Alas, all good things must come to and end!
The train's leaving the station, folks. Empty your cigars and stub out your brandy glasses.
Check out some of Nade's gorgeous photos from Friday night here (make you sure ask before posting elsewhere).
Read an Age preview article here. Don't forget to watch 9's Wide World of Sport from 10 this morning for a Phil Rizzo appearance.
And finally, happy birthday to Georgia and Amelia's MLC teammate Alex Byers-Armstrong!
Sunday, May 2, 2010
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26 comments:
Emily wins silver on vault.
Contragulations to Emily, silver on value and Amelia, equal bronze on floor.
It was mentioned that it is Alex Byers-Armstrong's birthday today. It is also Dasha's, shes 20.
I meant vault not value, focused on too many assignments.
Emily was solid this week but looking at her routines live she needs to really improve on her leaps and flexibility. She was scoring for a hit routine what others were scoring with falls, which is not good.
I agree,she did an amazing job but I can't see her getting much higher without a big improvement in her execution. A bit dissapointed in Georgia W , did'nt think much of her routines.
See, I think Georgia W has potential to score big once she has some experience and more difficulty. She has flex, great power, and lots of amplitude. They are physical qualities that make a great gymnast.
However I feel like Emily is maxed out because she is always going to cop artistry/amplitude/flex deductions. Her handstands were all very laboured, and her gymnastics was quite heavy. I think if she makes big teams in future, it will be as the lead-off athlete only.
I think Emma Collister is going to have similar issues. She is now being overtaken by cleaner athletes. She hit her routines but did not score higher than low 13s all week, and her artistry was sorely lacking.
I just hope the selectors consider how poorly Emily has scored at international meets (here and Paris) compared with domestic meets. She is not going to get away with such obvious execution problems at worlds, and this meet showed it.
Hey
I dont Understand why Emily didnt score higher to be honest.
i think she ll defently be selected in future teams her her vault is the best we currently have in Australia. As for Georgia Wheeler i think she has so much potential yet some real technical faults to fix up. For example her tumbles on floor are often short or out of bounds. Thats because her take offs are very slow from flip, big leans and head out. i also think her bars dismounts needs to be fixed. But good luck to these ladies. I think they could be great
Have you seen Emily's sissone on beam? Compare it to the Russians and I think it is pretty obvious why she didn't score any higher.
I think Emily did a great job but she's being hammered for her execution, even on her DTY. I think she'll still make Aussie teams because she is so reliable and we need her on vault but unfortunately she just doesn't have the body type that scores highly for execution.
I am proud of the girls for their performances - Aussie were mostly consistent this week, at least not many falls.
However I do agree the scores are concerning - basically we saw that they just aren't scoring high enough with hit routines. If we put up hit routines in the low 13s at worlds we will be in big trouble, and right now I'd say we aren't favorites for team gold at Commonwealths. Canada was a much better team here.
Praying that Shona/Georgia/Emma D/Ashleigh/Lauren will be ready to go because Wheeler and Little simply aren't good enough for the international stage yet. Their dance elements and choreography were really weak and time needs to be devoted to cleaning up their routines and not losing tenths on errors like incorrect leg position on leaps.
Georgia Wheeler has good flexibility? Definitely not that I can see...
About the body type thing - I totally disagree. It is just laziness, poor conditioning, and poor skill selection. Stockier gymnasts can still point their toes and straighten their legs. Shawn Johnson managed to find a way around it, so can Emily.
Yes I don't think Wheeler can do a switch ring, she is still only doing switch leap in her floor. She is not very flexible, although she has sufficient flexibility to avoid it becoming a tenth-zapper.
Georgia W does not seem to be a very graceful gymnast, just very strong.
About Emily, this is a quote from Peggy in an article about the competition:
"So it's really good for her psyche and for me to know I can put her up and she's going to hit, maybe not make finals or win a medal, but she's going to hit for us as a team."
i.e she ain't a star but she's pretty solid for the team comp.
anon 7:56
"Canada was a much better team here." last time i checked australia beat them!
Canada's best junior was injured at the last minute and didn't compete and Rogers was injured during the meet. I don't know if you saw the meet live, but Canada's juniors were scoring as high as mid 14s, whereas ours were lucky to break about 13.3. I'm sorry, but they were a team with far greater scoring potential than us, and were unlucky to lose Rogers and have Pegg suffer a fall or two. Many Canadians scored in a similar range to our girls with falls! It might be good to win bronze, but it's worrying that we were so close to Canada with only 2 falls whereas their girls had several plus the injury issues.
But Australia has injury issues too.. otherwise Bonora, Morgan, Dennis and Mitchell would have been on the team. Its not fair to say that if Canada fielded their best team and didn't count falls they would have beat us. Because if we fielded our BEST that probably isn't the case.
And the injury to Rogers was sustained IN the competition after two full rotations for Canada after she'd already fallen once on beam- I wouldn't see that she would have helped the team all that much
well canada couldn't perform when it counted. you can't say they would have beaten the aussies. they didn't perform when the time was right. the aussies stepped up, kept their cool and beat them. there are no what ifs or second chances.
I don't think it's wise to count on being able to rely on the seniors from 2008, even though they may be still trying to train (ignoring injury issues), how many olympians actually return to a second olympics particulalry those that were already 17/18 in 2008 - they'll be 21/22 in 2012 and have many other things in their life by then.
Anonymous said...
"About the body type thing - I totally disagree. It is just laziness, poor conditioning, and poor skill selection. Stockier gymnasts can still point their toes and straighten their legs. Shawn Johnson managed to find a way around it, so can Emily.
May 2, 2010 8:00 PM "
Yup because these girls are lazy.... Not sure why the bashing is going on, it's Emily's second international comp as a senior. Give the girl time and credit for a solid performance.
I really really hope that none of the girls read this blog because it would be very demeaning to teenage girls who put their heart and soul into this sport.
these girls do read this blog...
Sorry, I should have expressed myself better. I don't mean to say that Emily is lazy because that's clearly ridiculous when she is working 30+ hours a week.
What I am talking about is laziness on the coaches part - unwillingness to spend the necessary time on flex/basics/conditioning in favour of skill learning, and putting routines out on the floor with tons of inbuilt execution deductions.
I think Emily has adjusted pretty well to her growth spurt overall - a DTY is pretty impressive.
But on beam her skills lack amplitude and her bars are very laboured and slow. It seems they haven't been including enough conditioning in training to get her to a higher strength to weight ratio, and it shows in the way she performs her skills. When an elite can't do a snappy and crisp cast handstand because of poor conditioning, it should be addressed.
Yes I suppose the credentials of Martine and Nicholi (who have been Emily's coaches for many years) are in question. After all, they've done such a terrible job with Dasha and Lauren. It is her first year as a senior for gods sake! Perhaps they have a plan to address these issues.
Perhaps the coaches were developing the skills she had at the comp and will spend the rest of the year refining them before Comms and World. I think Little was stellar- the only Aussie to make ALL finals, the highest placing Aussie someone who went 8 for 8 basically. You need someone like that on a team, you need that consistancy. And we definitely need the Y-double because the Aussie's vaults are what's letting them down. Emily Little is a necessity to the Aussie team this year
I think Emily did everything that can be expected of her at PacRim. Was Australia's highest placed gymnast in AA and a silver on vault. Like it has been said before she is a first year senior and there should be improvement in her. I think she will be in major teamsn later in the year. She's a good vaulter and appears to be solid everything else.
Australia does have some capable vaulters when they are fit. Lauren and Shona are capable of DTYs, Emma D too Dasha if she returns.
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