The Three Exodus

Anna Pavlova is not the first one who used Exodus as floor music, and not the last.

Nicole Pechanec, a Stanford gymnast who used to compete for Czech Republic used the music first, in 2007. The dance was fluid and decent, but lacks depth compared to Pavlova.

Anna’s routine is widely loved for a lot of reasons. The choreography is exquisite and subtle. The music cut has an emotional climax built in, and the most important part, Anna’s variety of skills that was in every way an antithesis of the 2008 code — the very pretty front layout full to front stepout, a 1996 pass; the full twisting Shushunova, a 90s Khorkina signature skill now rated a B; the unique back attitude turn with leg held up. Everything considered, this routine is a gold medal winning 1996 floor routine. Anna made this piece of music more than itself, more grandiose, more distilled with real feelings, and ultimately the masterpiece of 2008 Olympics. Even if Nicole used the music first in the international scene, Anna owned the music.

Jiang Tong’s floor routine made everyone upset, including me, and it is sort of ironic because Jiang probably had this routine before Anna. The two bloggers live covering the Bercy World Cup(the all around and the gymnastics examinor) both failed to point out that Jiang’s floor music was identical as Pavlova’s masterpiece (it’s funny how fast people forget about things).

I shall say that Jiang Tong is the least flexible gymnast China has ever produced, possibly the only one who can’t do a switch ring on beam in the entire Chinese senior and junior team. Coach Liu has had anomaly like Bai Chunyue and Wang Tiantian before, but this girl is a new territory — the American gymnast type, somewhat powerful but zero flexibility. The Chinese program relies solely on flexibility to build up D scores, and it will be interesting to see where Jiang Tong is going to end up being. Needless to say, this music really, really has to go.

But here is the point I want to make in this post: why are music choice so homogeneous in current WAG floor exercises? Let’s count, how many gymnasts are using different cuts of the ratatouille music? Even though Anna’s piece is stunning, the music itself is not unique, hence the different versions of it to begin with. Much like figure skating, floor music is not progressing with the music industry whatsoever. Popular Movie OST, classic music, ethnic ballads (abused by the Romanian team) are the only three major choices. I look forward to seeing a floor routine to an edgy Tortoise song or a break dance piece.

Nevertheless, here I present the three routines with groundbreaking modern music, all from European gymnasts:

Youna Dufournet 2009 

Ariella Kaislin 2010 

Gaelle Mys 2008

@2 years ago with 2 notes
#Nicole Pechanec #Anna Pavlova #Jiang Tong #Youna Dufournet #Ariella Kaislin #Gaelle Mys 

Why the Russian women never won a team gold.

2010 Russian Championship is on. Thanks to the wonderful Russiancup2009 youtube account, we found out what we had long suspected, the Russian ladies never retire for good. Of the 2008 Olympics team, only the 27-year-old Ludmilla Ezhova Grebenkova did not show up.

Ksenia Semenova is still suffering from her almost two-year-long growth spurt. Semenova now is not the Semenova in 2007, light and innovative, or the Semenova in 2008, solid and still elegant. She has become troubled by her changing body. Her bar set lacks sparks, her beam Romanian, and the wonderful choreography that amazed everyone at last year’s euro’s now seems a bit too much for her to handle. The girl is not giving up, and there is a good reason to believe that she will still be the AAer on this year’s Euro’s and Worlds team, despite not as competitive as she was.

Ekaterina Kramarenko, Anna Pavlova and Ksenia Afanaseyva are still battling lingering injures. Of the three, surprisingly, only Pavlova seems actually in shape. Kramarenko does a clean bar set, but her floor exercise is severely watered down. The girl has not competed since that summer of 2008. Afanaseyva continues to be her unstable self, although the girl was never all that competitive to begin with. She is like a Shayla Worley or a Xiao Sha, delightful to watch but never the best of the pack. Pavs is still recuperating, but by the look of her routine, I have faith that she will be ready to take some more 4th place finish by Worlds.

The biggest surprise turn-up is Yulia Lozcheko. Back in 2004 Ms. Yulia was a Svetlana in the making, doing her beam routine so effortlessly, and was still able to dismount bars with a full-in. The girl’s career was plagued with incidents, the biggest being actually getting kicked off the Olympics team for having bad attitude. If only she were as good as Khorki, she could have told Kiryashov to fuck off, except she was the exact female version of Maxim Devyatovski. Yulia competed all around and showed promising routines. The girl is still more talented and artistic than Klyukina and Afanaseyva combined. Sadly she lives in a Khorkina fairy tale and needs an American coach to kick her out of a crystal ball.

If there’s one thing, the Russians always had depth. The problem is that their A team and their B team basically score the same. Who thought Ekaterina Kurbatova would have finished ahead of Ksenia Semenova at Worlds? By 2009 Russia’s A team in 2008 became B team and the B team rose to be the A- team. The team has not had a star since Khorkina. The shoe was tentatively past to Pavlova, then Lozheko, then Semenova, then Aliya Mustafina, but none of them caught it quite in their hands. Viktoria Komova will be the one who can finally take it for full credit. The girl is the most talented gymnast of the century. Although, she also weighs less than a “13-year-old” Chinese and growth spurt can be a bitch.

