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The Major Competitions in 2006 |
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Results
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2006 NHK Cup (Men)
(+The Final Trials for the World Championships & the
Asian Games)
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by
Mickey Chaplan and T. Fujii
(web published on July 18, 2006) |
DATE: July 15-16, 2006
PLACE:Makuhari Messe
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| Tomita wins his
third NHK Cup. |
The 2006 NHK Cup was held at the
Event Hall at Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, about 40 minutes
from Tokyo Station. Makuhari Messe is THE convention
center for all of Japan, and besides being enormous,
is also surrounded by a number of branches of Japan's
best hotels, etc.
The total score of both the secondary trials and the NHK Cup will decide
the World Championships team and the Asian Games team. The top four
gymnasts will automatically make the World Championships team. The other
two spots will be decided by a point system; the top 10 gymnasts except
for the top four (6 gymnasts in total) will get points on each event. The
first-placed gymnast among them on each event and on each day of both the
secondary trials and the NHK Cup will get 3 points, the second 2, and the
third 1. The top two gymnasts by this system will get the last two spots
for the World Championships.
As for the Asian Games, the top two gymnasts will automatically make the
team and the four other best gymnasts (except for the World Championships
team) will make the team as well.
Attaching importance to the all-around ability in the selection procedure,
the top two gymnasts are expected to lead the teams. As a result, the
world all-around gymnasts got these spots. The reigning world champion,
Hiroyuki Tomita, won the NHK Cup with a very big margin. His major breaks
were on vault on the first day (sat down on Driggs) and on his Barabanov
(piked front double sommie with a half twist) dismount on rings (crawled
on the mat). His total score could have been 93.000 if he hit all events.
He demonstrated his World's best all-around ability. The World silver
medallist, Hisachi Mizutori, could not catch up with Tomita, but he is
practicing his new routines to get a higher A score on every event and he
can almost do those routines. If he hits them, he will be close to Tomita.
The third place went to Takuya Nakase, who was the two-time inter-high
school champion, just like Tomita. He is strong not only on the foot
events but also on apparatus events (except for pommel horse.) His role
for the team will be very important in the world championships. The
three-time Olympian, Naoya Tsukahara, ended up fourth. He apparently
aimed at stability, not difficulty, on every event, and got good B scores.
Gaining many points on the point system, Eiichi Sekiguchi got the fifth
spot. He made the finals on floor and vault at the 2005 World
Championships and he was strong on those event as well as horizontal bar
at this NHK Cup. The last spot was given to Takehito Mori, who was on the
gold medal winning team at the 2005 Universiade. He is the only
collegiate gymnast on the roster and has a lot of room to improve, but his
experience with Japanese top gymnasts at the championships will help him
to lead the Japanese gymnastics future.
Shun Kuwabara, Ryosuke Baba, Kenya Kobayashi and Yuki Yoshimura were
selected for the Asian Games with Tomita and Mizutori according to the
procedure. The four gymnasts are younger than those competing on the World
Championships; Baba and Kobayashi graduated from their universities this
March and Kuwabara and Yoshimura graduated two years ago. If they show
their best routines without a mistake, the chance to beat China or South
Korea will be in their hands.
The Asian Championships mens' team was decided by the selection committee
in a quite different procedure than that which decided the womens' team;
Tomoharu Sano, Hiroaki Kusu, Ryuta Nakazato and Kazusa Fujita were
selected for the roster. Sano was a member of the 2001 World Championships
team to which Japan did not send teams because of the concern over safety
after the 9/11 terror attacks. None of these gymnasts will participate at
the World Championships or the Asian Games.
Now let's take a look at what they did in the competition.
The new scoring system has changed the types of routines that the men are
doing... in the case of long horse vault and dismounts from the still
rings, there is a palpable improvement. Every event, however, includes a
sequence or two which everybody seems to feel necessary to perform in
order to get a high score.
On floor exercise, the "required" sequence is round off to laid out back
sommie with one and a half twist, to laid out front sommie with full twist
to laid out front sommie with one and a half twist. A number of people
performed arabian front sommie with an extra half sommie to dive roll.
