Pacific Rim Videos!

SUPER BUSY time in international gymnastics right now!  The European Championships and Pacific Rim Championships are going on at the same time, and there has been some great stuff from both competitions.

Here’s a quick look at the all-around results of Pacific Rim (top 3 plus all Americans):

Men Senior All-Around

1.  Nathan Gafuik, CAN            86.25

2.  Sam Offord, AUS                 85.85

3.  Yuguo Huang, CHN            85.55

4.  Chris Cameron, USA            85.20

7. Danell Leyva, USA                 83.75

10. Steven Legendre, USA         82.90

Men Junior All-Around

1.  John Orozco, USA              86.45

2.  CJ Maestas, USA                  84.30

3.  Shixiong Zhou, CHN           84.25

6.  Dylan Akers, USA                 82.15

Women Senior All-Around

1.  Rebecca Bross, USA            59.15

2.  Alexandra Raisman, USA     58.25

3.  Ksenia Afanasyeva, RU        57.45

Women Junior All-Around

1.  Jordyn Wieber, USA             59.55

2.  Kyla Ross, USA                     58.00

Sabrina Vega, USA                     56.60

3.  Anna Rodionova, RUS           53.45

Here are the best videos I’ve found of the meet (all women’s so far):

Jordyn Wieber Floor 2010 Pacific Rim

Jordyn Wieber Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

Jordyn Wieber Beam 2010 Pacific Rim

Jordyn Wieber Vault (after Huang Qiushuang Beam) 2010 Pacific Rim

WOW.  What an unbelievable return to competition…this girl is unstoppable.  This performance would have won the 2009 world all-around championships (not just from her score, but also from actually watching her routines).  Just to give you a reference, Jordyn’s total D-score at this meet was a 23.4, compared with Bridget Sloan’s total D-score of 23.0 at the world championships…and that is WITHOUT the additional 0.7 that Jordyn would receive by doing her Amanar on vault (which she could have made here).  Her performance here absolutely blew me away…my guess is this would be good enough to win the all-around at this year’s worlds as well, although she of course won’t be eligible since she turns 15 this July.  At least she’ll be eligible at next year’s worlds and in London…the real challenge will be whether she can stay healthy that long.  Her floor routine here IS much better and more mature than what she competed last year, and it also looks like she’s grown a little taller and appears more elgant on both bars and beam.  She’s added a 1 ½ to triple full on floor instead of her 1 ½ to front full), and she undoubtedly has one of the best 2 ½ front layouts in the world.  I would love to see her add a double-double on floor in the next year, and then dismount with the full-in – that would be unmatched.  Her beam here was absolutely stunning – one of the best standing fulls probably ever done.  And her bars was much improved over last year as well – I love the Weiler kip pirouette – such a unique skill and she did it extremely well.  Even though bars is her weakest event, she had excellent basics and form and swings them very well – this routine scored a very strong 14.8 (5.9 D-score).  I don’t know, I think Wieber is pretty much neck-and-neck with Viktoria Komova for the honor of #1 gymnast in the world right now.

Rebecca Bross Floor 2010 Pacific Rim

Rebecca Bross Beam 2010 Pacific Rim

Rebecca Bross Vault 2010 Pacific Rim

Pretty strong floor routine for Bross…still not a huge fan of this choreography and I’d like to see another “big” pass, but she does have a very strong 6.1 D-score and scored a solid 14.6 here.  Her beam was looking very strong too until that fall…she has a tendency to rush a little bit and I definitely think she did on that front tuck.  Perhaps the scoring is just a tad more lenient here than at some other international competitions we’ve been seeing recently (including the Europeans going on right now), because she still received an 8.05 in execution here.  They’re actually giving some 9’s in the execution category at this meet (even MID-9’s on a couple vaults…imagine that!), so perhaps the rest of the world should take note.  Had it not been for her fall, Bross WOULD have outscored Wieber, although with the fall she scored 0.4 lower.  I’d still say Wieber impressed me more, as I think she has a cleaner and “lighter” look than Bross does.

