Wieber and Sloan to Compete at American Cup

According to her own website, US junior champ Jordyn Wieber (aged 13) has been invited to compete at the American Cup in February. Apparently 2008 Olympian Bridget Sloan is also slated to compete. Two other American competitors are still to be confirmed.

From Wieber's website: "Jordyn will be competing in the 2009 American Cup competition which will be held on February 20th-21st in Chicago, IL. Jordyn will be joining 2008 US Olympian, Bridget Sloan. The United States will be naming two additional athletes to their squad and many international athletes are also expected to participate. The finals portion of the competition will be broadcasted LIVE by NBC Sports on February 21st at 3:00 CT. For ticket information and more please visit USA Gymnastics."


Jordyn Wieber (photo: Wieber's website)

We're kind of curious now as to who the other two American competitors will be. Considering the number of talented fresh seniors who just missed out on the Olympics because of injuries or uncooperative birth dates, USAG's inviting a junior who is not even about to turn senior is odd to say the least, although we do obviously look forward to seeing Wieber on the big stage.

Jordyn Wieber, Kamerin Moore Interview

USA Gymnastics has posted a nice interview with Jordyn Wieber and Kamerin Moore, who recently placed 1st and 3rd AA at Belgium's Top Gym competition. In the interview Jordyn confirms working on an Amanar (Yurchenko 2.5) and says she's also working on a Hindorff and a double-double off bars. We take it that's a layout double-double (her layout full-in dismount is beautiful). Kamerin (who apparently collects dolls and plates - what kind of plates, sweetie?) says she's working on a double-twisting Yurchenko. Check out the rest of the interview for yourself here.

Meanwhile, some more videos of the girls' Top Gym routines have emerged on YouTube...

Jordyn Wieber, BB
Jordyn Wieber, FX
Kamerin Moore, BB

This concludes our American junior watch for today.

Top Gym: Wieber's Victory Confirmed

By now the official Top Gym results have been announced (click here to see them), and it seems America's Jordyn Wieber was indeed the clear winner, finishing nearly 4 points (!) ahead of her nearest rival, Holland's Yvette Moshage. Wieber's teammate Kamerin Moore finished third, 0.75 behind Moshage but a full point ahead of Romanian promise Larisa Iordache.


Kamerin Moore, the only gymnast we've ever seen wearing glasses in competition (photo: Heather Maynez)

According to people who attended the competition, Jordyn Wieber was the only gymnast to have a good meet. She had a big wobble on beam and landed very low on her closing double pike on floor, but was otherwise clean (good double-twisting Yurchenko vault and standing full on beam). Yvette Moshage, who is from the same club as Sanne Wevers, also made few mistakes, but didn't sparkle as she usually does. Kamerin Moore reportedly fell on a Tkatchev and also missed a giant on bars. Furthermore, she suffered a fall from beam, put her hands down on her full-in on floor and went out of bounds on two tumbling passes (including the full-in). Larisa Iordache reportedly started out very well on beam and floor, but lost many points on vault (sloppy full-twisting Yurchenko) and bars, where a low start value and many small mistakes resulted in an abysmal 10.300. Her equally promising teammate Diana Bulimar never even got to compete; she twisted her ankle during warmups and was withdrawn from the competition. Chalk up one more injury for Team Romania.


Tatiana Nabieva

Unlike previous years, there were no Ukrainians or Russians at Top Gym. Fans were hoping that European junior champ Tatiana Nabieva, who is currently touring France with the St. Petersburg team, might make an appearance in Charleroi, but she chose to stay in France, reportedly performing on bars only. Rumor has it that Nabieva is suffering from a heel injury. We assume it was that same injury which kept her out of the Massilia Cup, in which she was slated to compete.

Some excellent photos of the Top Gym competition can be found here!

Quick News Roundup

--- We have yet to see any official results (or substantial unofficial results for that matter), but it seems that American national junior champ Jordyn Wieber has won the Top Gym competition held in Charleroi, Belgium, despite feeling a little under the weather. According to her website, Wieber received the top scores on all events (15.000 vault, 15.250 bars, 15.000 beam, 14.550 floor) and consequently ended up winning the all-around competition. No word yet on the other highly touted competitors (Kamerin Moore, Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar), nor on whether the Russians ended up sending any competitors (Tatiana Nabieva is supposed to be in nearby northern France) to Top Gym, which is traditionally a good spotting ground for junior talent. We hope to have complete results for you later.


Jordyn Wieber, winner of the Top Gym competition

--- According to German newspaper Zeit Online, supposedly injured Fabian Hambüchen just performed the most difficult high bar routine ever in KTV Straubenhardt's last match before the Bundesliga Final, to be contested in two weeks. Hambüchen is reported to have thrown a routine with a 7.5 start value, up 0.2 from his previous record. Way to prove you're seriously injured, Fabian!

