January 15, 2009

AYOF Videos - Updated!

Flippingymkid is uploading videos of yesterday's action in Sydney. There is still no video of Tan Sixin's 15.85 beam routine, but some other gems and not-quite-gems are beginning to pop up. Here are a few...

This is Natsumi Sasada's beam routine, featuring a beautiful layout Garrison mount (!) as well as a lovely combination of switch leap, scale and back tuck. Aside from the mount, it's not a terribly difficult routine, but even so it's obvious that Sasada is the completely package on beam. She can turn, twist and tumble and has good flexibility and extension too. Anyone know when she's turning senior?

And this is Natsumi Sasada again, this time on floor. Her presentation needs a little more maturity and conviction, but the tumbling and dance skills are definitely there. Also, she spends refreshingly little time standing in corners doing nothing. This girl has heaps of potential!

This is Yukimi Ueda's beam routine. Ueda still lacks a bit of sophistication (her arms look bad), but it's great to see the Japanese actually make an attempt at beam choreography, however clumsy. Good switch leap-piked back combo too.

This is Sakura Noda's uneven bar routine, which has a few problems (bent knees on the bail-half, non-vertical casts to handstand, late turns) but is promising nonetheless.

This is Wu Liufang's beam routine. Wu is a gorgeous beam worker. She has the best Yang Bo jump since Yang Bo herself, and if she ever hits that switch Yang, it will be gorgeous too. Keep an eye on this girl - she could just be China's new beam star!

This is Cui Jie's lovely beam routine. She falls on a roundoff-whip combo (a new pass for her, we think), but her power on her tumbling is impressive (great piked front), and she has great form as always, except on the sheep jump.

And this is Cui Jie's floor exercise. The video takes an awfully long time to load, but it's worth it to see Cui's nice and tidy double Arabian. We trust her choreography, which is not very fluid at present, will improve when she moves to Beijing.

This is Britain's Jennifer Pinches on bars. She needs to learn how to keep those hips straight, but her toepoint is impressive, and she has a pretty big dismount.

And this is Jennifer Pinches on floor. She has great tumbling for a junior and has a nice way of expressing music. Definitely a gymnast to watch!

This is Australia's Emily Little on beam. Little has plenty of difficulty and pretty good form throughout (except on the front aerial), but something is missing. A bit more attention for the non-counting elements would be nice. And yes, that includes the mount. God, we're sick of those tuck jump mounts.

This is Emily Little again, this time on bars. She obviously needs to work on her low-to-high transitions.

And finally, this is Natalia Joura's meltdown on bars. Yep, she makes many, many mistakes, but her form is reminiscent of her older sister's, and we mean that in the best possible way.

We're wondering if the bars might have been too close to each other when the Aussies were performing, since both Joura and Little seemed to misjudge their distance to the high bar on their shoots from low to high and the rest of the team had plenty of problems on bars as well...

Keep checking back - we're sure there are lots of good videos still to come!

3 comments:

  1. Woo hoo! Thanks for the videos!

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  2. Natsumi Sasada is great! I hope she stays strong for whenever she turns senior. I'll do my research soon and see what I can find out. Her lines remind me of Shoko Ono. I'm also VERY pleased to hear she had a DTY, which is great considering the only other Japanese gymnast to do a DTY that I know of is Momoko Ozawa.

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  3. looked like cui watered down her routine from the chinese nationals.

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