Wednesday, October 12, 2011

2011 Worlds: WAG TF Post-Mortem

I get a reprieve from liveblogging tonight as Australia laments not making the men's team final.

Last night was a bumpy one, not least for those actually competing! I have to admit I feel a little deflated but in every team final somebody has to come last. On this occasion it was Australia. The only way is, of course, up.


GA has an update with photos here. An extended gallery is here.

The Couch Gymnast's take on the night is here. A bizarrely-titled feature on Em Little is here and you can read some of Peggy Liddick's hopes now the dust has settled here, or here.

'It was not a lack of effort from the girls.

'We went into this and we said, listen, the fact that we are in the teams final, we are going to celebrate it and we're just going to go out and do what we can do'.

'We're still going to the Olympics and there's nothing can change that.'



If you're interested in non-watermarked press photos, head to Daylife.com and type in "australia gymnastics" or the name of the gymnast you're interested in seeing.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow....she thinks we can get bronze?

im my view the only way that would happen is 2 amanars and 1 dty, three bars d-scores over 6.3, 3 beam scores of 6.4+ and three floor scores 6.0+. Not really attainable going by what we saw here.

Lauren still has good potential for upgrades on every event though.

VT, amanar.
UB, inside stalders
BB, double arabian dm
FX, whip whip thru to full-in a la ponor and 2.5 front layout full

Anonymous said...

Do you have an inside perspective of what the girls are working on to upgrade their routines?

Nik said...

Weird how one article calls it a 'diasspointing world championships' when they QUALIFIED TO THE OLYMPICS! That wasn't even a given! Good on them, I'm not disapointed at all :)

Anonymous said...

the worst thing to do now would be to push laurens difficulty up even more when she cat CONSISTENTLY compete the skills she has CLEANLY

AND she has ankle issues.

i think work with what you have & preserve the ankles!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Anon 906. Enough with the injuries, give the girls bodies as much of a break (pun) as possible before the Olympics!

Anonymous said...

I noticed in the above photo all of the girls have strapping on their ankles except one....maybe one other gymnast does not - she perhaps has some ballet shoes on?? (not sure)

I guess this would be representative of most teams though at the level they are training at.

The only explanation I can think of for those leos is that Peggy (or whoever) wanted to attract everyones attention - whether the attention was good or bad!!!

Anonymous said...

I agree with the poster above: this Worlds was ALL about getting to the Olympics and we were probably lucky to do it against such strong competition. I am about as FAR from disappointed as you can be!

Anonymous said...

How can you say 'these worlds were ALL about qualifying to the Olympics'.

This the World Championships. Right here and right now! Not some minor meet that only served to get us to the next meet.

If we do badly at the 2012 Olympics, are we just going to say 'oh well London was just getting us ready for 2016, when we're really going to turn up the heat!'

It's actually OKAY to be disappointed. It's NOT THE WORST thing in the world to point out we need upgrades. It's FINE to be bummed out about Lauren not making finals or the girls having a few falls in the team comp. No doubt they weren't happy about them either!

This doesn't make me, or anyone else a pessimistic dragon. It's just being realistic. It's sport after all, and I don't know any elite athlete who enters a competition just hoping for 8th spot. They might be 'satisifed' with 8th, but they're all hoping for more, and so they should - they train their entire lives for these small windows of opportunity to be in the spotlight.

So while some may find it offensive that I'm not completely over the moon with our results, I'm just as offended by those who seem to think the World Champs is JUST a qualifying meet. I'm sure the girls don't view the most important meet of the year in such simple terms. Some of these ladies may not make the Olympic team after all, and this will have been the pinnacle of their career.

And a great pinnacle that is, they represented their country in the most difficult and amazing sport on the planet.

Rant over :) Hahaha...

Anonymous said...

Well said ana at 9.48am.

I couldn't agree more!

Mez said...

No, 9:48. Don't feel ashamed. You made some fair and valid points that you elaborated on with reason. Well put.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Mez :)