Let's Talk About Tamara Lazakovich

Tamara Lazakovich was a beautiful Soviet gymnast of the early 70's who was overshadowed by her more successful and crowd-pleasing teammates Ludmilla Tourischeva and Olga Korbut. She made four individual finals in Munich and won bronze in the all around and on floor and silver on the beam. Her compulsory score was 38.25 and the highest of any individual compulsory all around score. At the 1971 European Championships, she won gold in the all around and on bars and beam and silver on vault and floor. Unfortunately, Tamara struggled with alcoholism later in life and died in 1992 at the age of 38.

This is a beautiful montage of Tamara. It's the only footage of her bars I've been able to find.

These were her Olympic vaults. A perfect Yamashita is beautiful!

Tamara qualified first into the balance beam final. After Karin Janz won the bars final, the crowd was at the judges' throats and there was very high pressure for Olga to win. Olga received the 9.90 score she needed to beat Tamara for the gold with her own spectacular routine. Tamara's routine is exemplary of all that was wonderful in early 70's beam. She has perfect control, beautiful balance on her hands, and beautiful artistic presentation.

Tamara's floor is my favorite routine of hers. She was in third going into the final but was the only gymnast of the top three not to have a noticeable error. She received the bronze behind Olga Korbut and Ludmilla Tourischeva and fell into tears. Her floor is classical and elegant yet avante-garde. It has wonderful tension and intensity. She combines staccato and legato movements expertly and creates a building energy all the way to her final movement.

Euro Games Wrap-Up

The Good

• Diverse competition and medalists
• Giulia winning two golds
• Oleg Vernaiev winning things and clapping before his national anthem ended
• Seda's TF beam
• Lieke Wevers performed beautifully on beam and floor and was rewarded for it
• The Netherlands won a team medal!
• Fabian Hambuchen shouting when he stuck a dismount
• Releases other than Jagers
• Giulia's vaults

The Bad

• Team GB imploding
• Tea Ugrin somehow finishing last in the bars finals leaving a medalist who fell
• The one-per-country rule left a lot of strong competition out of finals
• Only six in EFs

The Ugly

• Kelley Simm getting a 0 on her second vault in EF
• Bars and beam finals
• The uproar after floor

Team: This was a great competition. I especially really enjoyed watching all the gymnasts from smaller nations, they're always interesting. It's always nice when you come upon a format where you can watch all the top high-level gymnasts and so many gymnasts from developing programs as well. I was surprised Hungary placed so high. Romania needs to get into shape. They really do need their comeback "kids" (and Iordache, of course). Very pleased with how the Netherlands did.

All Around: I wish more of the top gymnasts hadn't fallen. Really, the results are quite jarring. Jurca in ninth, Simm not even in the top 10. Glad that none of the top three had a fall. I really didn't feel like Giulia was all that invested in the performance of her floor in either the team or the all around. Her vaulting was fabulous, though. Absolutely no question about the medalists, certainly. Mustafina seemed more well carried and steadier in the all around than the team final.

Vault: Giulia was amazing, of course. She gets so much height on her Rudi! Her form has also greatly improved. she only has flexed feet now. I think Seda's DTY has improved from last year. I really loved Janik's vaults. I like a tuck front full. I preferred her Tsuk layout, but it was still a bit piked. Kelley Simm's vault was very scary. She got no height, and it was quite splatty. Very good she wasn't hurt.

Bars: Oh, this was a splat-fest. I still don't understand how Tea Ugrin only finished last when she was one of three who didn't fall. It was messy, but I still don't understand it. I'm pretty sure Makra also caught her feet on her dismount. Scheder and Mustafina were both incredible. I'm obsessed with Sophie Scheder's casts! Nothing makes quite the impression on bars for me a casts with legs together. They just look so much cleaner and even gravity-defying. Her dismount was perfect! Her entire routine was just so beautiful. Aliya's was also lovely, of course. I don't know, I feel like there's not too much to say with her because it's the same basic watered-down routine she's had since 2012 and she's performed it beautifully many times.

