Gymnastics News: Vika Is Back!

Viktoria Komova is back! A video has surfaced online showing the 2011 World Champion on uneven bars performing a full bars set. The video is of a routine that is almost exactly the same as the one she performed at the Russian Nationals with a few exceptions. The video has made its way around the gymnastics blogs but they have all seemed to have missed one small detail, actually a big detail. Vika has dropped her Komova I release and is doing a Chow with 1/2 turn. That is very telling as in a previous post I wrote that she was probably training that element to connect it with from the Pak salto. She has replaced an E element with a much easier E element.

This particular bars set is hovering around a 6.4 and 6.5 D-score. The problem with the set is that she has a very piked jaeger and is probably going to get that element devalued. She probably has a 6.4 D-score at the moment but with the connection of the Pak and Chow 1/2 she could have 6.6 D-score. I don't think this is the bars set she will perform at the Worlds but could be close to it.

She is training bars and beam at the moment and needs a strong performance at Russian Cup later this month to make the team. I will keep my fingers crossed for her to make the team and show the world that she still has it.

Routine Speculation: Viktoria Komova

With an injured ankle and an operation on the table, Viktoria, or Vika as she is most commonly called, leaked a video of her training bars. The very interesting thing is that she was training a move that she has never performed on bars in competition. The move she was training is sometimes referred to as a Chow, referencing Amy Chow.

The skill involves the gymnast enter facing outward, perform a stalder backward through handstand with flight to hang on high bar. The skill is a transition from low bar to high bar and falls under the category of a Shaposhnikova variation. The name is referencing a gymnast from the 1980 Olympics that performed the skill for the very first time.

The speculation is that Vika Komova is going to drop her second low bar to high bar transition, Komova II, for a 'Chow' with a half turn. The move is popularly performed by Aliya Mustafina and Yao Jinnan. It is a skill valued at an E and is much easier to perform than a Komova II, which is really an F skill but for CoP restrictions is only valued at an E. The CoP limits transitions to a maximum value of an E - an unwritten rule of sorts.

If Vika were to keep her exact same uneven bars routine the same as 2012 and add the 'Chow' with a half she would have a 7.0 D-score. That is a very dangerous D-score and would definitely help her chances of competing for an all around gold medal.

Please tell me if you think that's what Vika is training. If you have some inside news that I don't know then please tell me about it and I'll update the post.

Video
The video below shows her performing the 'Chow' without the half turn. The video was probably taken from Vika's instagram account and posted on Alyssia Spaan's YouTube Account.