Olympic Legends Tube Map

Transport For London has released a celebratory map of the London Underground 'Tube' network, with the names of the 361 stations replaced with those of famous summer olympic athletes. Those honoured are largely medallists, although some are famous for other reasons including NOT winning medals.

Michael Phelps, the man who holds the record for most olympic gold medals (14 in swimming between 2004-2008) has the honour of being placed on the map at the site of the Olympic Park (Stratford). Other stars from 2008 include Rebecca Adlington (Snaresbrook) and Ursain Bolt (Victoria)

The underground lines correspond to different olympic disciplines, for example, gymnastics is featured on the Victoria Line. Gymnasts featured on the 'legends map' include (but aren't limited to) Nadia Comaneci (King's Cross), Yang Wei (Warren Street), Olga Korbut (Walthamstow Central) and Mary-Lou Retton (Highbury & Islington)

Realistically the map has no significance. The stations themselve are not planned to be re-branded for the games, but it is a nice touch and well worth a look.

Click here to view the full map. Compare it with the 'actual' london tube map here.

Joy is...

...performing your best when it counts!

With half the titles already wrapped up at the world championships in Nice, There are probably only a handful of skaters who can truely say the skated right up to their potential in bost the short and free programs. Japan's Narumi Takahashi and Mervin Tran are 2 of those skaters, surprising themselves, their coaches and the fans on the way to winning Japan's first ever world medal in pairs figure skating. True, they were 20 points or so away from challenging for gold, but before this week few would have picked them for the podium at all.

Given the fact that no major names were missing from this years pairs lineup (except perhaps for China's Zhang & Zhang) the final competition was a messy affair, with many of the predicted favourites taking falls and falling below their season's bests. Russia's Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov skating lights out in the free skate to Black Swan, climbing all the way from a disasterous 8th place in the SP to 2nd overall, but narrowly edged by the now 4-time world champions Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy of Germany.

The pairs podium was indeed multinational, with 5 nations represented in fact! Both Tatiana Volosozhar and Aliona Savchenko are native Ukranians, having transferred location and citizenship to Russia and Germany respectively. Mervin Tran is Canadian (he and Takahashi train in Montreal on the same ice as 5th placed Duhamel & Radford).

This calls into question the matter of olympic eligibility. To compete at the games athletes need to be citizens of the country they are representing (for at least a certain period leading up to the games). As Japan does not allow dual citizenship, Tran would have to completely give up his canadian citizenship in order to skate with Takahashi under the Japanese flag in Sochi 2014. This would be a huge step and I haven't heard any word of it in the press, but pressure to do so may increase in the wake of their recent worlds success. It's not unheard of. Yuko Kavaguti (or Kawaguchi as she was known) gave up her Japanese citizenship to skate with Alexander Smirnov in Vancouver 2010. She now requires a visa to visit her family in Japan! Whilst it would be a shame to not see this young takented pair at the Olympics, it's hoped Mervin Tran is not too pressured by the Japanese Federation to take such a drastic step.

Figure skating Worlds kick off in Nice!

The 2012 World Figure Skating Championships began today in Nice, France with the pairs and ice dance preliminary rounds.

In the pairs preliminary competition Four Continents champions Wenjing Sui & Cong Han of China took an easy lead (quite why the reigning 4CC/World Jr champions/GPF bronze medallists have to compete in the qualifying round is beyond me!) They will join veterans Pang and Tong in the main competition later in the week, Challenging the likes of Germany's Savchenko & Szolkowy and Russia's big 3 pairs teams in the hunt for the medals. See the Pairs qualifying scores here.

In the Ice dance, former world junior champions Elena Ilinykh & Nikita Katsalapov took first place after the qualifying round. Mother Russia has more promising names in Ice dance than I can keep track of, but whether any of them will challenge Virtue & Moir or Davis & White in the near future is another question. See the ice dance preliminary results here.

Good news for Great Britain, their main pairs team (Stacey Kemp & David King) and Ice dance couple (Penny Coombes & Nicholas Buckland) both made it easily through the qualifying rounds with respectable performances. We are a long way from challenging for the medals but good performances here would be a strong building block for future years. Veteran Jenna McCorkell will compete in the ladies preliminary round tomorrow.

As a point of interest, the last time the Worlds were held in Nice (in 2000) it was Alexei Yagudin who took gold ahead of Canadian Elvis Stoiko and American Michael Weiss. Evgeni Plushenko (who won this years Europeans but won't be at worlds due to knee surgery) placed 4th. In the ladies event Michelle Kwan beat the Russians Irina Slutskaya and Maria Butyrskaya. Of those who competed then and are still competing today. Pang & Tong placed 15th in the pairs event and Kevin Van der Perren placed 31st in the men's competition.

Who will add their names to the records of world champions in Nice? Will we have defending champions or new surprise winners?

British Rhythmic Gymnasts win appeal, punch ticket to games.