Beam: Sophie and Giulia both almost didn't put their hands down. So close to having a podium with no major errors! Still, I might go so far as to say this was a better beam final than Nanning. And Georgina had a completely steady routine other than her fall! All we can do is tear our hair out. Andreea Iridon finally didn't fall apart. She has made it through a final! I missed the first part, I have to say, but it was without error. Lieke Wevers won!! Ugh, so beautiful. Her turns are glorious. I loved the aerial+aerial as well.

Floor: I was surprised by Zarzu's score. I thought it was better executed than the score it earned. Lisa Verschueren's floor is everything I never know I needed! It's so ridiculously bizarre and she is so totally un-self-conscious about it. Lieke's floor is a dream, though that spin needs to go. It ruins the whole aesthetic and suddenly breaks up how easy she makes it all look. Aliya's turns were interesting in this one. I'm not feeling the attitude+Memmel connection. I think she just needs to switch feet because she always fell out of that. Apparently Semenova confirmed her Gomez was downgraded. That doesn't really make sense seeing as it looked completely clear, but her turns in general were a bit confusing and imperfect. Too much twisting in this routine for my liking, she needs to play to her strengths more. Giulia was lowballed on execution, I think. Either that or Aliya was scored high. She had one large bound back, but her execution overall was much cleaner and her artistry was much better. The amplitude Giulia was able to get on her DLO was breathtaking! She definitely put her heart into this one, and I thought it was by far her best performance of the competition. I'm definitely siding with Giulia on who should have won. She was superior in difficulty, execution, and artistry. On heelgate- we had a live stream that was of good quality but was by no means crystal clear and a screenshot that was a bit fuzzy. One person who took a screenshot said she had to slow it down to .25 speed to get her screenshot. AND IT STILL WASN'T CLEAR IF HER HEEL WAS OUT. The line judge was a few feet away and had a perfectly clear view. Is it possible her heel was out and the line judge couldn't see it? Yes. But if it was that close, I am going to trust the line judge's judgement.

Team Russia: Seda was the gymnast who impressed me the most of Russia's team. She seemed the most prepared and, in the team competition, in the best competitive mindset. I'm worried, of course, by the fall in the beam final because her value from the team final appeared to be as a team player. If she can't prove her value there, I don't think I see her in Glasgow. Viktoria is just so frustrating. She's been working a comeback in dribs and drabs for over a year now and- when is it all going to come together? She could at least compete all four events at a competitive level this year, which she couldn't in December. I don't know, I wasn't one of her converts of 2010 and 2011 and so I guess I just don't have the same investment in her as most of the gymternet. She does seem to see that she has a way to go and a desire to get there, so we'll see. I'll try not to be too cynical. She was able to stay on beam despite the wobbles, so I do at least have some hope she can bring that to more future competition. Her beam could be a strong deciding factor in the fall, methinks, so if she can prove she can be depended on to stay on, if nothing else, that should be a plus by her name. Especially with the Russian inconsistency on beam (see Seda in the EF). She hit her feet on the low bar again- that seems to be an even bigger vice of hers in her comeback, so I hope she can get that under control. Okay, so she and Aliya both debuted DLOs on floor. Of course, Aliya has been teasing us with this for a long time, but I, at least, was taken completely off guard by Vika's. I'm not particularly taken by either of their routines, I must say. Very Rod-era we-don't-condition-our-athletes choreography. Aliya's choreography is taken up almost entirely by setting for turns. They're both routines where I finish watching and think to myself "Wait, there was choreography in that routine?" Again, I blame the majority of the blame for this at Round Lake and the lack of proper conditioning. I personally think Vika may be a highly artistic performer, perhaps one of the most artistic of her age, but her coaching staff has given her routines that do not fit her style and it hasn't been given the opportunity to let it really show. Really, I don't think it would be a bad idea for Aliya and Vika to switch music- it would seem a much better fit to me. And for the Russian athletes to be conditioned. Really, I'm not a huge fan of any of Aliya's new compositions. On her bars, I have absolutely no idea what's bothering me seeing as it is in every significant way the same basic routine she's had for years, but something's not doing it for me. Her twisting form did catch my eye, though. In the team competition, I though it looked worse if anything, but in the individual finals I saw a definite improvement. I still want her to bring her double arabian back instead of one of her twisting passes (especially if she has a whip-whip), but I must give credit where credit is due. I feel like that was really negative. I'm just too depressed about Russian gymnastics under the Rods to look on the bright side.