Speaking of growth spurt and age limit, the Russians are always holding the short end of the stick. The American girls, being all muscle and power, flip along no matter how heavy they are. The Chinese, cheating or not, magically hit their puberty after they already clinched some kind of medal. The Romanians and especially the Japanese seem not to go through puberty in general. The Russians, however, always hit puberty a year before they turn 16. Russia’s one and only female world champion post-Khorkina was then 14-year-old Semenova. Remember Irina Isaeyva, the wonderful junior in 2005? Out of shape a year later before her 16th birthday. Remember the very small and artistic Aliya Mustafina at Gymnix in 2008? Long gone the lightness they could have used. Luckily, Komova seems to have a Khorkina-esque body.

Russia’s juniors are steady, but not stellar. Elenora Goryunova is a powerful but technically rough gymnast, just like her poor sister Kristina. Violetta Malikova is the next Klyukina, a good team player with no strong event. Anastasia Grishina could be a tremendous bars and beam talent, but I thought the same of Karina Myasnikova circa 2006. In fact when you look at the videos you can barely tell these gymnasts apart from one another. They do the same skills they do the best, the shaposhs, the various front aerials, the onodis, the stalder full to full-ins. As a matter of fact, I would believe you if you tell me Mariya Paseka IS E. Goryunova, or Yulia Belokobiskaya IS Malikova.

Marta Karyoli has a strategy. She milks the hell out of her girls’ mental ability and makes them hit wonders. China has a strategy. They milk the hell out of those one-arm pirouettes and make China’s bars prowess unbeatable. Even Nicolae Fominte has a strategy. He baits for these impossible moments of luck and magically it has worked so far. Russia is not a team with excellent form, extreme power, shining stars, intricate code-whoring methods, or mentally strong gymnasts. What they have is overall pleasant choreography, Soviet toepoints, balletic dance training and an alternating stream of fourth place finish gymnasts. Does it seem unreal that Anna Pavlova has never been a world champion, and never won an individual Worlds medal? Jana Bieger was a double silver medalist. Does it sound weird that Semenova’s gold was also the only medal Russia won the entire last quad? Italy had a better turnout with one Vanessa Ferrari. Pavlova’s story is really, the story of Russian gymnastics now.

@2 years ago
#anna pavlova #viktoriya komova 
The Three Exodus

Anna Pavlova is not the first one who used Exodus as floor music, and not the last.

Nicole Pechanec, a Stanford gymnast who used to compete for Czech Republic used the music first, in 2007. The dance was fluid and decent, but lacks depth compared to Pavlova.

Anna’s routine is widely loved for a lot of reasons. The choreography is exquisite and subtle. The music cut has an emotional climax built in, and the most important part, Anna’s variety of skills that was in every way an antithesis of the 2008 code — the very pretty front layout full to front stepout, a 1996 pass; the full twisting Shushunova, a 90s Khorkina signature skill now rated a B; the unique back attitude turn with leg held up. Everything considered, this routine is a gold medal winning 1996 floor routine. Anna made this piece of music more than itself, more grandiose, more distilled with real feelings, and ultimately the masterpiece of 2008 Olympics. Even if Nicole used the music first in the international scene, Anna owned the music.

Jiang Tong’s floor routine made everyone upset, including me, and it is sort of ironic because Jiang probably had this routine before Anna. The two bloggers live covering the Bercy World Cup(the all around and the gymnastics examinor) both failed to point out that Jiang’s floor music was identical as Pavlova’s masterpiece (it’s funny how fast people forget about things).

I shall say that Jiang Tong is the least flexible gymnast China has ever produced, possibly the only one who can’t do a switch ring on beam in the entire Chinese senior and junior team. Coach Liu has had anomaly like Bai Chunyue and Wang Tiantian before, but this girl is a new territory — the American gymnast type, somewhat powerful but zero flexibility. The Chinese program relies solely on flexibility to build up D scores, and it will be interesting to see where Jiang Tong is going to end up being. Needless to say, this music really, really has to go.

But here is the point I want to make in this post: why are music choice so homogeneous in current WAG floor exercises? Let’s count, how many gymnasts are using different cuts of the ratatouille music? Even though Anna’s piece is stunning, the music itself is not unique, hence the different versions of it to begin with. Much like figure skating, floor music is not progressing with the music industry whatsoever. Popular Movie OST, classic music, ethnic ballads (abused by the Romanian team) are the only three major choices. I look forward to seeing a floor routine to an edgy Tortoise song or a break dance piece.

Nevertheless, here I present the three routines with groundbreaking modern music, all from European gymnasts:

Youna Dufournet 2009 

Ariella Kaislin 2010 

Gaelle Mys 2008

2 years ago
#Nicole Pechanec #Anna Pavlova #Jiang Tong #Youna Dufournet #Ariella Kaislin #Gaelle Mys 
Why the Russian women never won a team gold.

