Slovenian World Cup analysis

Ok, so the women's field wasn't that deep at the recent World Cup meet in Maribor, Slovenia. But I still found some interesting tidbits in the final results of the competition.

Vault

1. Hong Un Jong PRK 14.300
2. Marissa King GBR 14.075
3. Nansy Damianova CAN 13.387
4. Marina Kostyuchenko 13.812
5. Imogen Cairns GBR 13.775
6. Ariella Kaslin SUI 13.750 7
7. Laura Gombas HUN 13.675
8. Dorina Boczogo HUN 13.312


Uneven Bars

1. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs CAN 14.875
2. Kristina Vaculik CAN 14.850
3. Marta Pihan POL 14.500
4. Hong Un Jong PRK 14.375
5. Lichelle Wong NED 14.125
6. Katja El-Halabi LEB 13.500
7. Danielle Englert SUI 12.825
8. Cha Yong Hwa PRK 12.725


Balance Beam

1. Kristina Vaculik CAN 14.975
2. Sanne Wevers NED 14.425
3. Nathalia Sanchez COL 14.275
4. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs CAN 14.175
5. Ariella Kaslin SUI 14.150
6. Marta Pihan POL 13.950
7. Lichelle Wong NED 13.525
8. Adela Sajn SLO 13.475


Floor Exercise

1. Suzanne Harmes NED 14.525
2. Yasmin Zimmermann SUI 13.950
3. Nansy Damianova CAN 13.900
4. Marta Pihan POL 13.825
5. Marina Kostyuchenko UKR 13.800
6. Ariella Käslin SUI 13.675
7. Emma Willis CAN 13.550
8. Zoi Lima POR 13.300

Notes

• PRK sending their girls to a World Cup Event? WTF? Anyway Hong Un Jong pretty much locked up the 2nd spot on the PRK gymnastics team (the other being her PRESUMED sister Hong Su Jong) with a win on vault. She looked pretty good on bars as well, despite not medaling.
• Cha Yong Hwa (PRK) MAJORLY BOMBED her bars set. The girl has potential on that apparatus; she won qualifying at Maribor and had a 7.4 A-score at prelims of last year's worlds. However, four major mistakes in her routine likely ended her hopes of going to Beijing.
• For those that are worrying that Un Jong will come busting out at the olympics with an Amanar and a Cheng like her sister and will end up stealing a vault medal; I find this improbable. Yes, we will probably see the Cheng; the North Koreans push their girls to do the most unthinkably difficult skills. But the Amanar seems a bit too much for Un Jong's lack of power to handle. She crashed a DTY in warm-up and looked like she was still struggling to get two twists around even when she landed it in competition. Her second vault was only a Podkopayeva (5.2 A-score), so getting her Cheng back could be a challenge as well.
• Despite Kristina Vaculik's win on beam, she didn't help her Beijing cause at all, nor did Hofner-Hibbs' win on bars for that matter. The very strange selection procedure for the Canadian Olympic team requires that athletes earn points by scoring a certain mark on a given event. The required marks on bars (15.3) and beam (15.1) were not met by either Vaculik or Hofner-Hibbs. The required mark for a vault average (13.6) was not attained by Nancy Damianova, who leads the standings (32) ahead of Hofner-Hibbs (30) and Vaculik (19). Damianova is wisely maxing out her efforts on vault, earning several points at other meets on an event which doesn't require an especially high score to obtain points. It looks like Nancy Damianova and Elyse Hofner-Hibbs will be the two women representing Canada at the olympics.
• Lichelle Wong's inconsistency issues (she fell in Maribor on her UB dismount and on BB, too) could open the door for a successful olympic comeback for Suzanne Harmes, who proved her cause by winning floor exercise. However, I feel Verona Van de Leur will actually get the lone Dutch entry to the olympics.
• Marissa King (GBR) will likely be on the British olympic team. Though she was shaky here, she is an especially strong vaulter. With Jana Komrskova's retirement and Elena Zamolodchikova's questionable status for making the Russian olympic team, King may just find herself in olympic vault finals. Though she won't likely medal, this would be huge for British gymnastics considering that Beth is the only British athlete in memory to qualify for a world/olympic event final. (Beth actually didn't make bars finals at the '04 games).

That is all.