2009 Nationals: WAG Team Final 2

Apparently last night's team final proved so disappointing, a collective unspoken "ooohhh...kaaaaay?" was detected from audience members.

GA takes a lighter look at the event here. IG also has an article this morning but I can't access it right now, grrrr.

P-Liddy says:

“Lauren is about 85%. She’s not 100% fit yet and it was the first time she has done that brand new, fully loaded, jam packed routine.

“She’s been out for six months and hasn’t been able to twist with that rib injury so all that considered, I’m happy where she’s at.

“The element she fell on she can do that in her sleep. It was just a miscalculation.

“Potential wise it’s a world championships winning performance and that’s what we’re going for.

“A national title would be nice but we’re taking that extra risk because we’re going for a medal. Were going for world champion now.

“If she can hit that routine, at a 7.2 that would be the highest start value that’s been performed this year. We’re going all guns a-blazing.”

My Perth peeps, however, had repeatedly used the words "splatfest" and "let-down" in their summaries to me. Mind you, one of those was not a seasoned competition attendee. Here are some notes from Nade -

Lauren looked OK, but below her Beijing form for sure. One cool thing she did was double arabian-immediate stag jump(!!!). She did pike full in (OOB), her double arabian pass, 2.5+tuck front (watering down) and double pike. She is not doing a squat turn on the floor rather than a triple turn. On beam did did ff-ff-layout which was ok. She has added a switch leap half. She seemed to lack concentration, she didn't hit her squat turn at all and sort of stood up in a daze and nearly fell off in the process. She also fell on her front aerial as mentioned, and nearly on her dismount as well. She also has a pike front in the routine now.

Shona was also below Beijing form. She vaulted a yurchenko 1/2 on front tuck 1/2 off, oddly. I dunno, maybe she is training a half-on tucked rudi off? It seemed a weird choice. I did see her do a Yfull in warmups though. She nearly fell on floor and her score was in the 12s. She did full-in tuck, 2.5+front tuck 1/2, a double twist and then double pike. She was reliable but not spectacular on beam as usual. She did not do the shaposhnikova on bars, instead she brought back the piked jaeger which she had omitted at Vics.

Georgia-Rose Brown is a gorgeous gymnast but fell about 6 times across 4 events.
Larrissa Miller has beautiful form and lines. She hit her bars for 14.025 but fell on both floor and beam multiple times.

Mary-Anne, who I was thrilled to see, only did bars, and only a few skills at that. She had a markelov and a tkatchev but didn't seem to have a transition to the low bar because she just got off and did a glide kip. Double pike dismount.

Emily Little had some decent skills (1.5ty, full-in on floor) etc, but she was laboured in a lot of her work. Her new floor is better but still not as good as those of her WAIS counterparts. Her bars reminded me a lot of Melanie Jones at nationals last year, she had to muscle nearly everything, had a scrappy gienger, and lacked the strength and momentum to make it over the bar on some of her giants. Basically she was efficient but lacked flair and personal style.

Victoria was the only state with a team in both junior and senior (which was really unfortunate considering the multiple teams last year) so they won both by default and the team competition was a little worthless.

Oh dear. Hope things are better for Day 2! Can't imagine how our head coach is feeling, or what she wants to say to all of our coaches!

On a happier note - HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVIA VIVIAN!