Team Germany: Scheder and Seitz can be double-hitters for Germany, and Scheder really could be a very big asset this season. Both gymnasts have huge bars sets which could bump up their score very well. Seitz could be in their vault lineup as well. Scheder definitely has the best all around potential. Her beam is capable of a good score when she hits and her floor is decent. We only really got to see any of Scheder since the German girls weren't shown much in the team final. The biggest thing for her is her mind, as always. Her beam especially is hit-or-miss, which isn't really what one wants to see. Her bars could be Worlds final-worthy though.

Team Netherlands: The Netherlands are on a roll this year. Sanne won a bars medal at Euros and made the beam final, and now her sister cleaned up at the European Games. Lieke's performance was huge. I loved what we saw from her (okay, who didn't?) Her performance in the beam final stood out to me especially because of how she kept her cool. It was a splat-fest of a final and all she needed was a solid routine to be assured of a medal, and she delivered easily. That ability to remain clam, cool, and collected will be of huge value if she maintains it. She also has really made the most of her gorgeous floor. It's getting good solid scores in the mid-13s, so it's usable, to say the least. The biggest thing Lieke displayed in Baku was a very valuable competition mindset. She kept it all going in the all around as well, and I see her really proving herself as a team player. Celine van Gerner- I don't know what to think about her. They didn't show her floor, which made me really mad. But it got a 13.00, which is better than she got at Worlds! She was able to make bars finals, and her bars are pretty good as a Dutch gymnast. Her scores counted on all events, so she also displayed team player ability. But then in her bars final routine, she caught a release to her chest. Lisa Top was really valuable for her vault and floor. Vault, she delivered; floor, not so much. I hope it was just a fluke. Her power is good for the Dutch team. Overall, the Dutch girls were really impressive.



I thought the European Games was a good competition and I enjoyed watching it. I'm always interested in new formats, and this one definitely delivered. I think this might have given us a bit of an indicator of what things will be a bit like in Tokyo. And- well, it should be interesting, at least. I can't decide how I liked having the men and women run simultaneously. I do definitely blame that for missing some routines I was looking forward to. I just wish more teams would have sent stronger representatives. And why didn't Tyesha Matthis go? She needs the experience! Was there and injury? I've looked and seen nothing Well, now you'll leave me to question the British strategies on my own.

40 Reasons to Love the Queen on Her 40th

It's Oksana Chusovitina's fortieth birthday! Yes, I realize her birthday is already pretty much over in Uzbekistan, but it's just getting started here, and I'm not going to post it a day early. Here's a birthday tribute to a living legend and our queen.

1. She doesn't compete Yurckenko vaults

2. Front pike beam mount

3. For the longest time she only wore sleeveless leos and was the only one who wouldn't get called out for it by the gymternet

source: zimbio.com

4. She has since started wearing sparkly meshy leotards meant for teenagers and been ROCKING THEM (she and Vasiliki need to start a club for that)

source: indianexpress.com

5. Queen Chuso and Svetlana Boginskaya are always a riot

6. Her floor music has included the theme from The Godfather and Pirates of the Caribbean

7. Split-leg double layout-punch front

8. As of today, she is officially twice the age of Vika, Jordyn, Gabby, and co.
9. She has 2016 in her IG username, just like a junior
10. Four eponymous skills
11. Including two on bars