After all the controversy and heartbreak, Great Britain's self funded team of rhythmic gymnasts will get to compete in London after all. Their appeal against the decision of British Gymnastics to not award them the home country spot based on the first day of competitionat the test event has been successful.

Great news for these athletes and GB sport in my opinion. They will probably not win any medals but Rhythmic gymnastics may gain a few thousand more viewers out of this - maybe the old saying that any publicity is good publicity rings true after all!

Read the full statement from British Gymnastics here.

English Champs: Pinches wins, Beth Tweddle upgrades again!

As well as the American Cup, Many of team GB's potential olympic squad were competing this week at the English Championships at the newly refurbished Europa Centre in Kent. This event marks the first competition of 2012 for most of the elite gymnasts and will contribute to the selection of senior and junior teams for the European Championships (There is also a Scottish, Welsh and Irish championships, with the combined British championships taking place in June as part of the Olympic selection)

Very little formal information is online regarding the results but Liverpool's Jennifer Pinches (pictured) came away with the all around gold. According to The World Gymnast on twitter (@TWGgymblog) and The All Around the results were:

1. Jennifer Pinches (City of Liverpool) 55.150
2. Danusia Francis (Heathrow) 54.650
3. Niamh Rippin (Notts) 53.600
4. Ruby Harrold (The Academy) 52.600
5. Jocelyn Hunt (Horsham) 52.050
6. Billie Mackenzie (Notts) 51.450
7, Sophie Fitzgerald (Carousel) 50.350
8. Laura Mitchell (Heathrow) 49.850
_____
Imogen Cairns (The Academy) 40.600 (VT/BB/FX)
Beckie Downie (Notts) 35.050 (UB/BB/FX)
Hannah Whelan (City of Liverpool) 27.350 (UB/BB)
Beth Tweddle MBE (City of Liverpool) 15.950 (UB)


Vault: 1. Danielle McNaney (Hinkley) 2. Kelly Simm 3. Jessica Nicholson 4. Natasha Walker
Bars: 1. Beth Tweddle,  2. Danusia Francis 3. Becky Downie 4. Jenny Pinches 5. Hannah Whelan 6. Ruby Harrold 7. Jocelyn Hunt 8. Jasmine Reed-Yang 9. Billie McKenzie 9. Niamh Rippin
Beam: 1. Hannah Whelan 2. Jenny Pinches 3. Imogen Cairns 4. Danusia Francis 5. Laura Mitchell 6. Billie Mckenzie 6. Sophie Fitzgerald 8. Niamh Rippin 9. Ruby Harrold 10. Jocelyn Hunt
Floor: 1. Jenny Pinches 2. Niamh Rippin 3. Danusia Francis 3. Ruby Harrold 5. Kelly Simm 6. Loriah James 6. Jocelyn Hunt 8. Billie Mckenzie 9. Danielle McNaney 10. Charlotte Lindsley

View the full results here. In the junior competition Gabby Jupp took the all-around ahead of Charlie Fellowes and in Espoirs Tyesha Mattis narrowly beat Ellie Downie (Becky's little sister). Kristen Thomas won the men's competition by a clear 3 points ahead of Max Whitlock and Reiss Beckford.  

Beth Tweddle competed only bars but showed she is not sitting on her laurels in this olympic year, adding a new double-double dismount to her already incredibly difficult beam routine.

Upset at the American Cup

Ok so I'm certainly not the first blogger to voice opinions on this, but USA and international gymnastics got a bit of an eye opener today when Gabrielle Douglas, the '3rd' american and alternate for the meet, competing purely as an exhibition, beat reigning world champion Jordyn Wieber at Madison Square Garden.

Wieber took the cup, but Douglas' success will not be forgotten in the lead up to the Olympics.
 The results were
(Gabrielle Douglas - 61.299)
1. Jordyn Wieber USA 61.032
2. Alexandra Raisman USA 60.832
3. Larisa Iordache ROM 59.332
4. Victoria Moors CAN 56.365
5. Diana Chelaru USA 56.100
6. Lisa Katharina Hill GER 55.599
7. Georgia Simpson AUS 54.566 
8. Rebecca Tunney GBR 52.132

Douglas has been known as a strong bars worker and member of the world champion team USA, but we shouldn't really be surprised by her all around success. Take a look back to the qualifying round at the 2011 worlds.
1. Viktoria Komova (RUS) 60.157
2. Jordyn Wieber (USA) 60.032
3. Yao Jinnan (CHN) 59.031
4. Alexandra Raisman (USA) 58.432
5. Gabrielle Douglas (USA) 57.657

Not bad for a rookie in her first time on the real world stage. Everyone talks about how the USA's 'weakness' on bars will be instrumental to the picking of the olympic team, but if I was picking a 5 member olympic team, the more strong all arounders I had, the better. And if like Douglas they have a world class bars set and an amanar vault - bonus!

So time may not remember Douglas as the 2012 American Cup Champion, but her perfomance here will have done her a LOT of favours and come the closing ceremony of the London games, we may remember her for much more!