It took three competitions for the Russian women, but finally we saw them crack a smile.
The Uneven Bars final promised to be exciting and it was. Unfortunately Douglas hit her feet on the low bar and ended up completely out of the medals.
Koko Tsurumi also had a little struggle in her combination of pirouettes on one harm, but I was very proud to see her pull it back and finish the routine big with a beautiful double layout dismount. She needed that for herself. She was out of line on two pirouettes: before her Tkachev and the combination in the end of her routine, but kept with it and did a really nice job.
I was worried about Komova, but she shut me up big time, she came strong, determined to hit and aggressive, and she got what she wanted, hopefully she will remember that tomorrow in the other finals.
I was upset that Dufournet sort of fell apart here. She really has potential, but she had a lot of problems in this routine falling on her first release and then hitting her feet in the low bar in the reverse grip and losing her momentum completely. For the sake of safety after the fall she did only a Gienger instead of the Def, probably a good call. She can be great and I hope she does not get discouraged by this. I was concerned as she was heavily tapped: ankles, knee and calves... I hope she is OK!
I was not happy about the score the judges gave Asuka Teramoto, yes she had a couple of missed handstands, but I thought 7.9 E was very low.
The judges have been killing the Chinese with deductions too and today was no different. However Huang finally came to play and delivered a very nice routine. She keep her handstands strong and straight and even fought in the end for the stick. She has a real problem with her transition from low to high but I still feel the judges are being very harsh. She had a really clean routine with her pirouettes much tighter than I had seen in prelims, she had good body tension and caught her picked Jaeger at full stretch. Yes she has bent arms in the kips, but is that really that disastrous? I don't know what the code has to say about this, but it seems to me the deduction must be quite substantial for a routine like Huang's to be scoring 8.133 E. Even Komova thought she could challenge her, you could see her doubt about whether she was going to stay on top while she clapped after Huang hit her routine, but it as only a 14.833. It nevertheless got her the bronze. (On a side note, somebody needs to tell the Chinese these neon colored leos make their gymnasts look like contestants on the Work of Art 2 on crack! It is really bad! And Huang did the favor of wearing this calamity twice!)
The surprise of the night was definitely Nabieva. She looked very defeated in the vault finals, but here she had a determined look, a little pissed off even and it she seemed to channel that anger very well. This was the best routine I saw her do at these championships, it was clean, she kept her handstands in control and her back strong and straight. Her dismount is a little messy, but she kept the problems to a minimum and increased her SV from qualification from 6.4 to 6.6... and it paid off! She hit an extra connection in the low bar from her full pirouette straight into the Khorkina transition which gave her the extra SV and the silver! She was elated when the score came up and so was Komova.
Weiber gave a solid routine, I mean she is solid which is good. I am by no means a Weiber hater, I think she is quite fabulous on vault and floor, if she could only straighten her knees and point her toes just a tad more on beam I would love her there too, but on bars I am just not a fan. I don't even think that she is not a good bar worker, this routine is not working for her really. It looks muscled and heavy, and makes it look like the girl has no swing at all, which I don't actually think is a fact. On the words of her coach: we need to fire her bar coach.(Geddert, stop spending time writing stuff you shouldn't in your blog and go get this girl a decent bar routine!)
I am not a huge fan of vault in general so just a shout out to World champion McKayla Maroney: there wasn't much doubt in my mind you were going to take this one home girlie, good job!
Oksana Chusovitina: longevity in the sport is something few achieve and you are just awesome, kudos! and
Phan Thi Ha Thanh of Vietnam, you were just fantastic. She came in calm with clean vaults and even increased her overall difficulty by throwing a DTY instead of the 1.5. This is a great victory for Vietnam and her composure was something else. Also, aside from the nude center and the strange collar, her leo was quite interesting and I liked it a lot.
Also a note on Jade Barbosa, she had a awkward landing on her second vault and rolled her ankle, hope she feels better because she has had injuries enough for about five lifetimes and needs no more!
Tomorrow warm up for Floor and Beam finals.
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