Friday, May 23, 2008

Nationals - All Around Final

2008 National Championships MAG All-Around Final

Gold: Joshua Jefferis, QLD (84.650 and he's sporting a ridiculous new fuzzy hairstyle)
Silver: Sam Simpson, QLD (82.900)
Bronze: Christopher Martin, NSW (79.300)


2008 National Championships WAG All-Around Qualification

1. Dasha Joura, WA (61.600)
2. Shona Morgan, VIC (60.400)
3. Ashleigh Brennan, VIC (59.450)
4. Emma Dennis, VIC (58.200)
5. Lauren Mitchell, WA (57.150)
6. Georgia Bonora, VIC (56.800)
7. Olivia Vivian, WA (55.225)
8. Amber Fulljames, QLD (54.200)

2008 National Championships WAG All-Around Final


Gold: Dasha Joura, WA (122.200)
Silver: Shona Morgan, VIC (120.700)
Bronze: Ashleigh Brennnan, VIC (119.650)


Gossip just to hand: Dasha J to compete in the upcoming Moscow World Cup??? Hm... this is not a great move, Peggy. I thought you wanted girls on the team who were "competition savvy"? If that really is the case, then send Shona or Ash or Emma along too, so they can GET competition savvy! It's only fair. Don't waste a good opportunity lest we fluff preliminaries again and risk missing a finals placing! Don't ya see!? DON'TCHA SEE!?!?!? *grabs imaginary Peggy and shakes*

THE COMPETITION (hasty post-comp notes, cross-posted from GGMB, to be refined later)

Ok, there's not much new that I can add.

It was rather a splatfest but Dasha and Shona outdid everyone.

It was great to meet and re-meet some GGMB-ers and Aussie Board folk. You guys rock.

Crash of the night - Georgia (I think? Possibly Emma. It's 2am and I can't remember) whose full-in ended in a shuffle to a hasty forward roll. Interesting save. Ties with Emily Little who whacked her foot on the bars and crashed to the ground in a very nasty fashion. Good on her for getting up and continuing.

Lauren WAY out on the arabian front piked again. Overdid it in warmup, didn't learn from the mistake and did it again in the comp. OOB on the other arabian too, I couldn't quite tell. Otherwise, GREAT new routine. New music for Shona too, so she's not blushing behind Sacramone. Emma had a lovely beam mount - press to handstand, bring legs through to sit in pike. Big applause.

The camera I was using crapped out 3/4 of the way through but I managed to get the Waverley chicks on all events. Stay tuned for vids.

I personally couldn't see P-Liddy anywhere, but that might have been my seating arrangements; she certainly made herself known at the very end, jumping up and taking photos of the juniors on the medal podium (for posterity before she BREAKS THEM I assume). She seems to really be behind Olivia who, I must say, showed a pretty sketchy bars routine. Nice personality but really irksome execution. Olivia stood right near the end of the floor podium and cheered for Lauren when she was on. I got brief video footage of WA's team huddle before the comp began.

Dasha was the class of the night, she has that double layout DRILLED like crazy. Shame about the NZ girl, she scored a 9. something at one point. A really rough meet, falls all over the place.
I went up to Melanie Jones afterwards in the foyer and simply said "good luck" and "there are lots of fans gunning for you" and her eyes opened wide and she said, 'Wow! Thanks! Thank you so much, that's great to know!" Several gym parents went up and hugged John Hart/Martine and thanked them for their daughter's opportunities and wonderful performances etc etc.

I got an ace photo of Dasha hugging her coach after the comp was over, but I don't have a usb cord to upload it at the moment.

I'll be there tomorrow and will hopefully get some vision of BabyDasha competing.

Again, it's 2am *is dead*.

2008 National Championships WAG Level 10 All-Around

1. Natalia Joura, WA
2. Amaya King-Koi, QLD
3. Angela Donald, VIC

Today was an up-and-down day.

The camera battery conked out again and the spare one didn't work so I only got Wurth's floor routine at the very beginning. Natalia did indeed win the day after leading from the start, but didn't seem as pleased about the whole thing as her sister. She's got lovely execution on floor, nice pirouettes and neat twists, doing everything high on her toes... she even runs into tumbles on her toes! WAIS were very systematic in their floor warm-up. Instead of all separating to different corners of the mat, they all lined up in the one corner and moved around together practising the same tumbles (double pikes, double twists etc).