12. She competed on the Soviet team with Valeri and competed against Nastia
13. And is still competing while Nastia has long since retired
14. Ninth in the all around in Beijing
15. She won a complete gold, silver, and bronze set of World/Olympic/Euros/Asian Games vault medals competing for both Germany and Uzebekistan
16. Even her competitors break out in cheers when her name is announced

source: masters-gymnastics.com

17. She gave birth in 1999. And competed at the Sydney Olympics.
18. Her son is as old as this year's new WAG seniors
19. She was the 2007 German national all around champion
20. Her husband is a fellow Olympian- and a wrestler, no less
21. Her two Olympic medals are over fifteen years apart
22. She competes at a bunch of smaller meets, including World Cups and a bunch of open meets

23. She has competed for longer under the 10 system than under the D+E system
24. And competed on a vault horse for ten years before the table
25. She was on the Uzbekistan coaching staff at the 2010 Asian Games while still competing for Germany

source: Getty images

26. Competing gymnastics literally saved her son's life
27. She doesn't use grips
28. And she spits in her hands instead of using a spray bottle
29. The number of times she's stated she'll retire only to come back
30. German giants

31. The NBC trio totally fangirl over her
32. Her international competitive career has spanned more than half her life
33. Her two World Championship titles were twelve years apart
34. She's been known to wear leg warmers

source: flickr

35. She's won three World and Olympic medals on vault in the second half of her career
36. She's the last gymnast still competing from the Soviet team
37. And she's the total opposite of the stereotypical Soviet gymnast
38. She's competed for three nations plus multiple variations of the Unified Team in 1992
39. Have you watched her compulsories? They're pretty awesome.

40. She was the last Soviet gymnast to win a World Championship title on floor. With the William Tell Overture. And a back-to-back tumbling pass.

An Ode to Svetlana Grozdova

Svetlana Grozdova is one of my favorite Soviets and would probably be my favorite if more footage of her existed. She was renowned for her flexibility and balance and a commentator discussing how she was left off the 1980 Olympic team referred to her as a "true beam artist." Her work was absolutely captivating. After competing in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana became and acrobatic gymnast for many years. So here's a post to appreciate an incredibly under appreciated gymnast!

This is an absolutely awesome bar routine from Svetlana which enjoyed a ton of popularity on Tumblr for a while. Sadly, only 14 seconds exist, but it's mind-blowing!

The best ending ever. Everyone else can go home. I also really love how she incorporated so many elements into her choreography. Proof you can use a ton of gymnastics skills and still be artistic.

These are both exhibition routines, the first from 1979 and the second from 1987. This is the essence of Svetlana's glory. So incredibly beautiful, smooth, fluid, leisurely, playful, just wonderful!

Here she is strutting her stuff as an acro gymnast.

The Tokyo Format- Post FIG Q&A

Alright, so FIG posted a Q&A after they dropped the bomb of the new system with NO EXPLANATION AT ALL. So, let's debrief.

Specialists vs. All-arounders: So, FIG seems to be trying to work to advance all-arounders and positions for specialists at the Olympics. It pushes for all-arounders on the team, and so gymnasts from top nations who can qualify teams will be pushed to be all-arounders so a)those nations can have viable teams and b) those gymnasts will want to be on the team. It definitely encourages gymnasts from teams who can't qualify full teams to drop events if they aren't a top all-arounder because getting a top spot on an event at Worlds or a World Cup can get them a spot at the Olympics. I do really like that individual specialists can qualify to the Olympics now. It can be a good opportunity for smaller nations because a top specialist can qualify as a specialist and advance a nation's program.

So... Olympic spots: Yes, we all know the IOC only allocates so many spots. IS FIG LOBBYING FOR MORE? If not, that needs to happen yesterday. It is a tier-one Olympic sport. Track and field had over 2,000 Olympic spots and swimming had almost 950 in London. Shooting and judo both had at least 390. I know gymnastics functions differently than the other two tier-one sports, by why does artistic gymnastic have fewer than 200 spots? FIG did not say they are lobbying, and they need to.

Nominative vs. Non-nominative spots: The spots from Worlds are nominative and those from the World Cups are non-nominative. I suppose it would be expected gymnasts who make Worlds finals deserve a straight-ticket shot to the Olympics. Also, the World Cup system is where team nations can qualify specialists, so perhaps FIG is thinking team programs will have more options for specialists. To bring up the ever-popular ASac example, she would have been able to go even though she couldn't compete in the World Cups because the spots are earned for programs, not individuals.

