Is THIS He Kexin’s best bar routine ever???

We already took a look at the incredible beam finals lineup at the recent Chinese Nationals in Xiantao, so now I wanted to show you some of the other highlights from the competition, which was a great preview of their upcoming world selection process.

First let’s take a look at my new favorite Chinese gymnast, and one who I think be a big surprise to many around the world – possibly as soon as this year’s world championships:

I don’t care about the fall…this girl is a STAR. It’s funny how you wouldn’t picture a top Chinese gymnast performing to “Pirates of the Caribbean,” but somehow she makes it work! Did you notice her legs were perfectly together on the piked full-in? We don’t see that too often.

I could definitely see her learning a 2 ½ in the near future. She actually reminds me quite a bit of Cheng Fei in the way she runs, vaults, and tumbles. Her vaulting ability is going to be HUGE for her chances in both the all-around and in making the Chinese team over the next few years.

She threw the double layout full! I love seeing that because so many of the Chinese gymnasts do a jam-packed routine but then run out of gas on the dismount a bit, or manage a nice double layout at best. Not only does she have all the stuff throughout the routine (perhaps another release move would be even better), but she generates speed and power into a huge dismount at the end…awesome.

I HAVE to go ahead and throw this in there, because this just simply blows me away every time:

UNREAL!!! I know we’ve been watching this girl for well over a year now, but I swear every routine she does is better than the last. I’ve said this about her many times before, but now I think THIS is the best bar routine she’s ever done! In fact, if she had not taken that step forward on the dismount, I would be very confident in saying that was the best bar routine ever done in the history of gymnastics. Sorry to all you Nastia fans out there (and I’m one of them), but this is truly in a league of its own.

Olympic all-around bronze medalist Yang Yilin also made a return to competition after being out with injuries, so let’s take a look at how she’s doing:

Great to see her back! That’s a fantastic sign for her that she’s doing a nice Yurchenko double full after being out of competition for so long. It will be interesting to see whether she ends up at worlds this year…my guess would be as an all-arounder or possibly a bars specialist, although she’s still in the process of coming back on that event:

Not too bad though! Obviously this isn’t full difficulty for her, but it sure doesn’t look like she’s going to have much of a problem returning to top form. Hopefully she’ll add back in her other turning skills, Tcatchev, and double layout over the next couple of months.

Pretty much the same ole’ Jiang. It looks like she’s proving the problems she had on bars at their last nationals in May were just a fluke, and she’ll be more than ready to go after the world all-around title this year. She’s probably competed more than just about any other top athlete in the world over the past year, so I would expect her confidence will probably be at an all-time high.

And here’s a couple of new faces for you:

Well it may not be one of the very best Chinese bar routines, but I don’t think I can recall another Chinese girl doing inside stalders…can any of you? We tend to see those more from the Russians and Ukrainians, along with a couple of Americans of course, so it’s nice to see a different style from a Chinese gymnast. Nice cover on the low bar too!

What a huge Tcatchev!  And that Yaeger was WAY out on her fingertips – I love it.  And another skill we never see from the Chinese – a Shaposhnikova! Again, that’s a skill they just never seem to do for some reason, so it’s nice to see them branching out a bit! Now if they could just show us some release moves other than a Yaeger and a Tcatchev…perhaps a Gienger for a change?

She did win with this routine, although I’ve still seen her do better than this. That was a beautiful 2 ½ to front layout (sometimes she does a front full there). I suppose she has a chance to make the world team this year, but I’d be more inclined to expect her as an alternate, if anything. Her chances will partly depend upon the health and readiness of Cheng Fei and Yang Yilin.

Can the U.S. girls hang with the Chinese?  Stay tuned for a preview of this week’s U.S. National Championships from Dallas!