Alexandra Raisman Floor 2010 Pacific Rim

Alexandra Raisman Beam 2010 Pacific Rim

Raisman is blowing me away as well.  She is absolutely earning herself a spot on the world team this year with several FANTASTIC international all-around performances in a row.  Having said that, I STILL dislike the fact that she is doing such easy tumbling for a gymnast as powerful as she is (a DOUBLE TUCK??  COME ON!) I hate the over-rotated triple full, and just the overall downhill feel of the routine…it starts off awesome, and then turns into almost a Level 10 routine very quickly.  I really hope we’ll see a couple of new passes from her this summer.  On the other hand, her BEAM is just one of the most solid I’ve ever seen.  She has shown herself to be one of the calmest and most dependable beam workers in the U.S., although the judges still must be hitting her for the lack of flexibility that everyone talks about (although it just doesn’t seem that noticeable to me).  She only scored an 8.8 E-score, but still a strong 14.8 overall.  She did win vault with a HUGE 15.35 (9.55 E-score!).  I think especially with Kayla Williams’s current training situation, Aly’s chances as AT least a floor and vault specialist at this year’s worlds are looking very good right now.

Ksenia Afanasyeva Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

She’s finally back!!! Her third place all-around finish here will do WONDERS for her chances of being a part of the Russian team this year, especially as Ekaterina Kurbatova has been struggling a great deal at the European Championships.  Ksenia scored 14’s across the board at this meet (14.0-14.55), which is VERY strong in today’s code of points.  We’ve seen her do a little more difficulty on bars than she did here, but it’s the first hit routine I’ve seen her do in a long time, as she struggled on that dismount all last year.  I think she should take that toe-on full out and put it somewhere else, as even this landing is a bit dangerous because of the short twist.  But so good to see her getting back on track…her stock just went WAY UP among the Russian federation.

Bridget Sloan Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

SHE FINALLY CONNECTED SOMETHING OUT OF HER RELEASE!!! I’ve been waiting for her to do that for a long time!  That’s the first time we’ve ever seen her do a Pak salto, and it fits perfectly out of her “Church” release.  The only problem is I STILL don’t like that sequence she is doing on the low bar…now she is making that forward endo a TOE-ON???  That’s way too Kristen Maloney-esque and not an attractive skill at all…especially considering she’s already putting her feet on the bar FOUR other times in the routine.  My suggestion:  Take out those two C-skills on the low-bar and add back in a stalder full to Tcatchev (two connected D-skills) at the beginning, before the Church.  She used to do that combo and it would look way better than that mess she keeps trying to do on the low bar…not to mention give her more points.  My suggested routine would have a D-score of 6.5 – VERY GOOD!  The toe-on full to double layout was actually kind of nice…I was never a big fan of her double layout full so keeping this is okay with me!

Huang Qiushuang Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

Wu Liufang Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

Two of the contenders for the Chinese world team this year, although I like Huang much better.  I LOVED her full spin to immediate elgrip endo – awesome!  She placed 2nd on bars here with a 15.1 – just behind Bross’s 15.15.  If you saw her routine on beam above, however, you’ll know she just committed a “cardinal sin” in gymnastics…falling THREE TIMES in one routine!  That definitely doesn’t help her chances…she’s been inconsistent enough as it is.  Wu Liufang isn’t nearly the all-arounder that Huang is, but she has probably been a little more consistent, especially on beam, where she has won several international competitions now (she won here with a 14.85).  Her bars has strong difficulty (6.6 D-score), but certainly not as nice to watch as Huang’s.  Wu scored a 14.5 on bars here.

Larissa Miller Bars 2010 Pacific Rim

I included this one primarily because of the awesome jam she did!  That was right in handstand, and in fact her whole routine was right on – all the handstands were very nice.  She only had a 5.7 D-score and a 14.2 final score, but I thought it was worth watching!

More videos to come…the men’s event finals have already taken place so I’m hoping some videos will pop up of them as well!