2010 Russian Championship is on. Thanks to the wonderful Russiancup2009 youtube account, we found out what we had long suspected, the Russian ladies never retire for good. Of the 2008 Olympics team, only the 27-year-old Ludmilla Ezhova Grebenkova did not show up.

Ksenia Semenova is still suffering from her almost two-year-long growth spurt. Semenova now is not the Semenova in 2007, light and innovative, or the Semenova in 2008, solid and still elegant. She has become troubled by her changing body. Her bar set lacks sparks, her beam Romanian, and the wonderful choreography that amazed everyone at last year’s euro’s now seems a bit too much for her to handle. The girl is not giving up, and there is a good reason to believe that she will still be the AAer on this year’s Euro’s and Worlds team, despite not as competitive as she was.

Ekaterina Kramarenko, Anna Pavlova and Ksenia Afanaseyva are still battling lingering injures. Of the three, surprisingly, only Pavlova seems actually in shape. Kramarenko does a clean bar set, but her floor exercise is severely watered down. The girl has not competed since that summer of 2008. Afanaseyva continues to be her unstable self, although the girl was never all that competitive to begin with. She is like a Shayla Worley or a Xiao Sha, delightful to watch but never the best of the pack. Pavs is still recuperating, but by the look of her routine, I have faith that she will be ready to take some more 4th place finish by Worlds.

The biggest surprise turn-up is Yulia Lozcheko. Back in 2004 Ms. Yulia was a Svetlana in the making, doing her beam routine so effortlessly, and was still able to dismount bars with a full-in. The girl’s career was plagued with incidents, the biggest being actually getting kicked off the Olympics team for having bad attitude. If only she were as good as Khorki, she could have told Kiryashov to fuck off, except she was the exact female version of Maxim Devyatovski. Yulia competed all around and showed promising routines. The girl is still more talented and artistic than Klyukina and Afanaseyva combined. Sadly she lives in a Khorkina fairy tale and needs an American coach to kick her out of a crystal ball.

If there’s one thing, the Russians always had depth. The problem is that their A team and their B team basically score the same. Who thought Ekaterina Kurbatova would have finished ahead of Ksenia Semenova at Worlds? By 2009 Russia’s A team in 2008 became B team and the B team rose to be the A- team. The team has not had a star since Khorkina. The shoe was tentatively past to Pavlova, then Lozheko, then Semenova, then Aliya Mustafina, but none of them caught it quite in their hands. Viktoria Komova will be the one who can finally take it for full credit. The girl is the most talented gymnast of the century. Although, she also weighs less than a “13-year-old” Chinese and growth spurt can be a bitch.

Speaking of growth spurt and age limit, the Russians are always holding the short end of the stick. The American girls, being all muscle and power, flip along no matter how heavy they are. The Chinese, cheating or not, magically hit their puberty after they already clinched some kind of medal. The Romanians and especially the Japanese seem not to go through puberty in general. The Russians, however, always hit puberty a year before they turn 16. Russia’s one and only female world champion post-Khorkina was then 14-year-old Semenova. Remember Irina Isaeyva, the wonderful junior in 2005? Out of shape a year later before her 16th birthday. Remember the very small and artistic Aliya Mustafina at Gymnix in 2008? Long gone the lightness they could have used. Luckily, Komova seems to have a Khorkina-esque body.

Russia’s juniors are steady, but not stellar. Elenora Goryunova is a powerful but technically rough gymnast, just like her poor sister Kristina. Violetta Malikova is the next Klyukina, a good team player with no strong event. Anastasia Grishina could be a tremendous bars and beam talent, but I thought the same of Karina Myasnikova circa 2006. In fact when you look at the videos you can barely tell these gymnasts apart from one another. They do the same skills they do the best, the shaposhs, the various front aerials, the onodis, the stalder full to full-ins. As a matter of fact, I would believe you if you tell me Mariya Paseka IS E. Goryunova, or Yulia Belokobiskaya IS Malikova.

Marta Karyoli has a strategy. She milks the hell out of her girls’ mental ability and makes them hit wonders. China has a strategy. They milk the hell out of those one-arm pirouettes and make China’s bars prowess unbeatable. Even Nicolae Fominte has a strategy. He baits for these impossible moments of luck and magically it has worked so far. Russia is not a team with excellent form, extreme power, shining stars, intricate code-whoring methods, or mentally strong gymnasts. What they have is overall pleasant choreography, Soviet toepoints, balletic dance training and an alternating stream of fourth place finish gymnasts. Does it seem unreal that Anna Pavlova has never been a world champion, and never won an individual Worlds medal? Jana Bieger was a double silver medalist. Does it sound weird that Semenova’s gold was also the only medal Russia won the entire last quad? Italy had a better turnout with one Vanessa Ferrari. Pavlova’s story is really, the story of Russian gymnastics now.

2 years ago
#anna pavlova #viktoriya komova