The No. 1 Gymnastics Podcast in the Galaxy

94: Women’s European Championships Part One!

catherine lyons gymcastic award
Catherine Lyons, 2014 European Junior Floor Champion.

LISTEN HERE

This week, London Olympian Jennifer Pinches joins Uncle Tim and Jessica to chat about:

  • Russian great, Anna Pavlova returns to competition for Azerbaijan with a medal!
  • Uncle Tim reveals sexy data hidden in the results from the meet, including the surprise of team Germany beating everyone on one event.*
  • The new floor artistry rules are in place, but did floor champion Ferrari comply?
  • The incredible rise of the British junior and seniors teams with crowd pleasing and incredibly difficult, artistic gymnastics.
  • Queen Mustafina and Iordache show their true depth and consistency of Romania and Russia, year after year.
  • Why Jessica is outraged that Romania’s Larisa Iordache placed second on balance beam despite seemingly superior execution.
  • The impressive, new senior Maria Kharenkova of Russia who rocked a shoulder height two-foot layout on beam and demonstrated a mature attitude.
  • We award the first ever, Prize for Execution for highest execution score in the all-around to Princess Catherine Lyons of Europa.
  • Roxanna Popa is a friend to all and everyone is her fan.
  • The Slinky Pink Panther routine from Marta Pihan-Kulesza of Poland that we can’t get enough of.
  • All-around silver medalist, Laura Jurca (ROM) does “The Swim” on beam, we weigh in, smart move or too campy (see gif below)?

*Correction : In this episode we said that Great Britain had the highest difficulty on bars in the senior team final with 5.667. The correct difficulty that gave team GB the highest difficulty average was 6.266.”

GYMTERNET NEWS

Here are the latest news stories that we discuss in depth:

  • Shannon Miller “I would get death threats at the age of 15.”
  • Jake Dalton is  now married *cue weeping sounds worldwide*
  • Ksenia Afanasyeva talks about her ankle surgeries.
  • Danell Leyva has a 7.3 D on high bar!
  • Spain’s (University of Florida) Silvia Colussi-Pelaez, is transferring to Oregon State this fall.
  • Lloimincia Hall selected for Nike Internship.
  • Kenzo posted a video of his yurchenko 3.5!!
  • Our solutions for City of Liverpool gymnastics club closure.

Related Episodes

Related Photos

Laura Jurca (ROM) doing "The Swim" on beam.
Laura Jurca (ROM) doing “The Swim” on beam.
gif of fragapane with a cape on
Claudia Fragapane, superhero.

Related Videos

More Ways to Listen

GymCastic Itunes Icon stitcher-icon Download This Episode

 

Creative Commons License
The GymCastic Podcast by gymcastic.com is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at gymcastic.com.

19 COMMENTS

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
19 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alyssia
Alyssia
9 years ago

Iordache ended up second because her layout was more of a whip, and I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Iordache’s bhs’es but she ALWAYS, ALWAYS bends her knees like crazy. Her feet aren’t pointed very well on some skills either. That’s a lot of form errors. Yes Kharenkova had wobbles, but her execution on most of her skills was far superior. Unfortunately for Iordache, form issues get bigger deductions than wobbles… It’s the same as when people were outraged about Vasiliki Millousi’s beam execution mark compared to Mustafina’s in qualifications at Worlds 2013 – Millousi barely had any wobbles where Mustafina had a LOT. But Millousi’s skills had a lot of form errors where Mustafina had barely any… I mean, we are not judges, so except for wobbles and maybe big execution errors, we might not see the smaller problems that judges were trained to look at. Also we of course have a different view than the judges… I think Kharenkova was the rightful winner and I’m glad Mustafina got the highest execution scores in bars and beam finals.
Daria Skrypnik has been known for her leo’s for a while… http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T8-KcGQFFMI/UwRSx4ZRXAI/AAAAAAAAGqk/KXe5jt0QHCA/s1600/skrypnik+2011.JPG
Her mom designs leos and I think she might have been a rhythmic gymnast, but I don’t know. Definitely rhythmic inspired!
I looooooove Jurca’s choreo, but definitely as Uncle Tim and Jenni say, something for a junior/young girl, not for an adult, a senior.
I think Giulia’s artistry and presentation on floor has improved SO MUCH over the last years, so so exciting, really hope on a floor final at Worlds for her this year.
Pauline Schaefer’s somi is like… She starts with her right leg so at the end of the regular somi, she would face to the left relative to the starting position. But then she does a half twist, which goes clockwise (so facing front, and then right from the starting position). So it’s kinda weird.. I think it would be easier to get it credited if she would twist against the clock (facing back and then left, facing right relative to the starting position), because then it would actually be a somi (quarter turn), plus the half turn. Now it’s like a quarter turn one way, and then half turn the other way – as if it’s like a minus quarter turn lol. It’s hard to describe.
I think the pre-routine choreo is also done in PT, so assuming the person doing the music is the same throughout the competition, they can probably write notes too so they won’t make mistakes!

Since you haven’t mentioned this – which I totally understand bc it was like, in the very very first junior subdivision – I will link you here…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9E_3TrrOw 😀

Christian
Christian
9 years ago
Reply to  GymCasticCrew

Vasileva is PERFECT. I wonder if she’s eligible for YOG? I swear she could have some dance elements names after her …

Alyssia
Alyssia
9 years ago
Reply to  Christian

She’s not unfortunately, she’s born in 2000 🙁 Hopefully Bulgaria can qualify someone for Rio, otherwise we’d have to wait until 2017…

Uncle Tim
9 years ago

Whoops! I misspoke! Great Britain’s average difficulty on bars was 6.266. I was looking at their beam difficulty, which was a 5.667.

