Gymnastics News: Alla Sosnitskaya Working a Cheng Vault

Russian gymnast Alla Sosnitskaya, vault and floor specialist, has rocked the gymternet with a leaked video of her performing a decent looking Cheng vault. The Cheng vault is valued at a 6.4, one tenth higher than the Amanar vault. With the addition of such a vault the Russian team's chances are looking much better not only for the team event but for maybe a vaulting medal.

If Alla is able to perform the Cheng and the double twisting yurchenko she will have the same difficulty as MyKyala Skinner, my favorite to win a medal on vault. If she does have this vault ready she is sure to make vault finals more interesting considering how many gymnasts are performing high difficulty vaults. We only need to look back three years to find a time when there were only three gymnasts doing difficult vaults and the champion was a given.

On the team side of things a Cheng vault would bolster a lineup made up of double twisting yurchenkos. This vault performed at a medium level would score at least a 15. That 15 is equivalent to a stuck double.

On other news I will start to post more as podium training gets under way in Nanning.

Opinion: Russia Needs Maria Paseka

Maria at the Olympics.

The sorry state of Russian gymnastics, at the current time, means that Russia needs Maria Paseka more than anything now. Maria Paseka is far from being an elegant and polished gymnast but what she lacks in execution she makes up in difficulty. As many of you might remember that she trains the very difficult Amanar vault and while she isn't consistent with it, it is a risk the Russian national team needs for now. Russia took the risk at the 2012 Olympics and it paid off when Maria came home with a Bronze medal on vault.

Maria is the Russian gymnast that blew up Twitter with her looks. During Team Final men and women were captivated by her beauty and tweeted their admiration. Sadly for her she was only able to barely land her Amanar vault keeping her team in contention.

Maria is back in training and this time she is working on a second vault, a Rudi vault. The Rudi is a difficult vault to explain so I shall leave that for another day. It is the vault popularized by Alicia Sacramone who was known for performing it throughout her career. It is worth above 6.0 which makes it a very rewarding vault if a gymnast can land it. Below is an video of Maria training it and it appears as though she is very close to landing it on regular surface.

Vaulting isn't just the reason that the Russian team needs Maria, it is the floor that she could be critical. The Russians have a very weak floor lineup, with Aliya and Vika coming out of surgeries they are likely going to be absent from floor. Ksenia Afanasyeva is definitely out of Worlds and that leaves very few options. They have two promising new faces in Alla Sosnitskaya and Maria Kharenkova but both are fresh and need more time to upgrade their floor routines to compete with the international stars.

This is where Maria comes in, she was shown training some of the hardest tumbling passes in recent videos. She does a double layout stretched with ease, a double arabian tucked with command and can land an arabian double piked! I can't think of any other Russian who has ever trained that tumbling pass. On top of that she has dance elements that are good - a double turn with leg held at 90°.

The potential is there and if she can convert on vault and floor at the Russian Cup she is sure to make the Russian national team for Worlds. Do you guys agree with my opinion? Let me know and if you disagree tell me why.

-Via Alyssia Spaan on YouTube.

Gymnast Update: Anastasia Sidorova Back in Training!

Russian gymnast Anastasia Sidorova is back in training after failing to make the 2012 Russian Olympic team. Anastasia S. was pegged by many to make the team but was removed from real contention because of a bike accident. I'll describe the accident, she was riding a bicycle and apparently broke her wrists when her bike stopped. A gymnast is really really limited without the use of their wrists - they can train bars with a broken leg but not with broken wrists. She was able to make a run at a spot at trials but didn't have an amanar vault, had a weak beam set and her floor exercise was very watered down from when she was Russian champion on floor.

The videos being filtered of her are just recently out - within three hours of this post. She appears to be at her home gym and is training on vault. The video shows that she is the in the early phase of her comeback and is almost at the same point as Aliya Mustafina is. She does the basic yurchenko layout, then the full twisting yurchenko and then attempts a double twisting yurchenko. She does not successfully get the double twist in but I'm sure she can get it after more training.

I find this news to be a positive light because this particular gymnast is very talented and was on my predicted 2012 Russian national team. With that said I don't know if she has what it takes to make the 2016 team. The team is very light and needs top caliber gymnasts to supplant the aging talents but can she do it? I have hope that she can make a successful comeback and at least make a world team.  

Via Alyssia Spaan on Youtube - She always scores the best video!

Breaking Down | Vault Groups/ Entries

The CoP has separated every vault entry into five groups dependent on how the gymnast enters the jump from the horse. The vault board is sometimes referred to as a horse - it is a relic from when the old vaulting board was flatter and basically a pommel horse without pommels. It is necessary to know about entries because during vault finals the women must perform two separate vaults from two different families, entries. Plus if you know the entry of the vault then you will more likely know which vault is being performed. Let's go!

Group 1
The group one vaults are by far the least valued vaults and probably the easiest - to some. They are classified as a vault without a salto. As you have learned from a previous post - a salto is referencing a double tuck, double pike, double stretched and so on. This vault can be with out without longitudinal axis turn in the first and/or the second phase.

Note: The first phase is when the gymnast has hit the springboard and is about to hit the horse. The second phase is after they have left the horse and are coming down.

Group 2
The second group is from a handspring entry in a forward style and can be with or without a full turn onto the horse, first phase. Then requires a salto forward or backward with or without a longitudinal axis turn in the landing phase, second phase. A vault like this could be one that is a handspring entry and then a double tucked forward. That's the Produnova vault, the most difficult vault ever performed by a woman.

Group 3
Like the second group the third group also has a handspring entry but includes either a quarter or half turn in the entry phase, first phase. This is called a Tsukahara entry but is rarely referenced in the women's field. The vault requires a salto backward with or without a longitudinal axis in the second phase, after the horse.

Group 4
The most performed vaults come from group four and are usually referred to as Yurchenko entries. The Yurchenko vault is named after Natalia Yurchenko and it is a round-off entry. The round-off can have no turn or a three quarter turn in the first phase. Then a salto backward is performed with or without longitudinal axis turn in the second phase.

Many of you might remember this vault as the one that McKayla Maroney performed in the Team Final at the Olympics London. It is named the Amanar vault after Simona Amanar of Romania.

Group 5
Like group four, group five has a round-off entry but includes a half turn in the first phase. Then it launches salto forward or backward with or without a longitudinal axis turn in the second phase. It is a very specific type of round-off entry that means a gymnast has to perform a 180° turn onto the horse to fit this group.

The most famous vault in this group is the Cheng vault. It is named after the famous Chinese gymnast Cheng Fei. It is a round-off half on and then stretched with a full turn and a half off.

Produnova Vault - it's a bit cowboyed but most men that perform it are just as bad.

The Amanar Vault - the almost perfect vault that Maroney dropped in Team Final. In slow motion!