being thrown up on, it just does something to a person.

She of ill-formed vaults.  She of jaw-dropping release moves.  She of scandalous internet pictures. 

Tatiana Nabieva.

Has there been such a controversial gymnast in recent times?  Certainly not since Khorkina.  Gymnastics fans see either her blatant disregard for form and execution, or they see her ability to do ballsy, innovative skills.

The "diva" who brought us this

Unfortunately also brought us this

I am personally blinded by the visuals of her skills.  Having developed during gymnastics' golden years, it is nearly impossible for me to appreciate a skill for difficulty alone, while completely ignoring its aesthetics.  That said, I do admire the tenacity to attempt creative skills, and to go against the grain.  Even if the grain is doing pretty gymnastics.

Do I respect her gymnastics?  Not so much.  Do I respect her as a gymnast?  Yes I do. 

Nabieva: Gymnastics' Russian Roulette.

i've been practicing nudging the meatball across the table with my nose.

Is anyone else going BATSHIT CRAZY waiting to actually see some stuff come out of worlds? 

 Buttshelf

You know what would suck, is if Universal made people pay to watch their coverage, but then didn't offer anything in the way of prelims.  Or, if, let's say the world's host site boasted about this unprecedented coverage of ALL sessions,  including prelims.  But only for Dutch citizens.  So you go out of your way to procure a Dutch IP, but then they drop the bomb that ONLY the last few sessions are being aired at all.  Wouldn't that just blow?

So, while I wait another 4 1/2 hours for prelim video quickhits, I caught up on some user vids from the day one. 

Can I just throw out a YIKES YIKES for the E-scores on vault?  Like, if I see a 8.9-9.1 E-score, then I really don't expect to see something so Nistor-ish.

The classic case of an obviously frightening vault getting a mysteriously high execution score.  Never to be seen again, right?


Wrong. 

Enter Nabieva. 

And it's not like she cleans up, and nails the rest of the vault.  It remains beastly throughout the entire thing. 

It's upsetting to me, in that I remember a time when the Russians were known for clean, remarkable gymnastics.  They were NOT chuckers.  No sir.  And I'm not even talking about the Soviets, for those who assume that Russians = Soviets.  Sure, they weren't exactly winning team titles.  But they wouldn't be caught dead sacrificing prettiness for difficulty. 

This is no longer the case. 

This is an artist's representation of the offending vault.

I'm really trying not to be biased toward my home country here, but if Nabs and Musty scored 8.9-9.1, then I fully expect Alicia to score a 9.8.