Thank you JLG for the translation!
Reporter 1: In today's competition we saw the familiar faces of 2008 Olympians Jiang Yuyuan and He Kexin and 2012 Olympian Sui Lu.
Reporter 2: On balance beam, we saw 2012 Beam Silver medalist Sui Lu. The performance today of this strong gymnast wasn't too bad. The first half of her event had some deductions because she hasn't completed for more than half a year. This time competing in the qualifiers of the Chinese Nationals, her biggest obstacle is losing weight.
Sui Lu: So, I've gained about 10 pounds. Up til now, I've lost about 6 lbs but it's still more energy consuming to throw tricks. I should concentrate now because the qualifiers are over and the finals are 3-4 months away. So now I should tighten up.
Reporter 2: With the lively music is Jiang Yuyuan, the women's team captain, on the floor. This former gold medalist Olympian performed at her usual standard today. She's now not yet 22 but this little girl is now the Chinese team's (super) big sister.
Jiang Yuyuan: Now I'm the oldest (female) gymnast in the whole country! I can't quite believe I'm that old! Really, there's no one older than I am now! The good thing about being so old but working so hard is that they [the younger gymnasts] have to work even harder.
Reporter 2: Beijing Olympic gold medalist and London Olympic silver medalist He Kexin's performance naturally drew a lot of attention. But being an older member, there is no avoiding some injuries. She's not in her peak form recently. During warm ups, she fell a lot but during competition, she was very steady ultimately performing not too bad.
He Kexin: (missed 1st sentence) As a senior, we have to put in a lot of effort. For example, losing weight or training with stamina. We probably have to put in 3x more effort than when I was preparing for the Olympics to achieve this current/pre-competition state. So, I guess, personally, I have to adjust.
Reporter 2: So coming from 17 different teams, 124 female gymnasts competed in this grueling qualifications for the Nationals. The first 12 teams and the individuals that are first 8 on each event will compete in the September finals.
AA Results
| 1 | Yao Jinnan | 56.701 |
| 2 | Shang Chunsong | 55.635 |
| 3 | Zeng Siqi | 55.335 |
Event Final qualifiers can be found here, and all-around final results here, more at Chinese Gymnastics.
Kesley Cofsky of U of Maryland
Credit: Christian Jenkins/The Diamondback
A new series on College Fantasy Gymnastics. This review is brought to you by Camie.
Why did you sign up for fantasy gymnastics?
Some friends of mine had always been into fantasy football, soccer, baseball... I thought those things were pretty cool. When I heard about a gymnastics one, I decided I totally had to do it. Also I've always wanted to be more into NCAA, I knew that a game like that would make me keep up with college gymnastics.
What was your thought process in picking your gymnasts?
I got about 8 gymnasts from my original draft. Back then I knew almost nothing about NCAA, I just kept up with my favorite gymnasts (most former elites) and most famous schools (UCLA, Florida, Georgia...). So what I did was to try to pick my favorite gymnasts, I didn't think "make a team." It was a mistake.
When I got to know my real team, there were about 10 gymnasts I had never heard about (even some colleges I had never heard about)! Doing the research was pretty fun, though. Then I searched and learned about their strongest and weakest events and I started making spreadsheets to guide my line-ups. The tricky thing is that you have to think about their position in your team and her school's team. Sometimes your 'anchor' on some event is not as essential for her school line up as she is to yours.
Tell us a little bit about your lineups
My most reliable gymnasts were my top 3 AA: Kesley Cofsky, Emma Willis and Alyssa Nocella. I wouldn't be able to put a line up without them.
The event where I changed my line up the most was vault. I had a lot of great vaulters and every week they were scoring higher and higher and I was always changing to the ones that were getting better. The event where I barely changed my line up was beam, I pretty much just had 8 "beamers", I had nowhere to go, some weeks I just lined 7 or 6, when some schools were not competing.
The gymnast that moved the most around my line up was Alyssa Straub. First few weeks she was AA, then I just lined her on VT for some weeks, end of the season she was on BB and FX line ups.
MVP - most valuable player
This is easy: Kesley Cofsky - Maryland.
KC is a senior. She was rock solid all season, going up on all events and I usually got to count all her four scores into my final team score. This season she set new career records on all events and AA and she was EAGL outstanding senior of the year. She surely is going to be missed next season.
Kesley's 9.125 on FX (fall on last pass)
Ashley Sledge of Alabama
Credit: gymtide.com
A new series on College Fantasy Gymnastics! This analysis is brought to you by me!
Why did you sign up for fantasy gymnastics?