Specialists on the team: So the team is 3 up, 3 count and not 4 up, 3 count like I thought from what I first read (that's qualifications). I doubt any of the Big Four will take anything other than 4 all-arounders for their team, but lower-ranked nations will probably be more likely to be willing to risk bringing a specialist.

The qualifying system: Alright, so there are aspects of this part I love. But first, let's talk about how the teams qualify. I don't know how I like that. All the medalist teams from the 2018 Worlds will qualify a team to the Olympics, and then the top 9 teams excluding those 3 will qualify at the 2019 Worlds. I don't know what I'm so hesitant about for this, but it just seems... off to me. Alright, the aspects I love. First, any country who wants can send a full team to the 2019 Worlds. Thank goodness! I hate the trickle-down aspect of it in several ways. First of all, a team that doesn't qualify for the pre-Olympic Worlds could very well have a team that places higher than the teams there that year. Secondly, I hate how it makes Worlds competition just pre-Olympic formalities. Each year's Worlds should be a competition in its own right. Also, I like how there are 3 spots from each event final at Worlds and how they have a down-the-line method. Anyone who makes a Worlds event final should be in the running for an Olympic spot. This could definitely make specialist spots more open.



Questions I Still Have

• In the 2011 Worlds, not a single gymnast who qualified to the bars, beam, or floor finals was from a nation who didn't qualify a team. Where do those 9 spots go? I would assume they shift to the World Cups. Do there still have to be 12 specialist spots from teams that haven't qualified a team or can those spots be up for grabs for team nations? Has FIG even realized this has happened?
• How many events are gymnasts in the specialist spots allowed to compete? To go back to the ASac illustration, would she have to have competed vault only or would she have been able to compete both vault and beam?
• Are the gymnasts who earn spots at Worlds allowed to compete on more than one event or can they only compete the event on which they qualify?
• Are the non-nominative spots earned in the World Cups open specialist spots or are they event-specific? To use ASac again, would she have been allowed to fill a spot Anna Li earned or would it have to have been filled by a bars specialist?
• Is there a limit on how many individual athletes a non-team program can send? If, for example, say, Mexico had and all-arounder in qualifying position each at Worlds, continental championships, and World Cups as well as two specialists, would all five be allowed to compete at the Olympics?
• Why did changing the qualification system and opening more specialist spots have to come at the cost of four-person teams? What made that strictly necessary?

I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's it for now. I'm still not on board, but this definitely did a lot to improve my confidence in the new Tokyo system.

Why I Hate the Tokyo Team Format (and some aspects I'm kinda down with)

Bruno Grandhi decided his exit from his tenure of misadventures in charge of gymnastics was going to be a final glorious implosion of great competition. Now, only four gymnasts are on a team who must all be all-arounders. BUT- the nations qualifying full teams may also qualify two event specialists. So- we're essentially going back to 2008 for the Big Four (if none of the other top nations), at least in terms of numbers? And- well, anyway, lets get started getting my points out.

1. My favorite part of following gymnastics and the team competition...

is figuring out the puzzle. How do we best take this pool of gymnasts and cut it down to a team (six or five?) which has as close to the top three highest-scoring gymnasts we have on each event competing? It's the biggest strategic question of the sport, and it's so much fun to follow every gymnast's path through all the competitions of a year to put all the pieces together and predict the team! The strategy all goes out the window now. Suddenly it's become dictated to every team: take the top four highest-scoring all-arounders from the trials process and the top two highest-ranked specialists on their specialty event(s). The only place for real discussion now becomes do we pick the highest scorers regardless of their record in competition or do we allow for administrative discretion?

