#melbwc17

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Liu Tingting + Pefection

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Liu Ting Ting || 14.666 (6.2) .1 N.D

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Sanne Wevers Beam | 13.866 (5.4) .1 ND

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Liu Tingting CHINA || 14.733 (6.0)

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A great way to finish my World Cup Experience. The Wevers are honestly the sweetest and most beautiful people on the planet.

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I met Lieke Wevers today!!!

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2017 Melbourne World Cup Day Two Recap

Todays session began with Beam and Mens Vault. Beam was headlined by Olympic Champion Sanne Wevers and Vault by Olympic Medalist Kenzo Shirai. Beam was, as usual, the battle of who could stay on the apparatus. Five gymnasts fell of the beam and four girls stayed on. Unsurprisingly the girls that stayed on the beam are ranked in the top 4 going into finals on Saturday. Liu Ting Ting led the way on beam with an amazing routine with lots of intricate mixed and acro combinations which gave her the highest difficulty score of 6.2 (which is huge in the new code of points). She scored a 14.666 with an 8.566 E score, she had a neutral deduction of .1 for going over time. 

Second place in qualifications was fellow countrywoman Luo Huan who also showcased beautiful lines and skills to score a 14.366 (5.9). 

Olympic Champion Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands qualified in fourth with a 13.866. She had a couple of breaks that resulted in missed connections which lowered her D score from 6.3 (which she showed in training today) to a 5.4. This kept her score below 14 and well behind the Chinese pair today. 

Emma Nedov of Australia qualified in fourth place with a solid routine, she had a couple of balance breaks but nothing too major.

Alternating with beam was the Mens Vault which I had trouble watching because it was on the opposite end of the arena. Despite this I witnessed some amazing and terrifying vaulting. Kenzo Shirai of Japan qualified in first scoring 14.549 with an amazing triple twisting yurchenko and unveiling a new second vault that is now the Shirai IV (full on double full off). Ahmet Onder was in second with a stuck tsukahara two and a half twist. He struggled a little on his second vault but was overall really impressive. Wataru Tanigawa of japan was in third place with one messy and one pretty clean vault. Chris Remkes had a great first vault almost sticking his Dragalescu but fell on his second vault. If he hits in finals he could be a real contender for the podium.

Up next was parallel bars which once again was the battle of who could have the least amount of scary mistakes/fall. Zou Jingyuan of China qualified in first with a huge 15.433 (6.6), he had great handstands and stuck his double front half dismount. Ferhat Arican was in second with a 14.833 with a great routine with a basically stuck double front half dismount as well. He was the silver medalist on this event at the Rio Test Event last year so has excellent potential for the podium come Saturday night. Kenzo Shirai was in third with a 14.200 (6.0), overall he had a pretty clean routine with great form and amplitude. He had a couple of little struggles throughout the routine but stuck his dismount as well.

The next event up was floor which featured Wang Yan of China who qualified in top position with a  13.433 (5.4). She showed a new double layout but was a bit short, this was followed up by her trademark triple full to punch front. She also had some great new sassy choreography which featured a couple of cleaning the dirt off her shoulder moves. Liu Ting Ting of China was in second with a 13.400 (5.1) with beautiful leaps and great dance. Her deductions mainly came on her tumbling which could use some work to help improve her score. In third place was Emily Little of Australia who showed an amazing double layout that had a near perfect landing. She only scored a 12.633 but had fantastic tumbling and was just lacking a bit on the dance side. 

Tracie Ang of Malaysia had a really great routine to qualify in fourth position.

High Bar was the final event and after this high bar competition I think high bar should be renamed Splat City because only three out of the eight gymnasts managed to make it through a routine without falling. Japan’s Saito Yusuke qualified in first with a 14.366 (6.7) he had a huge laidout Kolman to Kovacs combination which made the crowd roar with excitement. Devy Dyson of New Zealand qualified in second with a really secure and solid routine that which had by far the best execution (8.433) of the entire high bar competition. Ahmet Onder of Turkey had beautiful form on high bar but a couple of struggles on his routine let him qualify in third to Saturday’s final.

Today was quite a rough day for most people on every event so hopefully we see some improvements for finals. It was also super exciting today because I met Aly Raisman and Kenzo Shirai which was amazing. I can’t wait for the finals to start tomorrow and to continue covering the event for you all.

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Melbourne 2017 Gymnastics World Cup Day 1 Recap

I was lucky enough to watch training and warm ups today and witnessed lots of amazing gymnastics. Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands showed beautiful skills on beam with an awesome new mount sequence involving a back handspring mount connected to a Wolf Jump with a full turn connected to a full twisting back handspring. This connection gives Sanne 0.5 in CV and is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I didn’t get to record it because she only did it once or twice today. She also did mostly the same routine as her Rio routine including her great dance element sequence seen below.

The competition began with Women’s Vault and Mens Floor. Both of these events had some really strong gymnasts and some unfortunate falls. Wang Yan of China qualified in first place to the final with a combined vault score of 14.216. She did a great Rudi and a Double Twisting Tsukahara, her landings were a bit low but she managed to not give too much away to the judges. Wang was closely followed by Emily Little of Australia who received great crowd support. She had a beautiful Double Twisting Yurchenko with a small step out of the line followed by a Full Twisting Tsukahara that was super clean with a tiny hop forward. Naomi Lee of Australia was in third followed by Caitlin Todd of New Zealand. Both girls had great amplitude on their vaults and I can see upgrades coming in the future for both. 

On the floor Kenzo Shirai led the way with a huge 15.100 on floor. He had a 7.1 D score but had steps and hops on almost all of his passes which resulted in the lower E score. He opened with an amazing Triple Twisting Double Layout followed by a Triple Twisting Double Tuck (seen below).

Shirai was followed by Mu Jile and Wataru Tanigawa which both had beautiful clean routines but with much lower D scores which kept their Scores in the low 14s. Mu Jile had a beautiful three and half twist connected to a Rudi to open his routine and Tanigawa had an amazing stuck piked double arabian. 

Next was Uneven Bars and Pommel Horse. Uneven Bars qualification turned out to be much closer than I expected. Luo Huan of China had beautiful clean lines and great difficulty to qualify in first place with a 14.400 (6.0). She had the classic Chinese bars skills including Healy, Ling, Healy 1/2 etc. In second place was Australia’s Rianna Mizzen who had an absolutely incredible routine. She begins with a combination of weiler kips ala Jordyn Wieber connected to a Maloney + Hindorff + Pak (OMG). She then transferred back to the high bar with a Van Leeuwen and finished her routine with a Toe 1/1 connected to a basically stuck full twisting double back. Liu Ting Ting was in third place in qualifications with a 14.066. She had a beautiful pak salto (seen below) but had struggles on some handstands but finished with a stuck double layout.

Pommel Horse was next and featured 2012 Olympic Champion Krisztian Berki who had a gorgeous routine showing off his beautiful long lines. He scored a 14.800 which I though was a little low to be honest. Weng Hao and Zou Jiangyou were the next highest qualifiers with 14.466 and 14.433 respectively. They both had pretty good routines for what I saw but I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have because pommel horse. 

The final event was rings which was a pretty tight competition as well. China’s Wu Guanhua qualified in first followed by Ibrahim Colak of Turkey and countryman Zou Jingyuan. This final should be pretty close between these three and Koji Yamamuro of Japan.

I was also lucky enough to meet Lieke Wevers and Mary Anne Monckton (who were both amazing). I also got to meet some of my gymternet friends @flippinover and @thehonoraryamerican. I’m looking forward to the amazing competition that should continue for the next three days.