I wanted to learn more about NCAA. So many of the favorites from elite have gone on to have successful NCAA careers and I wanted to learn more about the different schools. You always hear about UCLA and Georgia, for example, but I didn't know much about anywhere else.
What was your thought process in picking your gymnasts? And what did you learn about the gymnasts you may not have chosen. (Please screencap your lineup from the dashboard)
Like most, I think I wanted Sam Peszek and Bridget Sloan but didn't get either. At the time, I decided not to put Peng Peng Lee because the earliest she would compete, at the time, would be the end of the season. I wanted Bridgey Caquatto. I think I put like 50% of the UCLA roster. Then I had a few of the "their name sounds familiar" in Mary Beth Lofgren and Kassandra Lopez. I chose Emily Vidmar because I recognized her last name. I decided I had to put an Alabama gymnast down, I mean, they were the defending National Champions. So I chose Ashley Sledge because we have the same first name - nice logic.
Tell us a little bit about your lineups
For the most part, my lineup was a mess. I had 2 weeks where I didn't count 5 scores on every event - 1 was my fault, and the other week, I really didn't have options for a full lineup on beam. If you followed me on twitter, you know I had a lot of "emotional" picks. Most of them centered around Bridgey Caquatto and Brittany Rogers. Bridgey would do an exhibition routine one week and then I'd have to decide if I wanted to take one of my gymnasts out to put her in the lineup when she there was a very real chance that she wouldn't even compete! Rogers kept making appearances in the all around on floor but it wasn't every week and it wasn't until the end of the regular season so I always wanted to put her on floor but ran the risk of losing a score I actually would need. My vault lineup had 8-9 girls so I never really had trouble with that. Beam and bars were hard considering how heavily I needed my 3 UCLA girls to hit - Lichelle Wong, Mattie Larson, and Sophina Dejesus!
MVP - most valuable player
Ashley Sledge - she was my rock! I watched as many of the free Bama meets as I could and I really think she is Bama's rock as well. Sledge often led off on bars and had a double layout dismount that was so incredibly high! They tried to move her later in the lineup once but it didn't work out. The Bama bar workers needed their fierce leader! She seemed like one who could score greater than 9.9 but the team needed her in that leadoff spot. Sledge also competed on vault and floor and other than week's she was injured, I was never concerned about her score.
Check out the height on her double layout dismount! 9.95 on UB
This is a fun Montage Monday. The first one should make you laugh then the others feature the Fierce Five and Tori & Talia. There's also a USA Gymnastics montage using the Friends theme song.
Ain't Nobody Got Time For That! There are some falls but there are also some epic dance moves.
Fierce Five Recap - look back on the whirlwind the Fierce Five have experienced
Alina Weinstein of Illinois
Credit: Erin Long for Gymnastike
A new series on College Fantasy Gymnastics! This analysis is brought to you by Gina.
Why did you sign up for fantasy gymnastics?
I signed up for Fantasy Gymnastics mainly because I wanted to learn more about NCAA gymnastics. I had followed some of NCAA for a few years, but I wanted to get more involved in the action!
What was your thought process in picking your gymnasts? And what did
you learn about the gymnasts you may not have chosen.
My main goal while drafting my gymnasts was to have primarily individuals who did the all-around or three events. I was honestly afraid that I would have lots of injuries during the season and run out of gymnasts to put on each event! In the end, I accomplished my goal, with all but five of my gymnasts meeting my original criteria. I was very hesitant to pick freshmen, so I did not have some of the exciting talent that this year brought (Danusia! Bridget!). However, one freshman I took a chance on was Brandie Jay – who had an amazing season and is now one of my favorite gymnasts in the NCAA!
Tell us a little bit about your lineups
My lineups definitely had a mixture of reliability and instability! People like Alina Weinstein, Chelsea Davis, Katherine Grable, Brandie Jay and Erica Brewer were almost always dependable. My beam lineup was where most of the moving went on – due to early season inconsistency by “beamers” like Jessie Jordan, Sarah Persinger, Shona Morgan and Erin Freier. Thankfully most of the mistakes were cleaned up by the end of the season…but my beam scores still struggled!
MVP - Most Valuable Player
There are a few girls on my team who are completely deserving of this title, but I believe Alina Weinstein is my true MVP. It was her senior season at Illinois and she certainly did not hold anything back! Alina scored a 9.9 or higher on vault five times this season, including a perfect 10.0 on vault in week 11. Additionally, her incredibly difficult floor routine earned her 10 scores of 9.9 or higher. She was extremely consistent and is without a doubt a huge reason the Illinois team qualified a full team to the NCAA Championships.
Perfect 10 on VT
