Friday, October 8, 2010

Delhi 2010: Day 5 LIVE!

Tonight marks the last day of artistic competition at the Commonwealth Games. Australia has competitors in every apparatus final being contested tonight.

We'll see Tom aim for another gold in the vault final, Lauren in the beam final, Josh and Prashanth duking it out on parallel bars, Lauren on floor alongside 2006 silver medallist Ashleigh, and Luke and Sam rounding out the competition on high bar.


PREPARE: Review the Day 1 and Day 2 posts to get up to speed on skills you can expect.

Check out some great photos from the previous competition rounds by searching 'gymnastics' at Daylife.com


The apparatus start lists are available here.


EXPLORE: The Age website, Herald Sun website or official Delhi 2010 website.


WATCH: Live on Foxtel's Delhi Gold from 10:25pm AEDST
this evening with Liz Chetkovich and Garry Wilkinson commentating. You can also watch a delayed broadcast on Channel Ten, overseen by Stephanie Moorhouse and Dan Ryan.


Don't forget that a quite good live webstream is available at:

http://veetle.com/index.php/channel/view#4cab5ad8153a1


DISCUSS: Right here, with me, live, at your AGB. Just keep hittin' that refresh button. Alternatively, follow (my occasional) livetweets at twitter.com/ozgymblog.

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Foxtel gets us in the mood with a Josh Jefferis profile piece. "Gymnastics is fifty percent mental, fifty percent physical..."


10:25pm Let's get this party started!

Will we see more rugby headband action from Clinton Purnell tonight?

Tom and Aussie coaches spotted heartily applauding other competitors. Hooray humans. Hooray for sportsmanship.


VT Pichler: Competing 6th, right after crowd favourite Ashish Kumar.
VT1 Yurchenko double twist, stumbles sideways and falls right off the mat! Oh dear! 13.850
VT 2 Kasamatsu, small hop. 14.700
Chin up, Tom - you've got two golds already! Tom just gave a doleful "Sorry" to the camera!
Average 14.275, finishes in 8th place.


BB Mitchell: Competing second. Loz in the green, gold and black podium training leo. I am sooooo nervous for her! Chest roll mount. BHS flic layout two feet STUCK! Jumps great. Wolf turn a little messy but gets it around. Change leg half, back tuck. Front aerial, switch split front tuck. BHS flic double pike one hop backwards but very nice! Took out the ring jump? Peggy is happy, a job well done. 14.475, difficulty 6.3... her score is untouchable.

LAUREN MITCHELL IS OUR COMMONWEALTH BEAM CHAMPION! CONGRATULATIONS LAUREN!
This marks her 4th gold, tying her with the record for most golds won by an artistic gymnast at a Commonwealth Games.



PB Jefferis: Felga half, piked double back, Tippelt, Healy, double pike dismount with a small step forward. Bless Liz for naming the skills because I have no idea about p-bars! Big hugs from Sam, Prashanth and Reiss Beckford. Coaches very happy. 14.625, great score!


PB Sellathurai: Folwell pulled him in closer as they lined up before the judges, and applauded him as he was introduced. I am loving all this sportsmanship between the Aussies and the English, cricket rivalries be damned! 5.1 difficulty. Great form throughout, though nearly overarches on a handstand. Double pike dismount, slight step. 14.000 goes into third place. Joking with other competitors on the sidelines, biggest smiles we've seen him give all week.

Results are in... it's another Aussie gold!


JOSHUA JEFFERIS IS OUR COMMONWEALTH PARALLEL BARS CHAMPION!
CONGRATULATIONS JOSH!

AND PRASHANTH GETS THE BRONZE MEDAL!

Medal ceremony - Loz has a giggle as she gets her fourth gold medal. Spots someone in the crowd she knows. Oooh, a new coloured scarf - red and green! As the Canadian and Sinaporean gymnast stand beside on the top tier, they're actually standing in height order!

