Hopes for days ahead....

It was as if 2012 would never come, but here we are. In the coming days the final roles of the 2012 Olympics will be cast, in the city of the games itself within the North Greenwich arena. Whilst the event itself will bring no huge surprises (it is undoubtedly the case that the teams which will fly home with the team gold medals later this year have already qualified, and beyond this the majority of the competitors at the test event will qualify anyway) it is sure to be an exciting event for a number of reasons: a few key individuals have yet to qualify, and a couple of those that already have will give us another look at their top class routines.

For instance, it is super exciting that China have decided to send Sui Liu and Yao Jinnan. There is obviously no need for the beam world champion and AA bronze medallist to qualify for London, but it is clear that they and their coaches are keen for as much international experience as possible. Good for them, and great for us as spectators.

So apart from the usual hopes before any competition (good judging, no injuries) I am hoping for a few key things.....

A GOOD SHOW FROM THE BRITISH MEN

http://img.skysports.com/08/07/800x600/smith_1069544.jpg

It doesn’t take a Brit to see how far the programme has come in recent years, mainly because of Tweddle and Smith, but also as a whole. Both teams are better than ever and other athletes like Daniel Purvis and Hannah Whelan have shown they are up to the challenge of international competition.

The fantastic team outing of the women in Tokyo was of course a fantastic moment for British Gymnastics, but it must have made the failure of the men to qualify a team to the home games even more bitter to take. But now they have a chance, on home soil, to put on a good show and show what they can do. This goes for all of them, but particularly Louis Smith: as a serious contender for a second podium finish on the pommel horse this summer it really is a great opportunity to show what he is capable of.

A SOLID BAR ROUTINE UNDER PRESSURE FROM YOUNA DUFOURNET

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Youna_Dufournet_GP.JPG

Who knows what will happen in the coming months, but I think bars is a surprisingly weak field at the moment. Perhaps this is partially due to the fact that it can no longer give a gymnast a mammoth score like it could in 2007 and 2008. Whatever the reason, this year’s bar final was pretty empty (any bar final that puts Wieber as the fourth best in the world leaved something to be desired).

Despite this, Dufournet has upgraded and upgraded, and showcased a routine this year that had the potential to be fantastic. Problem is she can just never seem to get it together when it actually matters. I feel like if she can get a good performance in at the scene of the upcoming games then it might give her a nice boost of confidence: if she hits a routine cleanly with the difficulty she is capable of she might even have a chance of an Olympic medal, although it does seem like a long shot.

GOOD GRISHINA

We all watched Grishina as a junior and saw her huge potential, but in recent competition she has been showing signs of slipping a bit. It would be a shame for someone with such talent to become one of those juniors that promised everything but ultimately delivered nothing. With her fresh senior status, I am hoping for a clean and strong outing for Anastasia and hopefully some top 3 placements.

YAO AND SUI TO JUST DO WHAT THEY DO BEST

I could happily watch this any day of the week.

OTHERS

The above are my main thoughts heading into the competition, but other smaller ones include the hope that Kononenko qualifies well. The awfully untimely injury of Mariya Likchikova has dashed the main hopes of the Ukrainian camp for any impact this year, but a good solid bars set from Kononenko could take the edge off a little bit.

Whilst thinking of injury, it was a real shame to see Ferrari out of floor finals at the last minute. It will be nice to see her in the coming days.

The talk of this years vault final, besides Maroney’s amazingness,  was Yamilet Pena attempting the Produnova. She will be competing at the test event, and although I highly doubt she will attempt the double front when it isn’t needed it would be good to see (if she can do it properly I want to see it with proper cameras).

Mainly, it is just great that we can see footage of some of the top names in the world competing so early in the season: just the beginning of many great things to come in this Olympic year. 

produ[NO]va

http://www.kostiskal.net/june23/vane688.jpg

Any gymnastics anorak knows about the Produnova. It has become a modern gymnastics legend. Few skills are considered with such high regard and such awestruck anticipation. Since we last saw Produnova herself (one of my all time favourite athletes) perform the double front in 1999, we have been waiting with baited breath for another powerhouse to come along and perform it. The hype and dreaming that comes with the handspring double front in women’s gymnastics is matched only by a very small handful of other skills of equal insanity (the mythical double layout beam dismount, the TTY, the quad on floor). For years now we have speculated on who might appear to pick up this Holy Grail and stun the world.

                                                                   Elena Produnova in 1999

...and as if from nowhere, Yamilet Pena popped up in Tokyo: a mostly unknown gymnast prior to this competition (and also from a minor country in gymnastics terms – the Dominican Republic). She threw a good few double fronts in training and warm-ups (not all of them landed, not all of them an easy watch for someone with legs) and after qualifications earned a ticket to the event finals.

Then came the crisp camera quality, commentary and slow motion. The few vaults we had seem Pena throw in Tokyo prior to this EF were mainly through shaky, long distance camera phone recordings from which little could be made out except the rotation and the landings. But the EF performance was a different story.

It was different because of this: it was a hideous, hideous vault. I don’t even mean this because she didn’t land it (if anything I am glad for her ankles that she let her back take the hit). I mean instead that the hype, history and legend of this vault have masked an uncomfortable truth: the handspring double front is not at all nice to look at.

What stopped me reaching this conclusion a decade earlier is the advances in sport coverage. My memory of the Produnova is based mainly on 3 videos from 1999: 2 at the worlds, 1 at the University games. This grainy coverage allowed the imagination to fill in the gaps, with an end product being a mental picture of an explosion of the horse into a light speed flipping and a crisp, planted landing. But in reality the vault falls short, as there are so many unsightly adjustments that have to be made to make the vault attemptable. These include a cowboy stance, an uncomfortably deep landing and clown feet. Also, so many flips make the whole vault seem completely downhill, with mechanics equivalent to under rotated twisting vaults which “twist into the ground”

All in all, I am not so sure how comfortable I am about the return of the Produnova, in almost every aspect. I think that new slow mo footage shows that even if the vault is landed, it would still be an unsightly piece of gymnastics. Further, it is clearly downright dangerous. That much rotational speed onto a blind landing seems to just beg for an injury, especially with girls like Pena who clearly haven’t got the skill competition ready. Also one has to ask the question, could it be satisfying for a gymnast to win a vault title with a messy 1.5TY and an ugly but hugely high tariff vault? I am thinking not.

With all the 2.5 chucking of last year I never thought I would say this, but I am all for the Amanar over the Produnova. Mckayla Maroney showed us what vaulting is all about: power combined with beauty. Not to be mean to Pena (she deserves real respect for her attempt) but I doubt there is any gymnast anywhere who could make the Produnova pretty.

With rumours of other gymnasts (including Mai Murakami) training this vault, let’s hope hard for gymnastics as opposed to cowboy legged circus tricks in the coming years.