Huang Qiushuang - 2011 American Cup

Here are Huang's VT, UB & FX.

betweentheolympics On her overall performance

Huang Qiushuang continued to be her frustrating self. She competed an easy double twist on vault, and hit her somewhat downgraded bars. She looked good on beam for the first 20 seconds, hitting a beautiful front pike, and looked like she was actually going to connect her acro series. But then, she fell on her series and on a leap later on in the routine. ... She is such a beautiful gymnast who has tons of potential, but she needs to learn how to hit four for four under pressure.

The things I enjoyed watching: Wieber's BB, Mustafina's UB, Huang hit her UB and FX, Mustafina's 3.5 twist, Wieber's VT, Raisman's calmness, Kaeslin 's save on BB

And some comments from Lauren Hopkins

Raisman, who had poor form throughout, received an 8.5 for her efforts, where as Huang – who scored a 15.133 with near-perfect form and a beautiful stuck double layout dismount – received only an 8.433 E score. There is no world in which Raisman should get a higher execution score than a Chinese gal on this event. It’s absolutely impossible.

More on Huang Qiushuang - The Day Before American Cup

Blythe's "Seven questions with Huang Qiushuang"

Q: How did you and your teammates and coaches feel about China's performance at the 2010 World Championships?

Huang Qiushuang: "The 2010 World Championships were like a showcase for the youth athletes, and the new athletes wanted to pratcice and get some experience at the world level."

Q: Do you feel competitive with your teammates? Do you feel pressure?

Huang Qiushuang: "Yes, I do. Under this pressure in competition, I try to pursue the best level and skill for each event as I can so I can go to international championships."

On the "Who's going to win the American Cup? (women)" discussion hosted by Blythe. Here is Clara (STOI!)'s pick:

Everyone else is going to be saying Mustafina or Wieber, with good reason because they're the favourites and on paper would be pretty evenly matched. But I'm going to put another possibility out there. Huang Qiushuang will, with her impeccable timing, choose this most important of competitions to finally get her s*** together. She's got to do it sometime, and we all know it won't be at a major championship, so why not now?

Read more of Clara's insightful view on the SCAmerican Cup.

2011 American Cup

Here is the wonderful American Cup trailer made by nastia2012

Best of Luck to Huang Qiushuang!

PS. According to Aunt Joyce, Jordyn Wieber is competing in the American Cup this Saturday. It keeps getting better and better.

Finalized Line-up for Upcoming American Cup

Still has possibly the strongest lineup outside the world championships
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics

Aliya Mustafina (RUS)
Huang Qiushuang (CHN)
Lauren Mitchell (AUS)
Ariella Kaeslin (SUI)
Jessica Lopez (VEN)
Alexandra Raisman (USA)
Nicole Hibbert (GBR)
Hannah Whelan (GBR)

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics

Philipp Boy (GER)
Jonathan Horton (USA)
Mykola Kuksenkov (UKR)
Daniel Purvis (GBR)
Sergey Khorokhordin (RUS)
Koji Uematsu (JPN)
Samuel Hunter (GBR)
Cyril Tommasone (FRA)

Via Full Twist

Can someone let the american cup reporters know, would they PLEASE find some kind translators to do some interview with the non-English speaking gymnasts? Thanks to gymmedia, below were my favorite 2 interviews in 2010 WC. The translation may have been done in "broken English", but those interviews truly show us the color of the gymnasts and way more first-handed and authentic than those formal interviews done by NBC.