Monday 1 December 2008

1993 World Qualifying Competition

I've been watching the 1993 World Qualifying Competition...
Here's some of the highlights:

He Xuemei's Balance Beam Routine.
She mounts with a press to handstand into a heely turn and goes on to perform a straight back with a full as well as a (very high and straight) straight back. She does a beautiful jump into scale and like all the Chinese, shows great flexibility and control. She qualified to the beam finals but unfortunatley fell on her full twist and stumbled back on her dismount.
She competed in the 1992 Olympics but sadly didn't qualify to any finals. Apparently, she moved to Japan and competed for them at the Asian Games in 2006 aged 29 (!) under the name Setsubai Takaseki.

Mini Lilia Podkopayeva's Floor Routine
Sure, she fell, but there was definatley an air of what was to come here. She already had nice dance and clean lines.


Luisa Protocarrero's Beam Routine
This was jam packed with interesting and beautiful skills. I loved her flexibility. Unfortunatley, she seemed to be having an off day with quite a few wobbles and thus, didn't qualify for the beam finals. Here she is in the all around final, where she performed better:


Shannon Miller.. On every piece of appratus.
She really was on form here. I wish we still saw execution like hers. I was less impressed with her in 92 and 96, but here she was beautiful, a truly deserving world all around champion.
Here she is on floor:


There's also a few interviews and training footage, it's worth a watch

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