--- According to the Gazeta Sporturilor, Sandra Izbasa is one of five nominees (four female, one male) for Romania's Athlete of the Year Award. The winner will be announced on December 2. We have a feeling Sandra will grab that award too.

--- Speaking of Athlete of the Year competitions, remember we told you last week that Yang Wei had been voted China's male athlete of the year, and his coach Huang Yubin China's coach of the year? Well, it now seems that the female gymnast closest to winning the award (which ended up going to table tennis legend Zhang Yining) wasn't Cheng Fei, as you might expect, but Deng Linlin! We can't find the details anymore (we'll have a look for them later when we have more time), but we do remember that the article said Deng got many more votes than Cheng, outscoring her by something like 5 to 1. We like Deng, but we do wonder - what did she do to outscore Cheng Fei, Jiang Yuyuan, and Yang Yilin by such a hefty margin?


A big thumbs-up for Deng Linlin indeed! (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

--- Finally, we'd like to draw your attention to this delightful Times Online article about Britain's new star on the pommel horse, Louis Smith. It sounds like Louis is quite a character. According to the article, he auditioned for The X Factor and is planning to unveal a new, highly showy element on the pommels at some point. He'd also love to compete wearing a giant Afro, but has decided against it because he feels the judges wouldn't appreciate it. Read the article for yourself - it's entertaining!

Coming Soon to a Stadium Near You… NOT!

Here at the Triple Full headquarters we can't wait till it's 2009. Not just because that's when the new code comes into effect (cue one HUGE sigh of relief on our collective parts), but also because it will be interesting to see which juniors-turned-seniors will enrich the sport with their presence.

Among the more interesting juniors we think will turn senior in 2009 (some confirmation would be nice) are Tatiana Nabieva, Tatiana Solovyeva, Ana Porgras, Amelia Racea, Samantha Shapiro, Rebecca Bross, Peng-Peng Lee, and Charlotte Mackie. We can't wait to see these girls take on this year's crop of champions.


The young Russian we most look forward to seeing in 2009: Tatiana Solovyeva

However, this post is not about them. It's about the juniors you won't be seeing on the senior stage next year because they'll still be under age. And boy, are you missing out on something good.

Our top-5 of sadly age-ineligible budding stars:

Cui Jie
China's tiny Cui Jie gets our vote for the Most-Promising-Junior-You're-Not-Likely-to-See-in-a-Senior Competition-Any-Time-Soon Award. She's basically a younger Cheng Fei – not terribly impressive on bars (by Chinese standards, that is), but excellent on the other events. Check out the floor exercise she did as a 13-year-old (featuring a gorgeous double Arabian) and you'll see why we're excited about her. Her beam also has future greatness written all over it. Watch those arms – they're beautiful. If she ever learns to connect that front tuck-Rueda combination, we'll love her all the way to a stack of gold medals.

Aliya Mustafina
We're not sure whether the mature Aliya Mustafina will live up to the promise of her extremely precocious 11-year-old self (best seen here), but we still enjoy watching her a lot. She has beautiful lines and extension, some original dance and pirouettes, and a bit of that old Soviet elegance that is all too rarely encountered in the sport these days. She's a rhythmic gymnast among acrobats, and the new code should work in her favor. Pencil her in for a few medals over the next quad. And her younger sister Nailya for the quad after that.


Aliya Mustafina (Photo: Jasmin Schneebeli-Wochner/Gymbox)

Larisa Iordache
Larisa Iordache is Romania's national junior champion in her age category. The girl is twelve and has a fair bit of presence for one so young, not to mention some impressive skills. She hails from the same club that produced Aurelia Dobre, Dinamo Bucharest, and her coaches are quick to compare her to Aurelia, saying, "Larisa is exactly like Aurelia was twenty years ago." We don't know about you, but we like the sound of that. Click here to see an 11-year-old Larisa rock the floor in 2007!


Larisa Iordache (Photo: Ayako Murao)

Viktoria Komova
Viktoria Komova has good genes. She's Vera Kolesnikova's daughter and she's clearly inherited her mother's talent. She mounts floor with a 1.5 twist through to a double Arabian (check it out here), and while her dance is nothing to write home about yet, her form and general liveliness indicate that she could become a decent dancer given some more time and a good choreographer. Plus she's working on a ff-layout stepout-Arabian combo and a double Arabian dismount on beam (yes, really). Madness, we tell you. Madness. Of a kind we highly appreciate.

Jordyn Wieber
If there's one thing all three of us agree on, it's that we dislike Jordyn Wieber's hands. However, if someone tells the kid to stop flexing those wrists, she'll have a bright future ahead of her. Especially if those rumors about her Amanar vault are true. Because that would be awesome.

Here's hoping these girls won't go the Nadezhda Ivanova / Irina Isayeva way…