Folks, one of my Perth sources is texting from inside Challenge Stadium like there's no tomorrow, so I will try and keep you updated as the WAG Senior and Junior Team competition goes throughout the evening. Stay tuned!
(ps- I've surpassed 60,000 views since the traffic counter was added nearly 6 months ago!)
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AnkleStrapping!Watch: Shona Morgan, Mary-Anne Monckton (heavy strapping)
Warm up: ShoMo showing good form on beam, Britt "not so much".
Hollie Dykes working with AIS team. Assistant mentor role a la Dasha? (Dasha was spotted earlier today in the arena, on crutches with a big cast on.)
(Those of you who are members of WWGym, ChaChaKid and Nade are at the venue, too, so some updates are coming from them, thanks guys)
Lauren now has a back layout in her beam routine (I assume BHS BHS layout, as she already had a BHS layout sequence?) but unfortunately fell on her front aerial that was meant to be connected to her front tuck.
"Olivia Vivian is in the crowd (having a bop along to Mambo #5 apparently!). Shona got a 14.575 on beam but i wasn't watching! Lauren went oob twice on floor but still got a 13.575 - she changed some things around in the routine but i'm not quite sure on that so hopefully nade can elaborate."
Also spotted in crowd: Tain, Jade, Natalia, Kayleigh.
Shona's beam score is the highest so far.
Victorians having trouble on bars. Ditto Emily Little and Mez Monckton.
(C'mon Little Mezzie! Do it for Big Mezzie!)
Aaaaaaaaaand bit of a gap here but VICTORIA WINS BOTH SENIOR AND JUNIOR TEAM TITLES!
More detail to come tomorrow, I suspect. I'm two hours in front of my correspondents and needing a sleep on the strength of it!
13 comments:
THANKS FOR THE UPDATE!
this blog is the best thing in Australian Gymnastics!
really appreciate all the efforts and updates that you provide!
:)
Thanks so much for this! Silly overseas business trips. I am a loyal reader of the blog and love the information, keep it up! Hollie is a coach at AIS and IIRC Dasha's surgery was some time in the last couple of weeks.
Yes your right about the bhs bhs to layout and i have a feeling nade is in front of me but i'm too scared to ask!
I was sitting in the second or third row right in front of the floor.
I hate to be negative but honestly it was a terrible meet, and I found it very disappointing. The standard was awful; I don't think any juniors broke 13.0. The level of performance and competition readiness was very bad - I think nearly everybody fell on bars and beam, and there were tons on falls on floor as well.
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.
Britt was good on floor but is still doing relatively simple passes - 1.5 twist+front full, double twist, double pike, 2.5 twist. On bars she scored in the 11s. She really needs to improve there if she wants to compete AA. Her beam was ok, 13.875, her VT 1.5y IIRC with bent knees.
Basically some of you will be horrified when the results are posted - most scores were in the 10s and 11s, some were in the 9s. This quad could potentially be a bit of a struggle. Going by what I saw tonight, Peggy is on crack if she thinks this is the most talented group ever. I know a lot of girls were out injured but the ones tonight had a long way to go.
The one thing I liked was seeing some endos on bars from Tierra Exum and Ashley Cooney since they are my fave skill. Emma Collister did a nice double arabian, but fell on her tsuk full on VT.
Both Collisters I think will be the Shonas of the future. Reliable but maybe slightly lacking the x-factor. Although they do really need to get a choreographer for those 2, you get the feeling they could be doing much nicer jobs on floor with better choreo.
So many girls tonight had the stop-start, deer-in-the-headlights choreo - a strange dazed look waiting for the next musical cue, seemingly just waving their arms around. Sophie Budack did a great` job with presentation on floor, a really cool routine. She also had a high and strong YFull.
If you guys have any questions about specific gymnasts or skills I will try and answer them from what I remember.
Oh, and in terms of the podium, there is simply no way they could fit a podium inside there. The crowd was pretty small, only 1 or 2 sections taken up. The announcer was a dud - didn't know how to pronounce any names at all. It was great to hear the WA crowd cheering for Lauren.
Oh, and it was surprising how many juniors still don't have all the CR. I know they don't have to have the dismount CR to qualify for nationals, so pretty much all of them dismounted BB with a layout of front tuck or in the case of bars, double pike.
Results went up by the time I got home at 9.30! So they have the technology. Great work.
Nade, are you surprised? You shouldn't be. When people were trying to think of ways to boost the Aussie standard, you were one of the people saying it was fine.
The announcer sucked big time. On a couple of occassions, the gymnst had been called on floor and was in her start pose. The announcer didn't notice and then when he did, looked at the judges to see if it was OK.
The poor kids were left waiting for ages in their start pose.
Additionally, he made no effort to get names right even with simple ones. He guessed. This was particularly evident when, during the medal presentation, he announced the team as Rachel Coll'IS' ter and Emma Collister. I guess he was hoping one pronounciation would be right,
Bring back Ade, at least he has the courtesy of checking how names were pronounced and he understands how a comp runs.
Was Ade not offered the announcers position? Or not available? As I understand it Perth does not have a dedicated announcer, Although Liz C often does the elite state championships announcing. The rest of the time it is a volunteer role allocated to the competing clubs. Is it different in other states? In that context, I'm sure the volunteers were doing the best they could. I did notice the Collister having 2 different pronounciations, but is it really that serious?
Ade wasn't available.
Announcing and public speaking isn't as easy as it looks. One gets better with practice.
To anon at 6.33:
Yes, I was surprised, and I don't think that your comment is fair. I am often critical of the standard of performance, I just don't subscribe to unproductive insults. Go the the Aussie gym board and see for yourself.
Look, it is not that these are bad gymnasts at all, they all have their strong points, but I don't think it is unreasonable to expect clean performances at nationals without falls, and nobody I can recall actually achieved that.
I was unable to attend this year given that Perth is so far away but i wonder were any of the Juniors performing difficult skills or was there difficulty low as well. You have to remember that at this time of the year if a gymnasts competes, say a full in on floor for example, she may well be in the middle of a cycle to have this move ready and Nationals may fall in the middle of this cycle - it could be a move that in 2 months is perfected.
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