A new date for the Nationals?

It is really sad that the Nationals had to be postoponed thanks to the outbreak of H1N1 in sister country Argentina (and consequently in Brazil as well). As if the outbreak had not caused enough harm to the competition, Jade Barbosa is uncertain if she will compete or not and both Laís Souza and Daiane dos Santos stated that they are not going to take part in this competition... or any other competition this year.

At least CBG now has a much easier time in choosing what girls are going to the World Championships in London. Barring injury, the selected girls will probably be Ana Claudia Silva, Ehtiene Franco, Khiuane Dias and Bruna Leal. Priscila Cobello has a very slight chance of taking one spot, but I doubt so. Maybe she will be an alternate.

Too bad Janaína Silva, Nadhine Ourives, Letícia Costa and Nicole Beltrame are not old enough to compete this year. Speaking about Letícia Costa, newspaper O Globo (one of the most important newspapers in Brazil) featured a front page article about her. Letícia is being called a "diamond in need of lapidation", which is quite surprising. Her coach said that he is going to ask her to do her best and then some. She is only 14 years old and she is probably going to be the chosen Brazilian girl to take part in the Youth Olympics next year.

Also, there are some rumors that the Nationals have been rescheduled to November 27-29. CBG has made no official announcements so far, so it is safer to take these rumours with a grain of salt.

As a final note, the Brazilian Group in Rhythmics placed 19th at the Kiev World Cup Series. A very, very disappointing (and alarming) result for the group. I hope the girls can pull themselves together and achieve better results in future competitions.

Things are going slowly lately...

Today, I was supposed to be writing about the Nationals, but things did not go as planned by CBG. The delay of the competition was a cold news. To make things worse, there is still not a new date for the Nationals. The gymnasts who will compete at the World Championship in October are to be selected during the Nationals. The deadline for the submission of the names of the gymnasts is September 9. CBG does not have much time left and, at this rate, they should either transfer the location where the Nationals will take place or just pick the gymnasts they are planning to send to the Worlds anyway and pray they make the right decisions.

In other news, according to this article, Laís Souza and Daiane dos Santos decided not to take part in the 2009 World Championships. Not only that, but they are are not planning to compete at any other competition this year. They say in the article that their priorities are set at the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics, so they will take the time off to recover from injuries and tighten their routines.

It is good to hear that Laís is not exactly planning to retire as of yet. I just hope they can keep going until the next Olympics.

Difficulty or execution?

Since 2006 the Code of Points in Artistic Gymnastics abolished the perfect 10 score in favor of a more open-ended evaluation system. This change is highly debatable; many people dislike the current scoring system and claim desperately for the return of the perfect 10. I, for one, like the new scoring system better. It is just fair in my book to think that a more difficult routine should, in theory, be rewarded with a significantly higher score. But, of course, difficulty is not everything. If the execution is not good enough, a difficult routine is more likely to go to waste.

Or is it?

During the last quad, a lot of difficult-yet-not-so-well-executed routines found their way to the finals, while clean-yet-not-so-difficult routines were left out. And even if a superbly clean gymnast made it to the finals without an uber-difficult routine, his/her efforts were usually not well-rewarded.

My point is that, although it is a good decision to separate difficulty from execution, there is still not a solid balance between these aspects. It was a pain for me to see clean, artistic gymnasts with difficult routines like Anastasia Koval and Ksenia Semenova being left out of the podium at the Olympic Games last year.

So, while I can see the benefits of the current Code of Points, I admit it is not perfect. While I believe gymnastics is all about challenging one's limits, there should be a limit for one's limit. Every time I watch He Kexin's new Uneven Bars routine I am truly amazed at how perfect she is, but I am also scared to death that she might just slip and fall and God knows what could happen then.

Defying one's limits is not to be taken as defying death. What scares me is that gymnastics is not about execution anymore; it is all about difficulty. I believe, for the safety of the gymnasts, that there should be a cap. FIG should not allow routines over, say, 6.0 or 6.5 in difficulty. Those are still very high difficulty scores under the current Code of Points.

Why am I ranting about all this? Because Brazilian gymnasts seem to be taking the "clean-yet-not-so-difficult" route this quad. I believe this is the safest way to go, but, more likely than not, they are bound not to be rewarded by the current Code of Points for a clean routine. When we think "let the best gymnast win", what do we understand as best? Is the best routine always the most difficult one? I beg to differ. Let the cleanest-yet-still-difficult-but-not-life-threatening routine win. That is much, much better.

CBG decides to postpone the Nationals

Sad news. CGB has decided that there is no guarantee of safety for the athletes in Porto Alegre thanks to the massive outbreak of swine flu in Argentina. Since Porto Alegre is geographically close to Argentina, CBG has decided to delay the Nationals to an indefinite date, or at least "as soon as the environment becomes safe for gathering the Big Brazilian Gymnastics Family" (corny, but that is how CBG is).

At least the delay gives more time to Daiane and Jade to recover. While Jade is slowly recovering from her hand injury, Daiane is recovering from a recent surgery on her knee. She is currently in the process of choosing a new music for her floor routine. Rumors are that Daiane is currently considering the Indian music Chori Chori Hum Gori Se for the routine. Also, in a recent interview for a TV show, she said that she is also considering including the Dos Santos I (double arabian pike) in her routine.

Nicole Beltrame: promising gymnast

I am really getting excited about the National Championships as the competition comes close. I was browsing YouTube looking for videos of last year's competition and I found a video of a very promising gymnast: Nicole Beltrame.



The audio quality is not so great, but the video is worth watching. She is only 12 years old and can perform two D skills: double pike and 2.5 twist. I guess we can expect her to include a double tuck in her routine and probably connect the 1.5 twist with the front layout full. It looks like we will have a new gymnast to watch for the 2016 games (and hopefully they will be staged in Brazil).

Who is going to London this year?

With the Brazilian National Championships taking place later this month, we can begin to speculate who is going to make it to the World Championships in October. After the Nationals, one "new" athlete will join the permanent team and CBG will be able to finally choose four girls to represent Brazil at the World Championships.

I would say Ethiene Franco is a lock for the team. Ethiene is not particularly strong in any specific apparatus, but her routines are solid and relatively difficult. This makes her a perfect candidate for being Brazil's best All-Arounder now that Jade Barbosa can not compete on every piece of apparatus anymore. As the team is now, I guess that the other three spots would probably be taken by Ana Claudia Silva, Khiuane Dias and Bruna Leal.

But there is one spot left on the team and both Jade and Daiane are going to compete at Nationals. Probably one of them will take the last spot and also make it to London as well. I bet on Daiane, since she is working hard to return to form. Earlier this year, she stated: "I want to go to London. (...) This is my objective, my dream". Good luck to her. If she makes it to London, Daiane is Brazil's best shot at a medal. The gymnast is a floor specialist and won the world title in 2003 at this apparatus. Can she make history again, six years later? We hope so. But first she has to secure her spot on the team.

At the men's side, Diego Hypólito is also a lock. I guess the other three spots will be taken by Artur Zanetti, Mosiah Rodrigues and Vitor Rosa. Sergio Eras will probably be the alternate. But this is just wild speculation and we still have a long way to go until October.