Add the following to the "now where have we seen that before?" file:
1. Tierra Exum looks like Betty Okino, though her long legs were not always working in her favour.
2. Tierra's floor is lifted DIRECTLY off Steph Moorhouse c. 2002, music AND choreography. Even the very end pose. Think Commonwealth Games team final. That's what we saw, just with a new and much younger girl.
3. I think it was the McGrath girl on beam who does a nice straddle to handstand planche mount, just like Hayley Wright.

There were a LOT of vaults landed to bums and a LOT of flubs on bars. A South Australian girl got a 7.175 on beam. King-Koi had a nasty stack on floor on her opening double-pike but she recovered pretty well. Wurth had a bad one too.

I'm rather glad I changed my seat from where I originally chose. There was a girl in the row in front of me who I KNEW I must know from somewhere but couldn't work out where. Then it hit me - it was Naomi Russell. Naomi was sitting with some Queensland juniors and cheering for her team. In the seating bay adjacent to mine were the WAIS girls - Dash, Olivia and Lauren, all cheering Natalia and the other Level 10's. Olivia came over to chat to Naomi, wavy hair done up nicely in butterfly clips. All smiles and hugs. I can report that Naomi was wearing some kind of ankle strapping. It was purple. At first I thought it was a thick furry sock! She seemed pretty nonplussed about it. She joked with Olivia about her Pink Panther floor choreography ("Your first one [arm swipe] was like 'raaar' but your second one was like "RAAAARRRR!") and showed her some footage of herself training bars on her pink iPod. Then one rotation later, lo and behold along come Melody Hernandez, Monique Blount and one Miss Hollie Dykes. I must admit it actually took a while to recognise Hollie. Her hair is now chocolate brown and since being out of gymnastics she's got a fuller figure. Regardless, she seemed happy to be with her mates and not out on the floor. They all cheered their respective club-mates but I couldn't decipher much of what they said to one another.
Allana Slater helped with presentations and got a hug from Peggy prior to doing so.

Photos up soon!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

...Joura doesn't need the competition experience unless... she's trying out her Amanar. Send someone else, man. Apparatus Challenge has a tiny, tiny allocated seating section and the rest is GA. You can't sit between bars and floor because they're diagonally opposite in the arena :P I'll probably be between beam and floor again, wearing... (hehe I actually have to look down to check) a fluffy denim jacket and a name tag and wielding a video camera. No gossip from yesterday from me, unfortunately.

Mez said...

Oh, really? Damn, I thought the setup was the same as last year, bars adjacent to floor just behind beam? I kinda meant that I'd be near to floor (not the vault side) but up the bars end. I guess now it's different *is confusing self*

Well I don't know what I'll do with myself now...

A nametag!? I was going to wear one, then decided against it... perhaps now I will!

Anonymous said...

Well here is the scoop. Gymnastics Australia refused Peggy's request to send Shona, Ashliegh and Emma to the Slovenia and Tianjin world cups, no money (again) was the reason for the denial. WAIS is paying for Dasha and Lauren to go to the Moscow world cup, NOT GA. So, what can we do, pass around a tin for collections at the gate?

Anonymous said...

Well, I suppose floor's kinda next to bars, just diagonally sorta. Like you said, bars behind beam. That scoop's... interesting. What is money for, GA? Getting the girls competition experience is more important than just about anything. Can't you raise funds? Can't the gym clubs themselves raise funds? Grr, they seriously need sponsors.

Anonymous said...

Interesting comment about Peggy taking pictures of the juniors before she "breaks" them. The seniors that showed up at nationals all seemed to enjoy thmeselves. There was no crying, just good enjoyment of their passion, gymnastics, they are in it for the love of it and they are willing to follow the rules that are set by the national coach, whom ever that might be in the past, present or future. So if she breaks them as you say, she is prepareing them for the reality of elite sport. I believe that Peggy really loves the sport and the gymnasts, but it is a tough gig, she is the one responsible for the results in the end.

Ol' Salty Seaweed said...

To anonymous posting on May 24:

umm... have you forgotten Chloe Sims and Hollie Dykes ?!?!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know why Dasha removed her aerial cartwheel to two feet/ aerial roundoff? I really liked it, it's unusual and isn't being over performed by everyone *cough the nistor cough*

Anonymous said...

Mez I am loving all your comments and thoughts and photos from nationals. Will you post all your pics up on the Facebook group? And your commentary? PLEASE?

Larissa

Anonymous said...

Re your comment regarding Tierra's Floor Routine - i counted a few more rehashed routines at Inter 10 - it is not uncommon

Anonymous said...

No it's not. Natalia Joura's routine is essentially Vivian's old junior routine.