nervous.  But all was well with a 30 point win.

-I loved how the player’s uniforms were stained red, and thus making it look like the Gators actually murdered FSU!  (Well they did, but only football-wise).  For instance, look at Tebow here:

I love it!  When we got back to the apartment with the friends we were staying with, they commented on how it looked as if Tebow was eating babies.  No guys, just Seminoles!  LOL, but this really isn’t as good as the shots ESPN had him with the red smeared around his mouth!

I also really like this picture of Janoris Jenkins and Joe Haden.  A special shout out to the awesome freshman Jenkins, who kept blocking FSU’s passes, and finally made an interception.  THIS GUY IS A FRESHMAN!  I know, the same could be said about Jeff Demps as well.  They are just so darn good.  It was just so beautiful.  I watched Sun Sports replay of the game last night (side note that it is a different broadcast than the ABC) and you know what?  It isn’t that this team is great.  They are, but what makes them deliver is the fact that they are a team.  Look at how everyone congratulates each other with every good move!  They play with their hearts and if you don’t think that accounts for anything, then you are wrong.  I think that puts them in so much sync with one another!  The same could be said about our 2006 and 2007 basketball starters.

So it’s all sitting right there.  A win next weekend will put us in that title game.  I will be nervous this week.  But I can’t wait to see it.

A side note, my usual four-hour-drive took about 6 1/2 hours!  I am not surprised, my first year in Gainesville I learned the same ‘you don’t drive home the Sunday after Thanksgiving’ the hard way.  But I just couldn’t do anything else, I had to work today.  But boy am I glad we left Tallahassee on Saturday night!!!  While getting gas in Ft. Pierce I talked with a fellow gator fan I met at the pump and this poor kid had been on the road from Tally since 10:40am.  By the way, it was 6:30 at that time!  Poor guy!

I will never drive that horrendous drive again.  People, don’t drive that day.  EVER.  I can’t believe I don’t have pneumonia today from the hours of freezing, wet misery.

Gators are just so hardcore.

Go Gators!

Gator Domination Continues

I’m a little late with this post but Saturday’s Gator triumph over Vanderbilt deserves a few words as it has secured our spot in the SEC Championship on December 6th against Alabama.

Boy am I trying to take it one game at a time!

All seemed lost after the early season loss to Ole Miss at home September 27th. But since then, the Gators have showed pure domination upon the last 5 games.

I can barely believe that once again, a BCS National Championship is not only within reach, but simply sitting there waiting for us to reach out and take it. Forget all the things I mentioned last post. It almost doesn’t even matter what happens in the Big 12 now, as the winner of that conference plus the SEC Conference are widely speculated to be the two teams to vie for the National Title.

Again, one game at a time.

This Saturday at the swamp we will have our last conference game against South Carolina. And for those of you that don’t know or remember, the last time we battled this team in the swamp (2006) it was one of the most intense games ever known to so many Gator fans as the score went back and forth and ended with a blocked field goal for us to clinch the win. Working the day after that game, I got into a discussion with an elderly gentleman who said to me, “Honey, I have been watching Gator Football for 50 years, and that was the closest I have ever come to having a heart attack!”

The Gamecocks are now ranked #25 in the BCS, and lead the SEC in Defense. (Which I find hard to believe but honestly haven’t watched much of them playing this season). Furthermore, it is a rival game as they are lead by former Gator coach, Steve Spurrier.

The game the following weekend, against the Citadel, is the one game I haven’t and won’t worry about this season. My biggest concern is that we won’t put up the 80+ points I am just dying to see on the scoreboard. Honestly? I want the score to be 105-0. I know, I know. But that would be like, the largest shutout ever. And that would be the equivalent of 15 touchdowns, which I think would be a nice touch as it is the number of Tim Tebow.

The following week is FSU. Big rivalry game, and the first time I will ever attend an away game! I am so excited, but again, I won’t take that lightly. FSU is also ranked, and we can’t drop our guard on them either.

But simply put, if I keep seeing what I have been these last few weeks, I am not sure if anyone could beat us.

You know, at the beginning of this year, football was stressing me out. To those who know this blog, football has become my new gymnastics. A new sport for me which I constantly learn more about, not to mention something to put my heart and soul into, and something so great to love. The adrenaline that fills you is the greatest element of life, yet sometimes can be your enemy. I have become this raging groupie, as I travel so much to see Gator Football it is ridiculous, and a lot of money.

But I wouldn’t trade this for the world.

The phrase, “It’s Great to be a Florida Gator” is the truth. Right now in my life, there simply is nothing better.

Gators Chomp the Dawgs

Another great weekend. This was the first time I have ever gone to Jacksonville for the Florida Georgia game. Tailgating galore, it was beautiful. The Cocktail Party it was, I have a whole new collection of bruises.

I was all over the place in the stadium, lost my voice a bit again, and reveled in what was just so awesomely unbelievable to me.

Joe Haden and Tim Tebow were the players of the game to me. Not to take away from the other Gators who also played quite well.

UGA had 20% (maybe) of their fans left towards the end of the game. Comical. However, I will state that we had fun hanging out with some of their fans, and to date I actually found them the nicest.

After the game we went to this bar in Jacksonville called Sneakers. This is by far and away the best sports bar I have ever been to. It was like a giant warehouse, complete with movie screen TV’s and definitely some great food. I highly recommend it. At this lovely bar we watched the very dramatic Texas vs, Texas Tech game which went in the Gators favor by TT winning.

Road is not as long, but still there. Winning against EITHER Vanderbilt or South Carolina will solidify our spot in the SEC Championship Game. Here are the following things in my opinion that need to happen to get us into the National Championship Game:

• Alabama needs to maintain the number one ranking and win out until the SEC Championship.
• Texas Tech or Penn State needs to get a loss in. This is far more likely to happen to Texas Tech as they have only one down in their three straight weeks of playing top ten games. I am hoping for a Penn State stumble against Michigan State. That will take them out, and push us up.
• Texas and Texas Tech are in the same conference and you aren’t going to a National Championship without a Conference Championship. One of them has to get eliminated. Assuming we win out, that would put us, the Big 12 champ, and Penn State in the definite.

Okay, enough thinking. Numbers 2 and 9 (TT and Oklahoma State) play each other while our game is going on this weekend. Also USC is playing California at that time as well. Oh how I would loooooooooove to see USC go down.

Go Gators. Go Gators. Go Gators.

On a side note, I would like to note that as of today, this blog has reached 100,000 hits. That makes me happy and proud. Thanks everyone!