There are so many words to describe this gymnast. Beautiful, graceful, elegant, powerful, inconsistent... It really is a shame that she is so inconsistent, because she really is so talented. She can vault like most of her teammates cannot even dream of doing. She is not the best bar worker, but she has beautiful lines. She has some of the most difficult and original combinations on beam. And her tumbing combined with her graceful dance and choreography makes in my opinion the best floor routine in the world right now. She is classical and dynamic, something that we haven't seen from the Ukraine in a VERY long time. We have seen some talents from the Ukraine since the break up of the powerful Soviet Union, such as Lilia Podkopyeva, Viktoriya Karpenko, and Alina Kozich. But there is just something about Mariya that makes me go WOW! Whether it is her falling of the beam three times, or seeing her stunning floor routine. Now lets talk about her routines. She does a double twisting Yerchenko, which is not always fully round, and a front pike with a half. She is also the only Ukrainian right now to be doing a double twisting Yerchenko. On beam she does a front arieal straight into a front summy tucked, and back hand spring into an arabian, which is shy high, and an arieal LOSO combination, with a double tuck dismount. She use to do one of the most beautiful Onodi's that I have ever seen, and a dismount of two back hand springs into a double back. But so far this year, she has not performed these elements. And the major elements in her floor routine are a double front, triple twist, and a memmel turn. And with the upgrades that she is making on floor, she can have a 6.0 SV. She is very capable of qualifying to a beam and floor finals at this years World Championships, and maybe even next years Olympics. Mariya is unfortunately injured right now, but we can hopefully see her fully recovered at the World Championships. Below are some of her routines from this year and 2010.
It seems like it will be an interesting event. We will see Cheng Fei and Huang Qiushuang. This will be Huang's comeback event after her minor injury that made her miss the Chinese Nationals. And we get to see how much better Cheng Fei is getting. This is going to be a very good event with other big names being Lauren Mitchell, Jessica Savona, and the whole entire Chinese team! I'm not very acquainted with anybody on the Korea team though. This is also Talia Chiarelli's first international event for Canada, and it maybe her first period. So below are the participants! And Japan has not listed their team yet.
AUSTRALIA
LITTLE, Emily
MITCHELL, Lauren
BRENNAN, Ashleigh
MILLER, Larrissa
WHEELER, Georgia CANADA
CHIARELLI, Talia
GARDINER, Madeline
LEBLOND-CHARTRAND, Coralie
PEGG, Dominique
SAVONA, Jessica CHINA
SUI, Lu
YAO, Jinnan
CHENG, Fei
YANG, Yilin
HUANG, Qiushuang KOREA
JO, Hyun Joo
PARK, Kyung jin
PARK, Ji Yeon
HEO, Seon mi
EUM, Eun hee Japan
TBD
