Aeon Cup 2012

Aeon Cup 2012 helped me to decide to come back Japan soon. As a big fan of rhythmic gymnastics and in a sense as the finale of RG specialised year, this particular competition is absolutely suitable. Of course, I was longing for watching this.

 

 

The general rule A, taking pictures and filming are strictly banned.

I went several countries to watch rhythmic gymnastics competitions and found exactly the same rule at the every venues. However, the common fact is that the securities don't care about these actually. So spectators are able to photograph and video the performances all the time vertically. Of course I could see lots of security staff but they were just on the floor.

In the case of AEON Cup, the rule is absolutely applicable. Therefore fans definitely keep the rule and then the securities always monitor outlaws. Once they find somebody who break the rule, they indicate and interrupt both photographing and filming so quickly.

The general rule B, don't try to touch gymnasts.

Again, due to too much security, fans are not allowed to communicate with gymnasts. Although this is actually a normal rule at the each competitions, fans are keen to do this for example getting autographs or having a picture taken with gymnasts or whatever. So the picture of Luba above is an exception. She does this as she is absolutely lovely and she loves fans of hers.

After the competition, me and my friends were waiting at the back door to see the gymnasts before getting on buses to hotels. Some gymnasts such as Belarusians came to us and we were able to give them some gifts and have picture taken. But unfortunately, most of the gymnasts got on the buses quickly and never came out. Therefore we tried to communicate with them and give them some souvenirs from outside of the buses. And then again, the securities prevented us from doing this.

Quite fortunately, some attempts were successful but most of some others were not really.

On the final day, Daria Dmitrieva came out separately and she was about to get on a ban instead of the buses. And then before she getting on it, we got an opportunity to communicate with her. As you can imagine, the fucking security disturb us again and then the most impressive thing has happened. Daria did frown at the security when she was trying to reach us. Her expression was literally saying that 'what the hell are you doing?' Which means the securities are enemies for both gymnasts and us obviously. I understand this sort of diligence of Japanese people, but in this case, doesn't make sense.

By the way, I could found some good things and bad ones during this competition. Let's have a look.

a. Cancellation by some gymnasts

This was one of disappointing things. Evgenia Kanaeva, Alina Maksymenko, and Son Yeon Jae were not on the AEON Cup. According to some articles, Zhenya is in a bad condition and has got fatigue fracture. And Alina didn't come as she has implied at Minsk when I talked with her, and Yeon Jae, she perhaps was preparing for an exhibition show which is mean to takes place after a week later (otherwise this is obviously a politics since the relationship between Japan and Korea is not good at the moment). Anyway, the big stars were not on. Zhenya came to Japan late and she had an opportunity to bring her message to Japanese fans at the venue after all the competition. And then what I found was that she clearly got fat. Her official excuses were like I wrote however in reality, she has just got fat. I appreciate what she has done at the last Olympics but on the other hand, Daria and Luba have prepared for their performance here in Japan and then performed quite well as if they were the Olympic Game. If she really deserves to be called 'Queen', she should have managed to train.

b. Transition of the generation

As I'm a big fan of Luba, I was paying attention her and also her teammates. Luba's performance at the preliminary round was definitely brilliant. She did few mistakes and that's why her score was superb. She went through the qualification at the second place. At the final round, I am never be able to imagine the reason though, her performance has been braked suddenly. She made lots of mistakes of what she always can execute. Eventually she lost the podium.

Meanwhile, at the final round Melitina Staniouta has done her routines superbly and got her silver medal at the individual competition. In fact, she was so down after finishing the second day because she made massive incredible errors in her routines. And she was scolded by her coach and was training even after the competition which was impressive for me.

And one more amazing fact for me was a junior gymnast of Beralus whose name is Ekaterina Galkina. Literally she is so talented and promising. Her performance resembles that of Luba's and I thought that she might imitate Luba's movements. As far as I watched her performance, she is quite stable and skilled. Consequently she got a gold. She would be next top gymnast in Belarus.

Bits and bobs
Japanese fans are so quiet and silent. What I experienced in Europe is that the way people cheer the gymnasts. They usually shout just like 'Woo!!' when the gymnasts some risky tricks during their performance. And I replicated on my own at the AEON Cup venue. But basically nobody did the same. They sometimes just applaud. The good thing about this is everybody can concentrate on the performances on the other hand, the bad thing is that the atmosphere of the floor was extremely odd compared with in Europe. So presumably under this situation, the gymnasts cannot get on the rhythm and then carry out what they have to do in full. To be honest, I got tired by doing this solely.

- P.S. -
Anna Rizatdinova of Ukraine got the third place. Her performances were so clean, stable and stunning as a whole. I was watching her at the Olympic games of course, and her performances at the AEON Cup was much much vivider. What remarkable is that her routines are varied. Which means she practises in a mellow song, a hard rock tune, Micheal Jackson, and something else. I suppose this is not easy to adjust her feelings to each music but actually she can do everything without any problems. So consequently for me she seems to be the most expected gymnast of Ukraine as Alina's absent helps this.