Some people even did the same with one and a half twist (thomas). The
"required" dismount was a laid out back sommie with two and a half twists.
On side horse, the expected sequence is Magyar travel from end to end,
followed by Sivado travel from end to end.
On rings, the expected sequence is piked yamawaki to tucked yamawaki to
honma to cross. Most people used a wide armed kip to maltese cross, to
lower to back lever to cross (Nakayama) to press to maltese cross, and
then roll backward slowly to cross (Azaryan.)
On vault, the "driggs" (tinsica to laid out front sommie with double
twist) is still too popular for my taste.
On parallel bars, the cliche is peach basket with half twist to handstand,
to peach basket to handstand, to tucked "belle." The dismount is tucked
or piked double back sommie.
On horizontal bar, one expects to see full twisting reverse giant into and
out of Endo shoot (reverse stalder) and dislocated (eagle) giants. The
expected releases were Kolmann (tucked Kovacs with full twist) and
Yamawaki (Stretched body hecht with half twist and regrasp.)
The interesting thing, then, was not to watch how well the gymnasts did
these compulsory sequences, but to see whether they did anything else.
On floor exercise, the interesting stunts included Okiguchi's Lou Yun
(Double piked side sommie). Fujita did a running front with double twist.
In the preliminaries, Tomita dismounted with a handspring to front with a
double twist. The most beautiful still trick was Kagami's manna handstand.
On pommel horse, the only really different stunt was Aoyama's kehre with
full turn on one pommel. Tomita was the class of this event.
On rings, the most interesting strength stunts were Sano's, Tomita's and
Tsukahara's maltese press to planche, and Yoshimura's maltese press to
inverted cross. (Tomita dismounted with a double piked front with a half
twist [balabanov]) Sasaki started off with back roll to maltese, lower to
back lever to cross (Nakayama), and then pulled to inverted hang and
performed a back kip to maltese cross! He finished with a double piked
front sommie. Nakase did a (quiet!) piked Guzchogy to (quiet!) tucked
Guzchogy to shoot handstand, and Kagami did an O'Neill (laid out Guzchogy.)
Something is weird when long horse vault is the most interesting event...
Kuwahara did a perfect (to my eyes) yurchenko with double twist. (round
off to reuter board, back dive to horse and push off to one and a half
laid out back sommie with double twist. ) Okiguchi did a laid out
tsukahara with a triple twist, (Lopez?) Ogawa did a Roche for his first
vault, but an open piked Kasamatsu with half twist which was really
beautiful for his second. Sekiguchi did a handspring laid out front
sommie with double twist.
On parallel bars, Tahara was the class of the meet, with a makuts
(diomidov to healy), and then two more healies and a straddled front
sommie (Tkachev) to upper arms. Aoyama, on the other hand, did a very
high straddled front sommie to support (Tkachev). Nakase did a piked
Morisue and a tucked morisue from upper arm hang.
Mizutori had the most release moves on horizontal bar... he did a laid out
Kovacs, a tucked kolmann and a tucked kovacs... to finish the meet at
second place. Mori did a piked Piatti (from stalder to reverse piked
hecht) which was the prettiest release move in the meet.
No doubt the biggest mystery of the meet... the commentary on horizontal
bar said it was a mistake, but... Tomita did a Yamawaki (hecht with half
twist to regrasp), and followed it with a giant swing to handstand. And
then.... fell back the way he came? hopped to a reverse grip and (still
on the way down) performed a very lovely Endo. Was it intentional?
Usually, when a gymnast hops from regular grip to reverse grip he rises
above the bar. (Tomita didn't rise.) So was it a mistake? If it were a
mistake... Tomita might have really worked that giant...but he did not
work the giant! There was no increase in speed, or any appearance of
extra pike or arch which one would expect with a giant in trouble. In
fact, with his customary perfect form, it didn't look like Tomita had
made any mistake at all. What happened? Well, Tomita won the meet, and
none of the journalists present thought to ask him what happened on
horizontal bar.
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