Josh totally chuffed as they call his name, gives a little chuckle. Prosh is genuinely happy for him, hearty handshakes all round. Milks the moment with some fist pumps. Waves to the Aussies in the crowd. Sings loud and proud. Luke Folwell has some matey words once photos are finished.


FX Mitchell: Fierce face in dance. Fumbles on the arabian to stag, struggles to stay in bounds (right on the mat edge). Piked full in a bit low but stays in. Wold turn, puts hand down. Change split. 2.5 to front lay, skids again. Ring jump, split full. Must be tired. Double pike, small hop. 13.925, the door opens for Ash.


FX Brennan: Also in the green and gold leo. Her first and only apparatus finals appearance. Will compete after Lauren, seemed to enjoy marching in beside her teammate and close friend. One hop back on the full in, might've been OOB. Double back, definitely goes OOB. Running front lay to front full, nice. Dramatic dance as always. Double pike with a small bounce. 13.425 into third place.

Peggy gets a happy snap of the girls. Gives a little "Well, you're done til next week!" sigh and smile.

LAUREN GETS THE SILVER, HER FIFTH MEDAL FOR THESE GAMES! ASHLEIGH BRENNAN THE BRONZE, HER SECOND CONSECUTIVE COMMONWEALTH FLOOR MEDAL!

Foxtel cut from the high bar kick-off to interview Lauren. She's fine with not managing that 5th gold; she was notified of drug testingwhile warming up floor so she was a bit frazzled. But she's happy with how her competition has gone.


HB: Wiwatowski: Weiler kip, elgrip giants. Stoop half to release. Kovacs. Falls on the pirouette sequence after it. Gets back up and finishes (skids back on layout doube double). Consolation from other competitors, he looks crushed. 12.725


HB Offord: Australia's last push for a gymnastics gold. Catches first release. Stoop to elgrip giants. Double layout full, just a small step back. Not super difficult (looking at the layout Kovacs by Beckford) but cleanly performed. Great sportsmanship on the sidelines, hugs his competitors. He's a proud Aussie - points out the coat of arms on his chest! 13.550

Sam just misses a medal, finished 4th. Luke an admirable 7th.

Foxtel interviews Sam and Luke. Luke acknowledges his error and looks forward to getting to rectify it in future. The team flies to Rotterdam in 8 hours time- 4:00 in the morning! Sam says the Games (especially the team win) were a positive experience they can build on for Worlds. Luke says "Thanks, Australia!" for all the support.

Medal ceremony -
Ash a big smile. Lauren a gleeful hug for her. Woman giving Lauren her scarf gets it a bit tangled! Imogen Cairns a gracious victor. Lauren and Ash step up beside her for photos in perfect unison!


And so endeth the artistic competition in Delhi. Thanks for coming on the journey with me, our gymnasts did a spectacular job! Stay tuned for further updates from rhythmic competition as it unfolds.

Ash is sad the Games are coming to an end but is glad for the experience. Lauren had a few nerves going into competition having been out of action for 10 months. They've mostly been going on a cycle of "Sleep, train, compete!" Lauren is grateful for the arena and podium experience offered by Commonwealth Games. Ash hasn't ruled out London 2012, "we'll see what happens!"

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is the stream working for anyone else? It says channel is temporarily unavailable for me :(

Anonymous said...

Poor Tom, If you add back on the 1.0 he lost for the fall. He would have been in 3rd!

Anonymous said...

Not quite. The vaults are averaged so only add 0.5 to see where he'ld be.

Anonymous said...

The vaults are average but he still would have lost a full point for that first vault. The penalty is still 1 point, its an average on 0.5 per vault but 1 overall.

Anonymous said...

Lauren balked on her switch ring and just did another switch leap. You can hear discuss it with Peggy after the routine. I really think she should remove the swtich ring leap. She enver releases her head enough to get it credited and it has a lot of deductions. Maybe she could try for a sheep jump instead. It's 0.1 less but I'm sure her E score will benefit.

