Tag Archives: Liu Tingting

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – July 22, 2016

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A. Afan Farewell

In spite of Russia’s desperate attempts to make Afanasyeva happen, this week Ksenia announced, “I’m not going to happen.” She explained that her kidneys are falling off and that she’s dying in the hospital and has no way to make it to Rio, forcing Valentina to go, “SIGH, FINE” and settle on Tutkhalyan once and for all.

Simultaneously, a bunch of chatter went around (because of Valentina) that Afan had “retired,” though it remains to be seen what level of Russian retirement this is. We don’t know whether she’s at “actually retired,” “Komova retired” (injured), or “Nabieva retired” (categorically not retired). Obviously, we’re all hoping that she’s Nabieva retired. We need those two clanking around Russian Cup for decades to come.

If the Russian team is allowed to be a team, it is now officially Melnikova, Mustafina, Paseka, Spiridonova, and Tutkhalyan, which is still quite a medal-looking squad. Floor will probably be a nightmarish hellscape, but the rest of the events look relatively viable. The fourth beam and floor routines in qualification should be a unique adventure.

This also means that Valentina officially went 2-for-4 on her 2015 Olympic team announcement of Mustafina, Komova, Afanasyeva, and Paseka. Honestly, it’s better than I thought she would do.

Jekyll and Shelgunova will replace Afansyeva as the alternate, so that would either be fine or disastrous, depending on the day.

B. Peyton Ernst

Interestingly, Florida has released Peyton Ernst. HMMMMMMM.

Jenny Rowland gave Ernst the option of either staying at Florida and doing a medical retirement or taking her beam elsewhere. The fact that Ernst is talking to other schools tells me that she’s not completely broken into shards in spite of her million shoulder injuries and still has some gymnastics in her (perhaps some more hands-free beam routines or something?) but that Florida’s not willing to bet on her to recover enough to be a major or multi-event contributor in the future. Florida has enough elites pounding down the doors to get in there that keeping a broken, perpetually injured elite on scholarship would seem like a waste of one of the 12 spots. Continue reading Things Are Happening – July 22, 2016 →

Elite Things

The China Five

China

And the award for least controversial selection process of 2016 goes to China.

…Right? Or…wrong?

As the Chinese Championships draw to a close, it would seem to be way too clear who the five members of the Olympic team should be (hard as Wang Yan may try to bequeath her spot to someone…anyone else), a devastating blow to those of us whose second-favorite sport is playing around with team permutations.

But then China comes through in the clutch! Yesss!

[I’m amending this post to reflect the chatter coming through after nationals that China’s nominative Rio group is Shang, Fan, Mao, Wang, and LIU TINGTING, with Tan Jiaxin as an alternate.]

In my best impression of Tim and Elfi standing in front of a piece of black construction paper and flinging people’s magnet-names anywhere, here’s how I saw the team setting up after nationals.

Because China’s top gymnasts are all (essentially) specialists, the team is somewhat handcuffed as to which gymnasts can be chosen. Shang Chunsong is just SO much better than everyone else and an absolute lock, and Fan Yilin continues to be the best bars worker and a top-3 beam worker, two scores that are far too valuable to leave behind. It’s a testament to Fan’s lock status that she can fall on bars in TF and fall on beam in EF and still remain largely a sure thing because…who is taking that spot from her? Her bars routine can score a legitimate half-point better than the second-best Chinese bars worker, and one fall on beam is basically peak consistency in this group.

VAULT BARS BEAM FLOOR
Shang Shang Shang
Fan Fan

Already, even with just two people set, the selection gets extremely tight because neither Shang nor Fan can vault in TF, meaning that all three other team members must have a usable DTY or more. Anyone else without a reliable 14.8 vault is already eliminated from the process. This removes early-quad gem Huang Huidan (“She looks like JULLLLIA, who is ELEEEEVVVVVVEN”) from consideration in spite of her returning with a pretty TF-worthy bars routine. Because of Huang’s lack of vault, she can’t be on the same team as both Shang and Fan, and since she’s the least necessary of the three, she’s out. Continue reading The China Five →

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – May 13, 2016

3 Comments

vurkrBO1

1. Liu Tingting is a thing

Charitably, in our time of devastating gymnastics need with only piddling little world cup events to keep us warm, the Chinese Nationals have arrived to save the day. Get ready to have sudden and arbitrary opinions about the Chinese gymnasts again.

For reference, all the cool kids are super into Liu Tingting right now, in case you want to seem popular. She’s like the snap-bracelets-in-1989 of Chinese gymnastics. Everyone’s wearing at least three of her. The even cooler kids were really into Luo Huan for a second, but her existence hasn’t gone great in the last few competitions, so she’s like SO a month again. Off the face of the earth! Now they’ve moved on to Lu Yufei and Zhu Xiaofang.

But, in real results that don’t have anything to do with coolness rankings, Shang Chunsong won both the TF and the AA final, obvi. She remains China’s best and sole medal-competitive AAer. I mostly hesitate to have any expectations for Shang in the AA because her vault continues to be something that wouldn’t make the lineup of a top-30 NCAA team, but with Iordache undergoing an Edward Scissorhands amount of hand surgeries (see below), the Olympic AA field is starting to look quite shallow and weak. I still expect a Russian to pull it together somehow for bronze, but if it comes down to a fight with Steingruber, Black, Downie, etc, then Shang can win AA bronze in Rio.

In more noteworthy developments, Mao Yi is a real thing now. She made the Worlds team last year, but she was sort of in the “you’re also here” part of the team with Chen Siyi, at least in my mind. The DTY she’s showing right now, however, has far superior distance and chest position to the other options, who are still a little two-inches-from-the-table/show-me-on-the-doll-where-the-mat-touched-you, just like at 2015 worlds. Even more significantly, Mao proved here that her floor is not just usable but necessary in a TF scenario.

It’s appropriate to lose yourself in that quad spin, and while routines that rely on spins for difficulty make me more than nervous, it’s not just about the spin because of the tumbling combos, and China desperately needs this “arm wave and an uncomfortable smile” of a routine.

I’m all for the 3.5+front pike trend. It’s much less objectionable than the 3/1+front tucks, which are also still here in force and are among the reasons China gets stuck down in the 8.0-8.3 execution range instead of 8.5-8.7, with the under-rotating and the coming in horizontally. I’m still not sold on the idea that the CV makes those passes worth it since they’re such deduction traps, but the connections do guard against downgraded twists.

Another future Olympian, power specialist Wang Yan, continues to be not Cheng Fei at all, disappointing everyone. WHY AREN’T YOU CHENG FEI??? Continue reading Things Are Happening – May 13, 2016 →