Monthly Archives: April 2019

Elite Things

State of the National Teams Address

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Now that the NCAA season has ended with KJ successfully verbal vogueing Oklahoma to a 4th national title…

..let us (and by us, I mean me) take a moment to get reacclimated to the world of elite gymnastics and the state of the various national teams. Because we need something to occupy the time until things get good again.

Beginning with the US because I know that’s what you’re here for.

United States

The US team gave us an unexpected gift this spring by sending nearly every healthy senior national teamer on an international assignment—like they have money again or something. That means we actually have something to go on rather than the usual prognostication using only cloud shapes and whistles. Over the last two months, we’ve seen everybody—though of course, having actual performances and results to go on has only made things more complicated rather than less.

Taking only the international assignments from 2019, here are the top scores received by each athlete on each event. (So that means the AA total is the sum of those best scores on each piece, not the highest AA score received at a single day’s competition).

Top 3 on each event are in bold.

VT UB BB FX
Simone Biles 15.400 14.300 14.200 14.900 58.800
Sunisa Lee 14.200 14.700 14.150 14.333 57.383
Emma Malabuyo 14.533 13.633 14.400 14.233 56.799
Leanne Wong 14.666 14.100 14.066 13.933 56.765
Grace McCallum 14.566 14.200 13.833 13.866 56.465
Kara Eaker 14.066 14.100 14.666 12.466 55.298
Alyona Shchennikova 14.433 14.633 12.966 13.166 55.198
Morgan Hurd 14.233 14.300 12.933 13.633 55.099
Sloane Blakely 13.633 13.500 13.766 13.566 54.465
Shilese Jones 14.700 11.600 13.033 13.800 53.133
Riley McCusker 13.133 14.400 12.166 13.366 53.065
Aleah Finnegan 14.400 12.866 12.533 12.866 52.665
Gabby Perea 13.567 12.900 12.367 13.333 52.167
Jade Carey 15.066 0.000 0.000 14.600 N/A

So, we’ve got a little bit of a race on our hands.

At least so far. The US women won’t compete again for a while, but the story of June-August will be the clash between those who have been making teams so far this quad (Hurd, McCusker, McCallum, etc) and those new or newly healthy seniors (Lee, Wong, Malabuyo, etc) who have recorded some of the top numbers so far this year. It’s a deep field, and not everyone is going to worlds. Continue reading State of the National Teams Address →

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – April 26, 2019

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A. All My Coaches

Dear gymnastics, this was supposed to be my week and weekend off. So could you, like, maybe not?

If the first week of the NCAA offseason is any indication, this is going to be a juicy one. The biggest coaching news, of course, is the reveal that Arkansas won the Jordyn Wieber sweepstakes (Grand Prize: 1 Jordyn Wieber, restrictions apply, not valid in Hawaii). She is taking over for the retiring Mark Cook as head coach of the Razorbacks starting immediately—and has already flown in to be like, “RED PANTS. WHAT.” (The well-staged team meeting was probably about more than that, but if it was also solely about red pants, I’m totally fine with it.)

The gymternet suddenly just got a lot more interested in the scoring of Sarah Shaffer’s Y1/2 than it ever had been before, let’s be honest. Welcome, friends.

Wieber’s successful last few seasons as floor coach for UCLA have blunted much of the “this is just a PR move” criticism that might otherwise have ensued from the hiring of a super-young, famous Olympian who has never technically had a paid college coaching job before—a background that mimics the trajectories of the first generation of legendary coaches, back before there were standards and whatnot. UCLA’s floor lineup has enjoyed a drastic improvement in full-season endurance and consistency in the last two seasons, so Wieber certainly has a tangible coaching accomplishment to lean on. UCLA’s floor rankings since 2013 have been 6-7-8-8-7-1-1. The floor work seriously improved. Continue reading Things Are Happening – April 26, 2019 →

Live Blog

Four on the Flippin’ Four Floor Whatever – Live Blog

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Saturday, April 20
 Scores Stream
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Team Final
[1] Oklahoma
[2] UCLA
[3] LSU
[5] Denver
 LINK ESPNU
Quad
Vault
Bars
Beam
Floor

Great work with the name. It’s cool how everyone knows what this meet is called, and it’s name isn’t stupid. Super well done, once again, team.