Anonymous said...

What vaults did the Indian guy do?

Anonymous said...

We mustn't forget that Australian rhythmic gymnast Kasumi Takehashi won 5 gold medals at the 1994 Commonwealth Games and Alexandra Orlando of Canada (rhythmic gymnast) won 6 gold medals at the 2006 Comm Games.

Lauren equals the record for a female artistic gymnast and Andrei Kratsov who won 4 gold and a silver in 1998 KL.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for updating... i've given up on the Ten Coverage - Be waiting for someone to youtube things later

nswgymnast said...

congrats as well to prashanth, 3rd on pb!!! yiiieeww

Mez said...

If Luke wins high bar tonight, ALL OUR AUSSIE MAGS WILL BE TAKING HOME AN INDIVIDUAL GOLD!

Anonymous said...

Yeah I was thinking about that, wouldn't it be great.

Anonymous said...

Loz currently 2nd after Cairns, 14.2 to 13.95. Come on Ash!

Anonymous said...

Yay, silver and bronze, well done girls!

Anonymous said...

Yes well done girls. Great to see Ash pick up an individual medal. Lauren and Imogen Cairns win all individual titles.

Anonymous said...

Laren and family about to be on good morning dehli

Jayd said...

Can someone explain to me what happened when Lauren said she was "notified about drug-testing as she was warming up for floor"? Obviously there weren't any negative findings, or she would not have been allowed to compete (and certainly wouldn't have won a medal). I don't understand why a) she was notified while warming up for her last event (is this standard practice?) and b) why she was so affected if there were no problems.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jayd, the 'goons' as the girls often call them are often at events and select athletes for testing.

They often arrive with a list and these athletes are notified (usually via a coach) of the need to provide a sample.

To answer your questions:
Results of drug tests take some time so, even if a test for an athlete was positive, they probably wouldn't know until after they competed.

Secondly, the notification may have effected how Lauren felt. NOT because she was worried about the result in any way, just that anyone, let alone a teenage girl, feels self conscious and uncomfortable having someone watch them urinate.
The process is not as easy as sending them into a cubical with a container. The tester actually has to see the urine leaving the athlete's body meaning a very private function is scrutinised very closely. Not very pleasant, especially for women.

Boys don't seem to be quite as flustered by the process but this could be due to the easy at which they can provide a sample that meets the testing requirements and that they are often less modest of their private parts.

Anonymous said...

Plus if she was right in the middle of warming up, she probably didn't need to pee at that time! It wouldve taken quite a few sucks on the water bottle and a bit of time to actually get around to that! Awful timing though. I don't know why they couldn't have waited, cos its not like she would have had ANY opportunity to cover anything up until floor was done anyway. I get that they need to dot the i's and such, though.

Wonder what would have happened if you were called to drug test in between close event finals like this, and just couldn't manage to get things flowing? Would they hold you there no matter what, or given you a bit of pass until the next event was done?

Anonymous said...

You generally get followed like a hawk, to ensure you do nothing dodgy, and then you have to drink water until you produce! Drug testers have been known to wait up to 3 hours for athletes to need to urinate, and will hold up any media engagements until a sample is produced.

Anonymous said...

Lauren said in her interview that she had not yet been tested and had to go and do that after the comp. It may have distracted her during her routine though although I think it's more likely that she was just a bit tired. It's no doubt been a long week.

Anonymous said...

I've done a couple of drug tests before and they're not the most pleasant of experiences. Basically you get followed the whole time until you're ready to 'go.'
The first time it took me just under 3 hours to go to the toilet as I was informed straight after I had already been which was most annoying.
You have to pull your shirt up under your chin and your pants down to your knees. The drug tester then watches the urine leave your body - nice lol :)
I'm sure Lauren's done many of them before so I doubt it would have affected her performance.