Lauren Mitchell had a rough day on Sunday: she missed her opening pirouette on UB, fell on the first tumbling pass on BB and almost sat the first pass on floor. But she still won 3 gold medals (vault, beam and floor). And, except for BB maaaybe, deservedly so.
Ashleigh Brennan took two silver medals - beam (14.525/ 5.9D) and floor (13.350/ 5.3 D score).
Honestly, I would have been extremely happy for Brennan to take beam gold, because see, they don't have that many people in Australia that are good on beam. So, at least when Lauren falls, they should give it to the girl who stays on the beam (even if she isn't exactly wobblefree either).
Chloe Sims took uneven bars title with 14,275 (5.8 D) - whereas Mez Monkton finished second (13.875/ 5.8 D). On third place - Larissa Miller, with the highest difficulty of the competition, on bars (6.1) but only 7.05 on execution (counting a fall).
Aside from second place on bars, Mez also won bronze on beam (14.05/ 5.8 D score) and second on floor (13.350/ 5.3 D score)- tie with Brennan.
Lauren Mitchell is Australian AA National Champion. Georgia-Rose Brown won silver and Mary Anne Monckton - bronze.
The gymnasts competed twice on all events and the totals of the two days added up for the final results.
In Day one, Mitchell was followed by Georgia-Rose Brown and Chloe Sims. Both Georgia and Chloe have ok FTYs and consistent uneven bars routines and both seem not to be very fond of beam. On floor, Georgia is pretty fantastic, she has long lines and good flexibility - I would love to see her at worlds this year (watch here her routine from Vic championships).
Next day, Mary Anne Monckton did a liiiittle better on floor and beam placing second for the day and moving on third in the final AA rankings. Nevertheless, Mez seems to have established herself as no. 1 bar worker in Australia (challenged by Chloe Sims maybe).
Lauren did better in day two than in day one on floor and beam. But if on these two events she is currently struggling to re-gain the shape, on vault and uneven bars she is definitely doing better than in the previous years. Her DTY is turning out ok-ish and as long as she will be able to almost stick it, she will surely score in the mid-14s with it in international competitions.
Floor seems to have been much better than in Japan (I am referring to day one because I haven't seen a video from day 2 yet) at least for the first minute, until she fell on that third pass, it was nice.
Beam is a lot of work. But this has always been the case for her and undoubtedly she will figure everything out by October, even the turn in tuck stand - by connecting the full turn out of it. Deep down, I always hoped she will drop it, but it seems we will have to live with it.
Ever wondered what the Brits will do after 2012? Will they manage to find another gymnast as great as Beth? Will they ever be able to win other Team medals at Euros or qualify for team finals at Worlds?
The latest British Nationals have demonstrated that we have no reasons to worry about them. It is becoming increasingly obvious that a successful team will be built around three fantastic gymnasts:
1) My favorite is Gabrielle Jupp, who placed second in the junior all around competition at the latest Nationals. She is only 13 and her favorite event is the balance beam (1st place on the EF). Her beam D score was 5.6 (she presented a 5.8 D score at a friendly meet against Romania a few weeks ago) and she also had good results on floor (second, with 5.4 D score) and vault (silver medal - 5.0 and 4.6 D scores for her vaults).
Here is her beam routine from this spring Gymnix International, where she placed 1st on the event final.
Besides the fact that she works with great confidence and that she masters a wide range of skills, I love her flexibility and the amplitude of her leaps and jumps.
2) Rebecca Tunney - the new British Junior AA National Champion: She was born in 1996 and she is from Manchester but competes for City of Liverpool Gym Club. In her presentation on her club's website she says that Shawn Johnson is her favorite gymnast and the triple twist - a favorite skill. At the latest British Nationals Rebecca had good D scores across the board: 5.8 on UB, 5.2 on BB, 5.3 on FX. She also won two EF gold medals: on floor and uneven bars, which is also her favorite apparatus. I love her attack and her rhythm on this event.
3) On third place in the AA competition at the latest Junior nationals, we had Abi Caig, another gymnast from City of Liverpool. Abi is only 14 (she was born on the 1st of October 1997) and on the club's website we can find out that her favorite gymnast is Beth Tweddle, she likes to spend time in front of the computer and her favorite meal is a "roast dinner". Lovely!
I only found her footage of her UB routine from Nationals, which is her weaker event:
Other gymnasts to watch: Loriah James, Raer Theaker and Angel Romaeo.
As a conclusion, the Brits have a fantastic junior team. I think that, even though Rebecca Tunney becomes a senior next year, they stand a good chance of winning the Junior TF at 2012 Euros.
Lauren Mitchell's highly anticipated floor routine has managed to bring me out of the cave I've been trying to hide in for the past few weeks. It was THAT big an event. I love it when this happens and I wish people would market routines like that and launch them en fanfare more often. Ok, ok, maybe it was not Lauren herself who announced it this way...maybe us, crazy fans hungry for some news-scrap related to gymnastics did that. What i meant was that I wish gymnast would give us the opportunity to become animated like that more often.
Now, about the routine: the first time I watched it, I thought it was awkward. Then it became increasingly obvious that it needs some more work. Now after watching it numerous times I think that, with time, as the choreography will be more and more rehearsed, Lauren will be able to discover and accentuate certain nuances of the music. She will learn to use to her advantage the vocal parts that are the element that if speculated correctly can bring the originality factor to the routine. Plus, what we have seen this weekend was a very "choppy" version - the landings were so messy that it was difficult to maintain a unity of the choreography and also interpret the music.
What did you think about Lauren's routine? Which is your favorite "new" routine of 2011?
