Frenchman Thomas Bouhail makes a Tsukahara double pike look almost easy. The Dragulescu, not so much, but at least he almost managed to stick it. A pretty well-deserved gold medal for the Olympic silver medalist.
Second was Romania’s Flavius Koczi. His ringwork is pretty good, but this silver seemed like a gift — bent legs on that underrotated Tsuk double triple, and more of the same on the handspring 1.5 second vault. OK, the fact that those are super-difficult excuses him somewhat for the slightly froggy legs, but which would you rather see: A bent-legged triple full or a clean double?
Although his chest was low on his Dragulescu, I thought Germany’s Matthias Fahrig deserved second place. His second vault, a Tsuk 2.5, was better controlled. He was rewarded with bronze.
Bouhail is ambitious. “I hope to be world champion, and — why not? — Olympic champion in 2012,” the 22-year-old told an interviewer after his European win. He went on to say that he would like to invent a vault as well, to be called the Bouhail.
April 30, 2009 at 7:06 am |
Check the second video. Something is amiss.
That triple twisting Tsuk is rare and quite well done!
I’d say he deserved the Silver.
April 30, 2009 at 1:18 pm |
I agree..thats definitely a triple full and I dont think his second vault was a 1.5 either…looks like a 2.5 to me. I could be wrong though. Wasnt the tsuk triple what Justin Spring attempted to do that one nationals and tore his ACL? Its extremely rare and obviously high risk to try and pull that out. He more than deserved the silver
April 30, 2009 at 6:04 pm |
Yeah. The second video was a triple twisting Tsuk for the first vault (SV=7.0). And the second vault was a 2.5 twisting hand front (SV=7.0).
Start values for the first place vaulter were also both 7.0 for the Tsuk double pike and the Dragulescu. He had better execution, so he deserved to win.
The third place vaulter had a 7.0 start value for the Dragulescu, but his second vault only had a start value of 6.6. Even though he may have had better execution than the second place vaulter, his start value was .4 lower on the second vault…so he was starting with a disadvantage.
So, the judging was probably right. I always try to side with the judges. They know what they’re doing.
April 30, 2009 at 7:43 pm |
Ah, sorry everyone — should have paid a little more attention to the twists.
April 30, 2009 at 7:06 pm |
Yes, Koczi might not be the cleanest but neither was it a gift.
He had two huge start values- I’m sure it was a triple not 2.5 tsuk and I’m also pretty sure the second vault was a 2.5 not a 1.5, so two very difficult vaults.
Also nice to see something different, we saw a lot of Dragalescu + Tsuk double pike in Beijing.