Women European Youth Olympic Festival

[Katie123]

Anyone been following the EYOF?
GB have some real talents up and coming....

Ellie Downie
Floor- 2013 EYOF Elissa Downie FX GBR - YouTube
Bars- 2013 Elissa Downie UB GBR - YouTube
Beam- 2013 EYOF Elissa Downie BB GBR - YouTube
Vault- 2013 EYOF Elissa Downie VT GBR - YouTube

Tyesha Mattis
Floor- 2013 EYOF Tyesha Mattis FX GBR - YouTube (first GB women to EVER compete double double)
Bars- 2013 EYOF Tyesha Mattis UB GBR - YouTube
Vault- 2013 EYOF Tyesha Mattis VT GBR - YouTube
Beam- 2013 EYOF Tyesha Mattis BB GBR - YouTube

Amy Tinkler
Floor- 2013 EYOF Amy Tinkler FX GBR - YouTube
Bars- 2013 EYOF Amy Tinkler UB GBR - YouTube
Beam- 2013 EYOF Amy Tinkler BB GBR - YouTube

 

[Flossyduck]

DD and I have been following it. The girls did fantastically well, just pipped by Russia, but very close. Some great individual results, so the AA and event finals should be really exciting. Three DTY's from two 13 year olds and a 14 year old and they were really well executed too!

As I understand it the floor routines were underscored because the skills are capped at junior level, so some of the big skills don't score their full value in this comp eg. Ellie's double layout scored the same as a double tuck. But that promises good things for the future.

The boys did amazingly well too, taking the gold ahead of the Russians.

Lots of depth and lots of talent in the GB team. All the hard work is paying off and we have some real contenders, wow!

 

[Faith]

I thought this picture was interesting- the GB girls look huge compared to the teeny tiny russians and romanians...

Also interesting as the 3 seem to be amazing power gymnasts, yet the early compulsory pathway seems to better suit the pretty and flexible kids...I watched a couple of beam routines and a few of them aren't 180...

 

[Flossyduck]

the early compulsory pathway seems to better suit the pretty and flexible kids

Lol, I haven't checked the code, but I'm fairly sure they're not marked on looks Faith, god forbid!

All three of those girls did really well in the early compulsories. I'm not sure I totally agree with you that the route suits flexible girls over power girls, although I understand what you are saying because the range and conditioning requires a good degree of flexibility, I don't think the coaches limit their thinking that way.

I think the problem arises with the difference between what the girls have to compete at the early levels against what they are actually training in the gym. They compete to show good technique, control and flexibility. In the gym most of the girls are way ahead on skills. In the smaller clubs, they choose girls who can compete well at early levels, but don't necessarily have a view to take them beyond level 3, so yes the criteria are different and maybe they choose the petite ones and then they run into problems. In the clubs with success higher up, they choose girls they think can go all the way, so you see more of a balance between power, strength and flexibility. Certainly the ones in dd's group are powerful tumblers.

Amy is pretty tiny, Ellie and Ty are bigger (but still not compared to normal mortals!), but they are teenagers, they were all skinny little 8 year olds!

It must be so hard to know how big they're gonna be when they are young, so they can only go on whether they have enough fast twitch, strength to weight, flexibility, attitude etc. and then hope they don't grow like weeds...

Thankfully with these three they seem to have got it completely right - fantastic gymnasts all three from early stages to now. I hope they go on to do great things.

I agree, some of the splits weren't 180 on beam, but they are on floor - Ellie and Amy have great flexibility, and they are still very young so probably prefer a stuck routine?

 

[Faith]

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Lol, I haven't checked the code, but I'm fairly sure they're not marked on looks Faith, god forbid!

I didn't mean pretty as in good looking, I meant as in pretty lines, pointed toes..!

You raise some good points- coming from a small gym they only pick the kids that do well at compulsory, and maybe don't look at the kids that could maybe just pass, then really shine at junior/senior.

As I've said on previous threads, round here they don't give you the split leap if you don't reach near 180, even at regional. There's kids I saw competing at a regional who will be stuck in Level 5 until they can get that split leap to count, or it's near impossible to score into level 4. So it's interesting for me to see elite kids performing stuff they'd get at least heavily deducted for. Unless the point is they are so good on other skills they can afford the deductions...:scratchchin:

 

[Flossyduck]

Lol, I thought it was an odd thing to say. I blame the heat!!

 

[Flossyduck]

I definitely see a difference between the way smaller clubs select compulsory girls, but then those girls ten to either disappear after level 3 or move to a bigger club.

When we changed gym, one of dd's friends tried to come with us, but she didn't get in. She is a tiny little scrap. They chose to go to another small club with a great reputation for lower levels. Her mum is delighted because they spend hours perfecting all the details and working on her routines and her form has definitely improved greatly. She did really well at the last comp (better than dd) and she has all her routines for voluntary 4 already and spends hours polishing them. Thing is, I can't see her going much further down the route doing it that way, because she is several large skills behind dd already and several off her comp 3, which will come around quickly. She will probably whoop dd's bottom in september, because they haven't even started thinking about dd's routines yet BUT she has all her comp 3 skills and quite few beyond and is still up-training and conditioning like mad. Vol 4 is a minor priority until the end of summer.

Have to say that dd has great split leaps on floor and good oversplits on both legs, but her split jumps and leaps on beam are NOT 180! However she has a team mate who has exquisite splits leaps and jumps on beam in the gym ,but can't produce them in competition at the moment, where dd's are at their best. So I guess it's all relative.

