Smooth Skills…Marcel Nguyen

Check this out!

As you may know, a “Ri Jong Song” is a triple twisting double back on floor (named for the Korean who competed it in Athens in 2004).  There have been a very small handful of other gymnasts who have competed or at least done this skill on the real floor…Justin Spring and Kohei Uchimura to name a couple.

Want to see it stuck perfectly in competition?  Germany’s Marcel Nguyen did just that in the all-around competition of the Japan Cup this weekend.  This video shows four of his routines, but his floor routine starts right at 3:00.

Marcel Nguyen PB, HB, FX, PH 2010 Japan Cup

If you’re like me, you might have had to watch it a few times to fully convince yourself that it’s a TRIPLE twisting double back, because at first glance it may appear like just a double-double.  However, it is a triple twisting double, and his start value of 6.6 substantiates it as well:

Triple twisting double (G)   0.7

Front double full +        (D)  0.4

Front full                          (C)  0.3

Connection                              0.1

Laid-out Thomas            (E)  0.5

Wide-arm press               (C)  0.3

Whip +                                (B)  0.2

Laid-out Arabian 1 ¾     (D)  0.4

Connection                                  0.1

Back 2 ½ +                          (D)  0.4

Barani                                    (B)  0.2

Connection                                   0.1

Full-in                                    (D)  0.4

Total Difficulty                         4.1

Element Groups                       2.5

Total D-Score                             6.6

Just wanted to prove to myself that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, because that one was pretty hard to believe!  Marcel scored a 15.45 for this routine, and ended up 7th in the all-around with an 88.55.  He scored a 15.6 on floor in the team competition, where Germany won the silver behind Japan.