Guadalajara: thank God for some more gymnastics

After a controversial, and at times delightfully surprising World Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo, Japan the gymnastics' communities eyes turn to Guadalajara, Mexico.
Like the Asian Games, the Commonwealth, European and the Pacific Rim Championships, the Pan American Games brings some of the world's best gymnasts together for some fierce competition.
The Pan Ams have brought to the fore some great names of the sport and anticipated some big wins: Shawn Johnson is one of them. And she will be back for more.
As a warm up for that, let's have a look at who to expect at these Pan Ams.

1. The USA powerhouse:

The Americans have dominated this competition for a while and this time around will not be different. Martha Karolyi's team is coming with some heavy hitters:

Two World All-Around Champions (and 2008 Olympians). It is really a luxury of the US, and the US only, that their B team has this kind of gymnastics.

Shawn Johnson needs to prove herself here and I think this is the perfect stage. Her lack of difficulty will not affect her ability to win in this competition yet it is the opportunity to show Martha (and everyone that has doubted her) that she has the gymnastics and above all, the mental toughness. In my opinion Shawn needs to go full out. Being a strong all-arounder is really important for her and her chances of being in the Olympics depend on that.

She needs to hit her handstands on bar, have no wobbles on beam, and a big and beautiful vault. Doing floor would really make a strong case. She needs to make those judges believe it. At Visas her vault looked like it could take another 0.5 twist if she pushed it and rumors are she has a full twisting double layout on floor. I think she needs to put it all out there... and a big smile. This competition could be her ticket to Pacific Rims and from there to the Olympics. One thing however is paramount, she can not take any risks... upgrading could be really great, but slow and steady wins the race, she do well to remember that. If Shawn is going to do the all around is up in the air, but it will be great for the fans if she does.


Bridget Sloan: I have never been a huge fan of Bridget's gymnastics, I honestly don't like her vibe, she looks like she cannot be bothered, and that bothers me. Nevertheless she is a great gymnasts and I believe she can come back from these series of injuries, but she is going to need something all know she is not a fan of: big time training.

The last time that we saw her: Visa and Worlds 2010 things got tricky. She looked injured and not in top form and kind of frustrated at herself. Bars could be great for her and she needs to use it. She also needs to do the all around and deliver because these girls are running out of chances to prove themselves.

Bridgette Caquatto: Ohhhh Brigie...
Caquatto really concerns me, yes the Visas was very much of a splat fest, but Bridget did not give us anything to work with and her position in this B team proves Martha does not trust her... she needs to change that! She has some great gymnastics, and if this bar routine pays out for once she can show Martha the team needs her and put herself in a great position for next year. I believe she will one day make a hell of a Gator, but I hope she can get some international experience and fulfill some elite dreams first so she does not do like her sister and keep coming back for more (and overworking herself to injuries!)

I love Bridget, but...
Dear Wu Juani, what is up with this choreography? I don't know if you choreographed it per se or if Bridget is incapable of performing it, but someone needs to be held responsible, and I blame you... If Brestyan can get Raisman to perform something that resembles choreo, Bridget has to do better than this.
I am hoping Caquatto is going to go in and hit big because this is a huge opportunity for her to prove herself. Go Bridgette!!!

It is a shame we will not get to see Chellsie Memmel at the Pan Ams, she is fabulous and her come backs are legendary. I wish her a speedy recovery...

Grace McLaughlin will replace Memmel, she, like most of her team mates at WOGA, is great at bars. Liukin knows how to teach them to swing. I have seen Grace perform live a couple of times and I like her style. If she goes in and hits big routines for the US, we might even see Liukin a little happier. He is a great coach, but he tends to get pissed off and pout a lot when things don't go his way, and we all know this season things have not gone his way. The frustration he shows toward his girls when they do not hit is palpable and upsets me at times, I like coaches of the more encouraging type, however, he is one of the best and sometimes we just have to take the good with the bad.

She has some great skills, her beam is packed, and check out her first tumbling pass on floor... But she needs that consistency and cleanliness to medal. She could sneak in there as many people would be looking at some more famous team mates, she has the skills and the style, that is for sure.

Jessie De Ziel is another great gymnasts that can bring in some good scores for team USA. She does not have very high D scores, but she is consistent in what she does. She needs to clean up: stretch those feet and knees, but she is a solid contributor, and that is what counts. For some of the gymnasts here the opportunity of an international assignment can count a lot towards more experience for their future in elite or NCAA, Jessie is one of those.

One thing that caught my attention when looking into DeZiel's routines is that she had been training the Amanar. In this competition I am not expecting any woman to compete this skill, if Jessie can land it then things get a whole lot more exciting and she can surprise. In this training video she seem to be doing a good job, she has a strong run, is hot of the top of the vault and wraps her twist in very fast, but e don't know about the landings... Who knows what 5 months of training can have done to this vault... I am hoping for a big, delightful performance by DeZiel, whatever she plans to put out there.

Brandie Jay: I like her vaulting, not the most difficult, but she is clean, and in this video she sticks the 1.5 Y, which I am all for...

I like her bars too. The 6.0 D score is good and the combinations, especially the 1.5 to Markelov is quite interesting. She needs to be cleaner, particularly on floor, but with some great routines she will be good asset.

This promises to be a great opportunity for some of the less known Americans to get their day in the sun, as well as some starts to mark their comebacks.
I really believe Martha should send these B team Americans to World Cup events and give them a chance to shine... It is really a shame that some of them train all their lives and because of the depth of the team never get to compete internationally, this could be a solution to allowing more people a piece of the pie.

Finally a Happy Russian Camp

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.