Yesterday at the São Paulo Challenge World Cup, the vault and uneven bars finals brought redemption for some and long-term concerns for others.
On the vault, the gold went to Chinese Deng Yalan, as it should have, since she had the highest D scores on the competition. The execution mistakes of the prelimis were behind her. With a 6.2 front handspring front layout with one and a half twist and a 6.0 double twisting Tsukahara, she scored 14.962 overall and earned the first gold medal of the day for China.
Rebecca Andrade performed her double twisting Yurchenko with great fluency, but due to lower difficulty she was depending on her Chinese competitor mistakes. Her second vault was also good, a Yurchenko with a half twist onto the board with a piked somersault, that granted her a total score of 14.700.
TCG asked coach Alexandr Alexandrov if it was true that Rebecca performs the Amanar and if so, why she did not go for it today. A gold medal at home would have been great to keep alive Brazilian public’s current enthusiasm for gymnastics. He says she does performs a good Amanar, and because of a foot injury in the beginning of the year they are watering down her vaults for now. According to him, it won’t be long before we see her performing it in competition –hinting a probable Amanar at Pan-Ams and Glasgow.
Franchesca Santi from Chile got the bronze, also performing a double twisting Yurchenko. Her result was a great achievement for Chilean gymnastics, and her execution showed great potential to perform higher difficulty vaults. Other highlights of the vault final were fourth placed Brazilian gymnast Letícia Costa, that hit her double twisting Yurchenko –although with direction issues- and fifth placed Argentinian Ayelen Tarabini. We asked Letícia if there is an Amanar in sight, she says that unfortunately she has not been training it, and added, “If I don’t do it, I will never be a decent contender in a vault final”. If we consider that the Brazilian team will compete against the Americans in the Pan American Games, we will find it hard to disagree with her.
On bars, Chinese gymnast Shang Chungsong redeemed herself from yesterday’s fall and hit her full routine. She achieved a 6.7 difficulty level –we know she is capable of a 6.9- and got away with a rather scary double with a twist dismount. Her clear hip circle to piked Tkatchev was beautiful and her Geinger, very confident. She earned the second gold medal of the day for China.
Sophie Scheder excelled, performing a beautiful straddle Jaeger and showing great lines. She stuck her double tuck with a full dismount. Her execution score, a 8.475, was higher than what she got during qualifications. Surprisingly, she beat her teammate Elisabeth Seitz and took the silver home.
Elisabeth Seitz did a very impressive routine, amazing the public with her releases. She scored a 6.4 difficulty score –the same as Sophie Schreder, lower by 0.2 from yesterday’s D score and had to settle for the bronze. Despite the fact that she did miss handstands and maybe was late on her pirouette, the judges may have been a little too harsh on her.
Current Mexican all-around champion Elsa Garcia also got redemption and ranked fourth in this bar final. Yesterday, a technical mistake on her transition from the high to the low bar – a swing forward to ½ turn to handstand- led to a fall. Today she showed beautiful lines and a stuck dismount, reaching a D score of 6.0, an execution score of 8.525, totaling 14.525.
Chen Siyi did her job and got a much better execution score than she did during qualifications: 8.100, up from 6.850 yesterday. She performed beautiful pirouettes on the high bar and a very high straddle Jaeger, but did not stick her double layout dismount. Placed in fifth, she has been showing good but not impressive work. Perfect technique contrast with lack of power on the swings.
The main disappointments on the bar were the two Brazilian newcomers: Flávia Saraiva fell on her first release, a counter piked reversed hatch, and lost the value of her pirouette on the high bar, that she performed late. For her bar routine is not the most difficult, a bad execution score was enough to push her down to the last place.
Rebecca Andrade also fell, right in the beginning of her routine. Again, it seems like she could have saved it, but she chose to dismount the apparatus. It is the third time in a row that Rebecca falls on her bar routine: during the bar finals in Ljubljana, yesterday in qualifications and today. Questions arise whether she concentrates enough during competition and if she has the presence to save her mistakes and prevent the fall.
Article by: Ana Livia
Photo cover: from HERE