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80: 2014 American Cup: Recap & Photo Essay

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This photo essay of the 2014 American Cup is by the great, Christy Linder. Follow Christy on Instagram, Twitter. Act quickly and hire her now for your meet by visiting her official website here,  before Azerbaijan snatches her up as their official photographer.

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In the News

This week Jessica and Lauren Hopkins from The Couch Gymnast chat about:

  • The 5th annual Nastia Liukin Cup: pink, roses, great level 10s and no ties!
  • Márta Karolyi commentating live during the Nastia Cup broadcast! SQUEAL!
  • Elizabeth “Ebee” “Consistency “Price winning by almost 3 points.
  • The solution for Orozco’s mental game–we are sending him to Texas Dreams.
  • American Cup a preview of World floor podium? Ferrari, Ebee and Moors?
  • Why Moors’ coach,Elvira Saadi, should always carry a spare leotard.
  • NBC broadcast commentary, including, “She doesn’t look very Japanese.”
  • Why John Macready should have his own game show for kids.
  • The level of difficulty for the women at the American Cup versus NCAA.
  • TV etiquette for gymnastics fans. Shame on you parents of North Carolina!

Don’t forget to enter our March gym nerd CONTEST! Enter our #gymitation contest by imitating your favorite gymnast. Just post a photo or video doing a pose, skill or impression of a gymnast. Tell us who you are imitating, tag us and include the hashtag #gymitation. We’ll pick our favorites to win one of these fantastic four prizes!

GYMTERNET NEWS

Here are the latest news stories we discussed from around the gymternet:

  • The Houston Chronicle reports that Simone Biles and Coach Aimee Boorman have left Bannon’s Gymnastix.
  • Oklahoma Men’s alumni have an acrobatic network at Disney World in Florida.
  • The dream team grows! Oleg Stepko is set to compete for Azerbijan.
  • Rebecca Tunney debuts a Church to Bhardwaj at the Welsh Open.
  • The Michigan’s Men’s team are training in PUERTO RICO for spring break!

Related Links

2014 Nastia Liukin Cup
2014 American Cup 
American Cup full results.
Kayla Williams reasons for leaving her home gym after becoming World Champion.
Christy Linder’s photo gallery of podium training here.
Safe for Athletes survey.

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leotard designed by nastia liukin

The pink and black versions of the Nastia Cup leos.

 

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Alyssia
Alyssia
10 years ago

I totally agree with Ebee’s win and Brenna/Giulia’s second and third place, but the only thing I’m still mad about is the blatant overscoring on vault. Or maybe not the overscoring of Amanars (they were really good), but the underscoring for DTYs (and other vaults in general, but just DTYs for this world cup). Roxi’s and Tori’s were REALLY good and shouldn’t have been .2/.3 lower than the two Amanars. And I think Carlotta definitely downgraded, (just like Giulia on floor by the way,) probably because they were preparing for Euros in May.
Andrey Likhovitsky is like MY FAV right now omg I looooove his shoulder flexibility, it’s great. His thingy on floor, the static hold stuff!!! And his high bar!!!!! I think he’s really rounded too, I hope he does well this year. Although I’m like a complete noob when it comes to MAG.
Haha the pummel tweeter was me by the way! It’s kind of like old school slang for dumb farmer haha.
Yay for the elite season kick off!! Woohoo!

Kari
Kari
10 years ago

The difference between gymnastics and all the sports that you mentioned is that there are multiple pieces of apparatus and at any given time multiple gymnasts competing on them; thus, throwing things down when one gymnasts is done will physically and psychologically affect those still competing. Can one imagine the horror of a HB or UB worker falling because a teddy bear that was meant for the floor apparatus hit them in the face??!!? The skating rink or the theatrical stage are ONE unit and no one else competes on it except who should be there. In skating, the skater stays a minute taking bows, but in gymnastics once a gymnast finishes a routine the time between when they finish a routine and move away from the apparatus is short. While the skater waits for scores in a kiss and cry, of course people can still throw things because the next skater has not come out yet, while in gymnastics, the next gymnast uses that precious time to warm up. Imagine how discomforting it would be to deal with screaming, cheering, and teddybear-throwing while you’re warming up. There are no flower girls to collect things quickly either. Additionally, I can just foresee the future controversy when we perceive that a Chinese gymnast was not given anything by the pro-US crowd or a Russian was only given three flowers when an American (“with less artistry”) got twenty (i say a US crowd b/c I doubt anywhere else would try this type of thing… though Europe does have those horrible kiss and cry competitions).

I think that for all the things it seems the little kidddies did wrong at AmCup, even they knew that throwing things, no matter how wonderful those things might be, is a bad idea.

