British WAG (and MAG!) talk

[Doug1233]

Yes it definitely feels like the puberty monster hit Jen a little harder than Jess

 

[irichluck21]

Well also…injuries

 

[Doug1233]

Often go hand in hand, unfortunately.

 

[RedBirdie]

I remember the talk around 2020 Am Cup was that Jen was definitely going to Tokyo, but Jess was very much on the bubble. Jen was always considered the better gymnasts when they were juniors, iirc.

Funny the difference a year makes.

 

[Denn]

Can we not say things like this, please? I feel like it’s just not right to talk about teenagers this way.

 

[Doug1233]

HOT TAKE

Could Frags have won 2017 Floor gold:

The landing on that first pass is easily 3 tenths, right?

 

[Samxo]

 

[J175]

Northern European Championships (Jyväskylä, Finland)

Not really British, but half the teams are British or Irish, so this seems the best place for it.

England, Wales and Scotland entered both mens and womens teams, Ireland WAG only, other teams are Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden (MAG only) and Iceland (MAG only).

Most notably from a British perspective the Welsh women’s team includes Commonwealth Games team members Jea Maracha, Mia Evans and Sofia Micallef, plus British junior champion Ruby Evans and Junior Euros teammate Evie Flage-Donovan, as well as Abigail Roper.

WAG Team:

1. Wales
2. England
3. Norway

WAG AA:

Kaia Tanskanen (Finland) 52.1
Maria Tronrud (Norway) 50.35
Halle Hilton (Ireland) 50.25

England’s Emily Roper was 4th with 50.15, Wales’ Jea Maracha 5th with 49.8, leading a tightly packed cluster of England and Wales gymnasts who finished 4th to 10th.

The rest of Finland’s Worlds team were apparently entered but withdrew.

 

[J175]

MAG team:

1. Finland
2. Scotland
3. Iceland

AA:

Robert Kirmes (Finland) 81.665
Elias Koski (Finland) 80.932
Joona Reiman (Finland) 80.098

Two per country doesn’t apply apparently. Scotland’s Cameron Lynn (78.864) and Euan McLellan (78.664) were 4th and 5th. Next best Brit was England’s Thomas Jones in 10th place. They might well have won anyway but the home team seem to have selected a much stronger team than anyone else in the men’s competition.

 

[makam]

To go additionally off topic, with Maisa Kuusikko and Kaia Tanskanen, Finland is just one gymnast short of a team that could go to the next level.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

That Welsh WAG team are all from Cardiff I think. Interesting development.

 

[irichluck21]

To go additionally off topic, with Maisa Kuusikko and Kaia Tanskanen, Finland is just one gymnast short of a team that could go to the next level.

They were missing Rosanna Ojala at Europeans and Worlds due to injury. Once they have her back it gives them more options to have the 5th team member, as Sani Makela’s start values are the lowest on the team, so hit routines from here are the ones that all should be dropped and they were at Worlds. She is really just the backup team member, even though she is the current National AA champion. However Kuusikko did not compete due to flu and the other members had multiple fallsat that meet.
There is lots of depth and around 45-50 gymnastics competed at Nationals, but other than the top 5-6 athletes, none of them are of the same quality.
If they can manage to get a strong vaulter or a strong UB/BB girlie to specialize, they will be in business.

Sara Laiho is their beam champion, but she starts around 4.0-4.2 so she really won due to execution and others having mistakes.

No juniors coming up that can make an impact, though Ekaterina Podobed is their junior champion and could compete with the current top group of seniors but she is not senior eligible until 2025.

Having Ojala back will help the team regardless, so they have her to look forward to for 2023.

 

[J175]

A couple of them are at English clubs, but still it’s interesting that so many of GB’s top new seniors/ juniors are involved in the Welsh team (plus Poppy Stickler as well who wasn’t at this competition).

I think though this competition is a pretty good representation of where GB’s younger gymnasts are at, Stickler and Ruby Stacey being the most notable absentees - there seems to be quite a few at a certain level finishing in that bunch around 48-49 AA, but as yet no one has emerged from that group to beat the top gymnasts from the Nordic countries, or really challenge for GB teams for major competitions.

Event final winners:

VT: Ruby Evans 13.383 average. (5.0 D first vault - DTY?, scored 13.7 for it)

UB: Jea Maracha/ Julie Erichsen (Norway) 12.433 (Both listed in 1st place on the site, Maracha would win if the usual tiebreaker applied)

BB: Halle Hilton (Ireland) 13.066
FX: Kaia Tanskanen (Finland) 12.933

Cameron Lynn won pommels, Finland everything else on the MAG side.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Haha obviously pommels goes to the Brit!

 

[tsarinajen]

Quad double?

 

[RAFIKI]

He finishes twisting so early on this Stunning.

 

[dweiss324]

I did not know it was physically possible to start pretwisting halfway through a bhs

 

[Bob]

I’m sorry I don’t see any pretwist in the BHS

 

[makam]

The staggered hand placement on the mat definitely makes it look like pretwisting. Or just looks…odd.

 

[dweiss324]

That’s what I meant, the wide armed, staggered hands bhs, I’ve never seen anyone stagger one arm in front of the other on a bhs to set up a twist, maybe there’s a better word than pretwisting. The twist itself is surprisingly clean and well completed