Gearing up again

Apologies for my absense from the blogosphere, pre-exam stress has been getting the better of me of late but I'm back and keeeping an eye on preparations for London 2012. Here's a rundown of some of the bigger news in olympic women's gymnastics.

USA

Undoubtedly the country with the most competition for a spot on the olympic team, the latest Team USA trainin g camp took place at the Karolyi ranch 2 weekends ago, with a view towards team selection for Pacific Rim Championships and Jesolo, big team meets that will give a preview as to what the Olympic squad might look like. Injured Rebecca Bross also made a respectable (if not faultless) return to competition at the WOGA classic last week.

Pro's Jordyn Wieber and Ali Raisman are gearing up for the American Cup in March and young Gabrielle Douglas was yesterday named as the US alternate, giving her an opportunity to perform (at least as an alternate) at Madison Square Garden. A strong all around performance wouldn't harm her olympic prospets one bit! Watch the Behind the Team documentary from the camp here, including a brief word with Nastia Liukin on her comeback.

Canada

Team Canada had a short off season with having to qualify at the London Test Event. Several of the team were back in action at the Elite Canada meet last week and looking strong,  including Kristina Vaculik and Victoria Moors, who also was nominated to compete at the American Cup. Watch Moors winning floor exercise here.

Russia 

Many of Russia's A team competed domestically at the Moscow Cup 2 weeks ago, including Aliya Mustafina, back with all her difficulty on bars (Watch here). Anastasia Grishina is also attempting to up her difficulty on vault to up her chances against the more veteran seniors. The next big event for them will be Russian Championships, March 21 and then Europeans in May.

Romania
Perhaps the team with the most adversity on the way to 2012. Following the retirement of Ana Porgras, Romania almost faced another blow yesterday with reports Sandra Izbasa had suffered knee ligament damage. Thankfully the injury turned out to be a minor one. A recent news clip showed Izbasa, Ponor and young hopeful Larisa Iordache working on new skills (watch here). Is it too little, to late to take on the big guns?

China

Chinese media has shown footage of a recent team verification event at the Chinese camp (watch here). The focus is clearly on building consistency following multiple errors by China at the 2011 worlds. Veteran Cheng Fei is also looking fit and reported to be back at her difficulty level. Fei along with Sui Lu, Yao Jinnan and Tan Sixin are due to compete at the Zibo and Cottbus world cup events. Couch Gymnast has an unnoficial nominative team list for the Pacific Rim Championships - Lou Nina, Wang Wei, Mei Jie, Jiang Tong, Tan Sixin, Luo Peiru. As in past years the chinese have sent a relatively inexperiened team to this event and used it as a learning exercise rather than a high pressure competition. In 2010 China took the silver medal despite 7 falls from 5 gymnasts on beam!

Great Britain

...have been training fairly quietly, with the home nation championships (Scottish, Welsh and English) marking the first stop on the road to olympic selection. New senior Rebecca Tunney will be headed to the American Cup, British Gymnastics clearly have high hopes for her and are trying to clock up her international experience.


Upcoming events
FIG Olympic draw (TODAY!)

American Cup (3 March)
English Championships (March 2-4)
Gymnix International (9-11 March)
Pacific Rim Championships (16-18 March)
Russian Championships (21 March)
Cottbus World Cup (22-25 March)
Doha Challenger Cup (28-30 March)
Zibo World Cup (7-8 April)