Welcome to the winning part where someone is going to do the winning. Based on yesterday’s performances, you like Oklahoma for the win overall because of that 197.850 with some eh-ish-ness on beam, but no one was that…greatly great? So if someone turns out to be…great…

That’s where we are at this point. The last two seasons, the best team in the semifinal has not won the title.

Your rotation order is LSU on vault, Oklahoma on bars, UCLA on beam, Denver on floor. I’ve been saying recently that starting on bars is the new worst rotation order because of the SVs on vault, but that doesn’t really apply to Oklahoma because Oklahoma does have a full vault lineup of 10.0s.

I don’t think any of the teams hate this rotation order. Denver got the semi-dreaded starting on floor order, but Denver’s best scores can come on bars and beam anyway, so that works. Plus, Denver’s super happy to be here, so whatever order you like… Continue reading Four on the Flippin’ Four Floor Whatever – Live Blog →

Live Blog

National Semifinals – Live Blog

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Friday, April 19
 Scores Stream
1:00 ET/10:00 PT – Semifinal #1
[2] UCLA
[3] LSU
[5] Utah
[6] Michigan		 LINK ESPN2
Quad
Vault
Bars
Beam
Floor
7:00 ET/4:00 PT – Semifinal #2
[1] Oklahoma
[4] Denver
[7] Georgia
[8] Oregon State		 LINK ESPNU
Quad
Vault
Bars
Beam
Floor

I’m here for warmups, so I’ll update with notes and let you know what’s up if anything.

Before we begin, a few developments of the last day or so.

1) Emma McLean is out of championships with an injury to her arm (that definitely isn’t her ankle or anything—I don’t know why you would say that confidently to Team GymCastic on the way to championships—who would do that?)

2) Maggie Nichols is indeed going to compete the all-around here.

3) Sarah Finnegan won the AAI Award, which came as a surprise to…not many. There were some compelling contenders of course, but she’s the strongest AAer of the seniors this year.

Heads up that I’m going to have a horrendous view of vault, so if I’m like, “great stick!” and you’re like, “that wasn’t a stick you dumb whore”…that’s probably going to happen.

Norah Flatley is performing “Unwritten” right now in a split stretch on the vault runway, and it’s the most talent anyone has had when doing anything.

At the urging of the team, Bev just did a model runway walk down the bars mat. So, this isn’t elite, is what I’m saying.

Marz warming up vault in addition to the six who have been in the lineup.

Sarah Finnegan’s switch leap work shot a beam of light across the whole arena, so the usual.

Gracie Kramer sits a 1.5. Kyla’s looks good. Wright with her normal. Kramer goes again and hits her 1.5, large lunge to the side. Kyla stuck her second attempt at a 1.5. Wright followed her with a stick. Kramer hit her third as well.

Injury alert: Miss Val is limping and showing her foot to people. Possible redshirt year?

Nebraska with the backess leo to end all backless leos for warmup. That’s about what I have to report from the second rotation of warmups. Normal doing normal.

Priessman watch: she’s warming up vault as one of the 7 for LSU.

Also, I’m going to be a real bail-handstand-leg-separation Nazi today because I have THE view of that.

OK start lists out – Priessman in vault and bars. Michigan using Heiskell in place of McLean on vault and floor as expected.

I definitely intended to have more to say about warmups, but you know, people and talking. You guys got passed up for more important people. You may survive.

Overall thoughts have been that everyone looks fine and no one great in warmups, which is what you want. No one looked like they’re mentally falling apart, no one using it up. Continue reading National Semifinals – Live Blog →