Julianna
Julianna
10 years ago

Funny how Samuel Mikulak only mentioned in passing – and the reason Mikulak’s name came up because that they feel bad that Shogo Nonomura mishap, otherwise Shogo would won American Cup. But went on and on with John Orozco, or in other podcast about Stacey Ervin, or about Josh Dixon, (maybe Donnell Wittenburg is next), when their gymnastics weren’t that exciting to begin with.

Julianna
Julianna
10 years ago
Reply to  GymCasticCrew

Thanks for being so open about this. The podcast is really good – don’t get me wrong, but it is obvious it relies on personal preferences. I’m not saying it’s wrong because it’s natural, but a bit more focus on the men side would be appreciated (other than the names mentioned which already had ample of air time). I would’ve thought that the story of Mikulak come back after World’s Antwerp dramatic fall should had more mentions than Orozco new would-be-eponym-floor skill that let’s face it, not nearly ready for show. Or about Sam Oldham less than desireable performance. That Still Rings… It’s called “Still” for a reason where as he couldn’t hold any position. Should be interesting to talk about. Why did he qualified in the first place? I knew that Whitlock withdrew. Shogo Nonomura did came 2nd but he was no Ryohei Kato. So I didn’t get the “Clean Japanese Form” vibe as was mentioned in the podcast. Again, the still rings routine was weak. Good pommel, tho. But not as clean as Kohei Kameyama. Roxana Popa’s floor also weird. She did like amazing whip whip pass, but stumbled on a mere pirouette?! But let me close by saying I love what you all do in Gymcastic

Christian
Christian
10 years ago
Reply to  Julianna

The top 8 AA-ers in the world are invited, but if they choose not to come then their national federation can choose another gymnast. (note: I think this is based on older AA results than Antwerp since the Series ran over Worlds). If a federation chooses not to send any gymnast then the country of the next AA-er down the list is asked, and so on. Sam was put in to replace Max – presumably logistically it is easier to replace a gymnast from one nation with another from the same place at the last minute. Nonomura will have been sent instead of Kohei (who never does World Cup these days).

Julianna
Julianna
10 years ago
Reply to  Christian

Thank you for the comment, Christian

Sarah
Sarah
10 years ago

A gainer layout off the end of the beam is “D” skill, the same difficulty level as a double back, 2.5 twist, etc. It’s not really fair for people like Lauren to insult a gymnast’s difficulty when she’s clearly not familiar with the code of points.

Lauren
Lauren
10 years ago
Reply to  Sarah

I’m sorry and didn’t mean to insult anyone’s difficulty – when I was picturing it without going back and rewatching anything, I was picturing it off the side of the beam, like they typically do in NCAA with their gainer fulls. I do know the code pretty well actually, but don’t have every routine memorized and was going off of memory when coming up on the spot with what I considered to be low difficulty. Naturally a straight gainer layout off the side of the beam would stand out as super low difficulty, which is how I remembered that happening, because even when I brought it up I wondered how that could even be a legitimate dismount in elite gymnastics. Also, it’s okay to talk about low difficulty without being insulting, and I even said that it’s probably a result of it being an awkward moment in the season for those who are trying to save their bodies/stronger routines for Euros later this spring.

Niko Las
Niko Las
10 years ago

I thought I would comment on the whole mullet situation that you guys were fascinated with, haha. The Euro mullet was pretty trendy about 10 years in most of Europe. If you check out pictures or videos of famous European athletes (especially soccer players) from around 2004-2008, you’ll see how popular variations of the mullet were. It’s just that Eastern Europe (mainly former Soviet countries) held onto it longer, although it’s been falling out of fashion for a while now. Andrei Likhovitsky is just a little slow on the memo. ^_^

Christian
Christian
10 years ago

The link to the survey isn’t working! I’m not sure I qualify to do it anyway because I’m just a fan but I was going to check it out anyway …

gymfan18
gymfan18
10 years ago

Didn’t you say there would be an interview with Casey Jo Magee at some point?

JA
JA
10 years ago
Reply to  gymfan18

I was wondering the same thing, they said it would be up that week, which I thought was last week. I think this has happened a few times, I would rather not be told something is going to happen and look forward to it. (However, this certainly does not mean that I am not ridiculously thankful for this podcast, which I love!)

lilah
lilah
10 years ago

Care to comment on how several gymnasts including, I think both Brenna and Ebee got out of the no back to back pass rule by running out of the corner to do one skill/pose/dance and then running back in do their next dance move. I really hate both the rule and the ridiculous things gymnasts have to do work around it!

gymfan18
gymfan18
10 years ago
Reply to  lilah

That rule hasn’t gone into effect yet. There’s a sixth month grace period.

lilah
lilah
10 years ago
Reply to  gymfan18

yeah but clearly they had choreographed their routines in anticipation of the rule.

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