All Japan Championships (Day One)
Just a quick report from day one of All Japan (Event Preliminaries).
I have to make this quick though because I am on my friend’s computer (I didn’t bring my own laptop so pictures will follow later also).
- On floor there was a high-schooler that qualified first into finals. He did a beautiful layout full-out to front one and three. He ended with a stuck double layout.
- Pommel horse seemed to be a tough event for everyone but it was clear that everyone was trying to raise the bar. Guys were challenging difficult routines in order to raise their start scores. The highlight was seeing several of the Juntendo (the university I’m training at) make it into finals.
- I didn’t get to watch too much of rings but from the looks of it they seemed to be scoring pretty hard. A good routine wouldn’t score so high. It seemed like they were really strict on the time held on strength elements and positions. It was almost like guys who would do easier routines with perfect form scored higher than guys that did difficult routines.
- There were a bunch of strong vaults. The highlight was definitely seeing my “teammate” Go Tagashira hit both of his 17.0 vaults. He did a Lopez (Kasamatsu with two twists) and a Yeo II (handspring front layout with 2.5 twists). He qualified first into finals.
- Parallel bars and high bar is by far the strongest for the Japanese. People were raising the bar and increasing their start values. Lots of peach-full turns being performed on the p-bars. There were several routines on high bar that I thought were amazing. Hisashi (Mizutori) performed a routine with a layed-out kolman, and normal kolman, and all of the above. Kohei (Uchimura) added some difficulty to his routine also by adding a tak-full to a yamawaki.
Pretty amazing stuff! I’m excited about event finals on Sunday but before that is team finals tomorrow. That should definitely be a fierce battle.
Aside from gymnastics, I’ve been able to sightsee a little. It was cold in Tokyo but at least it wasn’t raining. Hopefully this clear weather continues!
I couldn’t find you yesterday…
Anyway, I was very excited about Go Tagashira’s vault.
I’m his big fan. He looks decent and quiet.
I suppose you know much about him.
How would you describe him?
Bet of luck! GO!
I’ll be there on Sunday.
hi tomoko. that’s too bad. i’ll be there on sunday as well. you will probably be able to find me with the juntendo group.
GO is a great guy. he’s nice and a hard worker. i really like training with him!
Sho,
Hey, that’s neat about you and Mas. I should of known! He’s a wonderful technician and I learned much from him. How about Kasamatsu? I have had some contact with him with the gym I worked with here in Hawaii. We host the Aloha Gymfest competition every January and Kasamatsu and many other Japanese teams bring their gymnasts. It’s always been a competition for girls, but for 3 years, we tried to get a boys competition going, but with little success, so now it’s just girls again. Anyway, when us “old” former gymnasts, now coaches explain to the youngens about Kasamatsu even Tsukahara, who has also graced our competition in the past…the kids go nuts to meet them! It’s great to have living legends! Thanks for the update on the competition there. Unfortunately, I don’t know some of the moves you mentioned…ahh how the sport continues and leaves us old folk behind!! Happy viewing!!