2. The "Screw you, specialists" aspect

First of all, to treat specialists as second-rate gymnasts completely disregards their importance to a nation's program and gives off a "your achievements don't mean as much because you don't do all four events" vibe. Secondly, the US is pretty much the only team which isn't up a creek if you take away their specialists. China needs their specialists to fill out the vault and floor lineups. Admittedly, it's not so dire now that Wang Yan is a senior and they can eek out a DTY and a not-sub-5-D-score routine on floor from Chen Siyi, but there would still only be two routines at international par on each event except bars. Look at Russia's Euros team. They were the most successful of the championships, but Daria Spiridonova was their second-best all-arounder and she placed thirteenth in the final and scored 53.516. Romania would probably be the least affected by this, but that's mostly because they have such a dearth of gymnasts at this point.

3. The "But if a gymnast gets injured during the competition" aspect

Lauren at The Gymternet made a really good point about this in her post on the subject: Let's look at the 2008 US Olympic team. Under this format, the team named would have been Johnson, Liukin, Memmel, and Peszek. Both Memmel and Peszek were injured before the Games and so could not compete all-around and the other members of the team had to fill in the gaps. For Memmel, an alternate likely would have stepped in under the Tokyo format (assuming there's still an alternate? there would have to be, seeing as the team competitors are all all-arounders and the specialists are specialists?), but what about Peszek? She was injured right before qualifications started. Assuming four scores counted on each event (which I'm going to do, because more scores usually count for qualifications, though I haven't found any information on that format), the US wouldn't have been able to qualify for the team final. There could be a silver-winning team who couldn't even compete because the format is unforgiving for injuries.

4. If FIG hates the US, WHY DO THEY KEEP WRITING RULES THAT HAND THEM MEDALS?

FIG is always crying foul at how the Americans are ruining the sport by doing what FIG supports in their rules, and this is but another example.Were this format to be implemented for Rio, it would turn the US's probable team gold into a lock. At this point, there is NO OTHER TEAM with the all-around depth to be able to challenge. Yes, there is another quad before this becomes the law of the land, but ultimately, Tokyo is five years away, and how much really can be done? Yes, gymnastics is a sport where everything can change in a month, but there also has to be a foundation. Sure, skills can be learned, execution cleaned up, technique perfected, but can an entire program be able to shift its training enough to produce all-arounders in the way it will be needed for some of the countries? Will Romania be able to whip bars into shape in five years now they can't have the Catalina Ponors to rely on? China body type filters, we know this, and their vault and floor specialists are rarely also top gymnasts on bars and beam. Shang Chunsong has floor but not vault, and Cheng Fei and Wang Yan both had/have beam but not bars. Yao Jinnan has been their only strongly balanced all-arounder since the Yang Yilin-Jiang Yuyuan duo. Can they fix this problem in five years, or am I being too quick off the fire to cry doomsday?

5. So... diversity...

I can't have been the only one who noticed this is reversing the five-person team diversity by giving the top teams the old six-person contingents, just in a different arrangement, can I? And so- not creating meaningfully more diversity anyway? More diversity could have been created by reducing the number of teams who qualify to the Olympics from twelve to ten, and keeping five members per team. Yes, twelve spots are created with the Tokyo format vs. ten by deleting two teams. However, more actual spots for new gymnasts are created by deleting two teams. Two of the ten new spots from deleting two teams would be taken by those countries' representatives, leaving eight spots for greater representation. Let's compare this with the twelve new spots created by the Tokyo format. This is where the two extra specialist spots for the team nations muddies things. We can probably safely assume at least eight of those spots will be filled by team nations. The Big Four can of course be expected to send a sizable pack of individuals, but even if they don't all utilize both spots, there's still eight other countries who could fill in potential gaps. That leaves at most four spots, which is, of course, half as many as the "real" spots from the ten team format.