Our gym always seems to have a longer term, bigger picture in mind and I like that.

The three GB girls go to big gyms and all did well at compulsories. It's all a bit of a lottery!

 

[OzZee]

The russians and romanians look so young! Not like teenagers at all.

 

[Flossyduck]

They do. That was my thought. The GB girls really are quite small, for teenagers, in the flesh so those Russian and Romanians must be like 8 year olds close up!

 

[Faith]

I definitely see a difference between the way smaller clubs select compulsory girls, but then those girls ten to either disappear after level 3 or move to a bigger club.

When we changed gym, one of dd's friends tried to come with us, but she didn't get in. She is a tiny little scrap. They chose to go to another small club with a great reputation for lower levels. Her mum is delighted because they spend hours perfecting all the details and working on her routines and her form has definitely improved greatly. She did really well at the last comp (better than dd) and she has all her routines for voluntary 4 already and spends hours polishing them. Thing is, I can't see her going much further down the route doing it that way, because she is several large skills behind dd already and several off her comp 3, which will come around quickly. She will probably whoop dd's bottom in september, because they haven't even started thinking about dd's routines yet BUT she has all her comp 3 skills and quite few beyond and is still up-training and conditioning like mad. Vol 4 is a minor priority until the end of summer.

Our gym always seems to have a longer term, bigger picture in mind and I like that.

I agree. One of the reasons I knew DD would have to change clubs to continue in gymnastics was not because DD's club wasn't great, it is. There are a huge number of positives to them, if you want to be an excellent, safe, regional gymnast. But, they are like the club you describe. They spend so much time conditioning and perfecting every detail. I read your thread recently when your DD had that fab practice, and that confirmed it for me. DD's group are some serious tumbling skills behind, and haven't even started giants on strap bar. They are all capable- there's only one that would have totally rocked level 5/4, the rest would have passed OK, but at their current pace they won't be anywhere near level 3 skill level next year.

It has always bothered me that compulsories seem to favour the dancer types, and we might be missing power kids, but there are obviously some far sighted coaches out there. There must be a lot of power gymnasts still missed in smaller clubs though.

Anyway, the girls did well today, the boys too Let's hope GB gymnastics can keep it up until 2016...

 

[Katie123]

You have to remember though that you don't have to do compulsories to get at the top and even in GB squad, okay yeah it's very uncommon but it does happen, ruby harrold is a example of this! She did level 4 and didn't do well at all so her club put her into national grades instead then when she was 12 she did challenge cup and now is one of the best bars workers in gb xx

 

[Katie123]

And yes, they did super! Brinn smashing it and coming 1st, Nile coming 2nd and then Tyesha coming 3rd an Ellie coming 4th!

GB are starting to make a name or themselves!!!!

 

[Faith]

You have to remember though that you don't have to do compulsories to get at the top and even in GB squad, okay yeah it's very uncommon but it does happen, ruby harrold is a example of this! She did level 4 and didn't do well at all so her club put her into national grades instead then when she was 12 she did challenge cup and now is one of the best bars workers in gb xx

She was lucky enough to be in a big club that kept her skill level at a pace with the compulsory grades though- as far as I can tell she did Grade 3 (so roughly the same as comp 3) at 11, then grade 2 and espoir challenge at 12. My DD, for example, probably wouldn't have done well at level 4 because she would be weak on the R+C- her bars would be up there, as would vault, beam and floor not so strong. But her club is very, very slow with skills for non compulsory kids because competing regionally the bonuses for difficulty aren't that big- if you only get 0.1 for a BT, you have to compete it perfectly or the deduction will be bigger than the bonus. So they spend so much time on perfection, DD is way behind the skill level she needs to be in her age group. Like flossy says, I think this is probably common in clubs where coaches know enough to produce good level 3 or even 2 kids, they focus on the couple of kids that show talent now, and any "could be's" are left behind..

Talent spotting must be so, so hard, especially when you aren't big enough a club to play the numbers game, and have 10-15 kids each year group training compulsories. My DD is pretty much what an IPC coach once told me he looked for in girls, and she may well have what it takes. She wouldn't set compulsory levels on fire, but she's exactly the type of gymnast the three EYOF girls are, strong, powerful and fast twitch .

 

[Flossyduck]

Is your dd going to keep doing gym Faith? Has her new sport started kicking in yet? It's good to see you are still here

Your region sounds tough. It's such a lottery!! How incredibly frustrating. You know if you loved your daughter enough you'd have moved to a different region, what kind of a gym mum are you?!

Our region the lower levels honours are often quite even between smaller clubs and more well known. It probably gives a skewed perspective. Level 3 slightly fewer smaller clubs and then most, if not all drop away by level 2 because they are just too far behind on skills to take that step. It's tough for them too, to do so well and then realise they have been trained to do well up to a point and not prepared for the long haul!

I think the new code might alter that, because the skill level has been increased at lower levels and increases more steadily, rather than the big jump at 2. It'll be interesting. And of course being able to do compulsories out of age will open up a whole new playpark! Still the R and C though, so not much help if that's not a strength

One of the coaches said to me, when I was querying how the set up was going to work in a certain way "gymnastics is very fluid and things are constantly changing and evolving to suit the needs of the girls coming through". Good clubs will do this and we can only hang on and see what happens.

In the meantime, enjoying a little (totally un-deserved) reflected glory from the GB team, showing the rest of Europe we mean business (she says grappling to get back to the op!.)