THAT WAS AMAZING
THAT WAS AMAZING
9 years ago

I gotta say that Uncle Tim’s impression at the end was the absolute best thing ever!!!! hahahahaha

Also, even though I self ascribe myself as a diehard Russian fan, I absolutely agree that Becky Downie should have won bars. She was completely on point with her routine, and given Mustafina’s current state of injury it just wasn’t feasible that she could have beaten Downie had Downie nailed her hardest routine, which she clearly did. So congrats to her!!!

Overall, I gotta say that I loved this episode to the teeth! 😀

Also, I’m wondering if you guys are going to do an episode for the MAG Euros next week or not! I know that not necessarily all of the people who follow this podcast are huge fans of MAG, but I always appreciate the insight you guys bring into it. And I think I speak for a lot of people who enjoy this podcast when I say that we would greatly appreciate if you guys did to an episode on MAG! Thanks! 🙂

(However, again, I do understand that your fan group isn’t necessarily as oriented towards MAG, so even if you don’t do a full episode as long as this one, even just a mini episode/just a half hour in the next episode would be really nice. Thanks again!)

THAT WAS AMAZING
THAT WAS AMAZING
9 years ago

Also, I’ve been going back and forth about Kharenkova winning beam. On one hand, when I did the break down of both hers and Iordache’s routines by had with the code in front of me, it was essentially a tie between them, but I’m also untrained.

I think it just came down to the same thing that got Mustafina the 14.400 in AA finals at Euros last year… It seems that the European judges just really like the elegance and beauty that the Russians bring to the game, even if it’s just an extra tenth or so.

Arch
Arch
9 years ago

Hey Gymcastic–

Just was looking at the scholarship numbers for UF re: Silvia
Colussi-Pelaez’s transfer and UF had to find room for another scholarship in 2015. Given how Colussi-Pelaez contributed in 2014 (not a lot), and how they needed to find the scholarship to stay under the 12 limit for Alex McMurtry to join the team for the beginning of the 2015 season, they might have encouraged her to look elsewhere. Particularly given what Florida is bringing back and the ridiculous freshman class they have coming in, it might have been very difficult for Colussi-Pelaez to make her way into the lineups, something that might be significantly easier at Oregon State. Keep in mind NCAA grant-in-aide agreements are not necessarily four year agreements, a lot of time they have to be renewed annually (think Beckerman at UCLA).

Arch
Arch
9 years ago
Reply to  GymCasticCrew

The NCAA actually changed legislation in 2012 or 2013 that now actually allows for multiyear scholarships but most schools aren’t using them.

“Only six schools in the six major conferences signed at least 24 multiyear scholarships across all sports over the past year: Florida (60), Ohio State (47), NC State (40), Michigan State (30), Arizona State (27) and Auburn (27). Programs tend to prefer single-year scholarships with the option to renew annually.

The multiyear policy was adopted to give student-athletes more rights and discourage the cutting of scholarships on the basis of athletic performance. Many programs still disagree with the idea of a guaranteed four-year scholarship, maintaining that the majority of single-year scholarships are renewed each year.”

Linkin
Linkin
9 years ago

The proper way of pronouncing Maria Kharenkova’s last name is Harenkova, kh is an h sound in Russian. Just remember that Svetlana Khorkina’s name starts with the kh.

Naka
Naka
9 years ago

First off, I would like to say how happy I was to have Jennifer Pinches on the show this week. I enjoy listening to her insight and hope that she could make more appearances—only if she has the time of course!

Second, regarding the whole Kharenkova vs Iordache beam at Euros, I don’t agree that Iordache had the far superior execution between the two of them. Besides the two bigger wobbles and big hop on the dismount, Iordache had all sorts of form issues that shouldn’t be overlooked (i.e. legs apart on her layout, piking down early, twisting form—I’m surprised the judges haven’t devalued her layout). Of course, I don’t deny that Kharenkova had more wobbles, but they’re much less serious. She also does lack some extension on her leaps, and I’m sure when the deductions are added all up, Kharenkova should have the slightly higher execution score. I think the Russians, generally, have clean form on beam skills, but they typically wobble more, which is probably why people tend to be surprised when a Russian has a higher execution score despite having tons of wobbles.

Nico
Nico
9 years ago

I could send you guys some audio on how to pronounce any Russian names you have trouble with either by email or Facebook.

Christian
Christian
9 years ago

Irish nationality note: any person from the whole island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland, is eligible for an Irish passport (because as far as the Irish Republic is concerned Northern Ireland should be part of Ireland rather than the UK, so they offer them Irish passports). So that means that Northern Irish gymnasts are eligible to compete for Northern Ireland AND Great Britain AND Republic of Ireland. I think competing for GBR would exclude you competing for IRL without an official nationality change with the FIG (and vice versa) but lots of gymnasts compete for NI and IRL because NI only competes separately at the Commonwealth Games and IRL doesn’t compete there, so there’s no conflict. Luke Carson for example competes for Northern Ireland at Commonwealths and Ireland at Europeans, Worlds etc. (I think this is right, but Irish people feel free to correct me! It’s pretty complicated, and the laws about Irish people having British nationality are complex as well … IRL and GBR are separate countries but not as separate as some other countries!).

Katrina
Katrina
9 years ago

That tap that Tim is talking about? Nastia does the same thing and it drives me bananas!!!

That and the whole, stick out my head, arch my body then swing down

Katrina
Katrina
9 years ago

Shannon did mention her book with Kristia Quinner that she had a stalker that they had to involve the police with. I’m not sure if it was after 92 or 96 but I do remember that.

NCAA GymCastic Live Show in Fort Worth, TX April 19, 2024

Other episodes

Join the club!

Social Stream

19
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x