Of course, there's also the whole World Cup issue with the new format. Ultimately, with any diversity being less efficiently achieved by this system than by a simpler avenue, it's not too far a jump into conspiracy to say that the strongest motivation behind this change is probably actually bringing in a more competitive roster to the Worlds Cups and continental championships. Some people are crying that this will cause injuries because gymnasts will be competing more and, more specifically, more times out of season. However, I'd say we don't know enough about the qualification process yet to judge it properly. The US has been pointed to as an example of a strong team which only competes in season, but the US already competes in Attack, Jesolo, and Pac Rims in the spring for an Olympic year. The European nations will already be at Euros, which apparently will count, and so, assuming it's reasonable, I don't think it will be too much of an issue. It will be interesting to see what happens about Euros, however. The Olympic-year championships is a team competition, whereas this qualifying would seem more suited to an individual competition, so that will be interesting to see what happens. Increasing competitive attendance at the World Cups is a good idea, but it could have been done in a way that doesn't ruin the Olympic team format. Instead of having the single Olympic test event, teams that don't qualify at Worlds and individual representatives could have qualified through the World Cup circuit. Or, the test event could be used to qualify the teams, and then all individuals have to qualify through the World Cup circuit. However it was done, the World Cups could be made to attract a better cross-section of competitors without sacrificing the Olympic team composition.

Alright, so I promised you some things I'm down with about this whole four-person sad excuse for a team. One thing I would be willing to embrace would be if this actually pushed programs to address the areas they've been neglecting. They need to have all-arounders, and so Romania can't rely on a gymnast who can perform an acceptable bars routine on only that event and then pad their strengths and China can't rely on its Cheng Feis. Will this finally push them to stop body type filtering? It's just ridiculous and hurts their program. Also, this 4-4-3 format is intriguing. The three-up-three-count system has come under scrutiny from many people because all scores count. I'll be very interested to see what happens when the lowest score is dropped again. Ultimately, whatever happens, this format should be exciting!

NCAA Bits and Pieces

Unfortunately, I never got around to doing an NCAA Nationals post (or a Euros post... *sigh*), but the NCAA world is making it up to me by giving us a ton of post-season news to pore over!

Florida
Rhonda has left Florida, in case you live under a rock and haven't heard about it yet. She's now Senior Vice President of the Women's Program at USAG. There is some speculation that her role is putting her in place to take over for Martha when she eventually decides to retire, and I would really like to see that happen. With all the broken athletes he coached at WOGA, the idea of Valeri taking over makes me cringe. I'm already panicky that he's been given athlete development. The program Rhonda built at Florida definitely shows promise for a future NTC. They have difficult, precise, and aesthetic gymnastics, and they have a well-rounded distribution of talent across all four events. In other words, in case you can't tell, I really want Rhonda to be next in line for Martha's role!
Florida's new head coach will be Jenny Rowland of Auburn. This I'm not as happy about. Sure, she's great, and Florida's in good hands but- I wanted Auburn to break into the national champions pack (and LSU, and Stanford, and a bunch of others but those three for now) and so I'm a bit leery of what that might do to them.
The thing I'll be most interested to see is if there will be a watershed of gymnasts leaving for other programs. So far, the army of future elites looks to be secure, but I'll be keeping my eyes peeled.

Tabitha Yim is my new least favorite person
She's now at U of A, which means we are now enemies. Not much else to say really. Rene's skill on beam will be a big help to ASU's future, as will gymnasts not being injured this season. And they have some good recruits. Grrr, down with U of A.

Elites are responding to my desires
As in, they are going to schools other than Florida and UCLA! Polina Shchennikova is going to Michigan, which honestly kind of surprises me. I don't know, I just don't think of Michigan as a Polina team. I would have picked UCLA or Oregon State for her. But I like Michigan better than both and I like Polina, so I don't mind too much. Or at all. I'm definitely looking forward to her bars and beam with NCAA perfection. And, more excitingly (for me, at least), Alexis Vasquez has committed to Denver! All the good things! The sadness for me here is she's retiring from elite. I personally prefer Alexis to Norah (and Rachel, for those who are Rio-eligible), and I was really looking forward to seeing her this year, especially seeing as Martha seemed to like what she saw from her. I get that Worlds was likely to be out of the picture, but she definitely could have made a PanAms team! But on to the good, DENVER! Denver is one of my favorite teams and I love the progress they're making. Yes, Alexis is going to Denver! Not necessarily a team I would have picked for her either, but that's not what I care about when a gymnast I love is going to a school I love.