We’re just 10 days away from the US elite summer season getting underway again with the BUM BUM BUM…American Classic?
The American Classic: Mattering since 2018.
I guess. We’ve decided.
The meet that used to take place at the ranch over 4th of July (#NeverForget) is now an actual public competition instead of a secret secret made of secrets. We even have a roster release and everything. Rosters are also out for the Hopes Classic which takes place the day before, but I don’t care about that, you’re too young. Go watch the Frozen trailer with Kylie C.
So here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going on with the field for juniors and the field for seniors (such as it is).
Juniors
Olivia Ahern (River City)
Ciena Alipio (West Valley)
Love Birt (First State)
Skye Blakely (WOGA)
Charlotte Booth (Brandy Johnson’s)
Sophia Butler (Discover)
Kailin Chio (Gymcats)
Addison Fatta (Prestige)
eMjae Frazier (Parkettes)
Elizabeth Gantner (JPAC)
Karis German (WCC)
Emily Golden (EVO)
Mia Heather (San Mateo)
Levi Jung-Ruivivar (Paramount)
Lauren Little (Everest)
Nola Matthews (Airborne)
Zoe Miller (WCC)
Sydney Morris (First State)
Annalise Newman-Achee (Chelsea Piers)
Sophie Parenti (San Mateo)
Anya Pilgrim (Hill’s)
Ariel Posen (MG Elite)
Joscelyn Roberson (NE Texas)
Sienna Robinson (Brown’s)
Katelyn Rosen (Mavericks)
Lyden Saltness (Midwest)
Jamison Sears (World Class)
Chavala Shepard (Hopes and Dreams)
Ava Siegfeldt (World Class)
Mya Witte (Genie’s)
Jamie Wright (World Class)
Eva Volpe (Pearland)
Ella Zirbes (Flips)
American Classic conflicts with Junior Worlds in Hungary, so we won’t see those who ultimately make the J-worlds team (Spencer, stop trying to make J-worlds happen, it’s not going to happen). Of the nominative group—DiCello, McClain, Greaves, Blakely—only Blakely is even on the preliminary roster here, though she’ll pull out of this competition if she makes the team.
Along with Blakely, the only other members of the junior national team scheduled to compete here are Cienna Alipio and Sophia Butler, so eyes will be on them. All three have gone at least 52.8 on international assignment this year, which would put them toward the top of the group.
In terms of highest qualifying scores, eMjae Frazier (which, we’re really going to need an official ruling on the capitalization) got a 54.850 at the Parkettes qualifier—with all the necessary Parkettes scoring caveats implied. Mya Witte also got a 54.100 at the WCC qualifier and has scored quite well at a couple of elite meets this year, making her one to watch. We’ll also see the return of Anya Pilgrim, who showed a ton of potential as a little-little but has been out for a while, as well as Levi Jung-Ruivivar who has already established herself as a pain-of-a-nation favorite.
Unless these juniors have already achieved a 51.000 at camp or on an international assignment this year (which is only a handful of them), they’ll need to score a 51.000 here or at US Classic to make championships.
Moving on to the seniors, something you may notice is that there are only nine people slated to compete in that whole session. Nine.
Seniors
Shania Adams (Future)
Sloane Blakely (WOGA)
Jordan Chiles (WCC)
Jaylene Gilstrap (Metroplex)
Olivia Hollingsworth (WCC)
Emily Lee (West Valley)
Sunisa Lee (Midwest)
Victoria Nguyen (Everest)
Abigael Vides (WCC)
The competition hasn’t ticketed the junior and senior sessions separately (good), so you almost wonder whether they’d just combine them into one super-session because there are so few seniors, but they have been scheduled separately and continue to be. Just a really short senior session I guess. Somehow it will still take longer than an SEC Network dual meet. SUNISA NEEDS TO CHALK.
For a while, it looked like we would have a pretty hearty senior group here with Pan Ams on the horizon, but USAG amended the selection procedures to say that you can compete at either the American Classic or the June national team camp as part of the selection process. That’s why we’re seeing most of those national team members elect to pass on American Classic, with Blakely, Chiles, and Sunisa Lee the only ones slated to compete.
Not to say we’re short of storylines here. Big news this week has been the reveal of Jordan Chiles’ move to WCC in Texas for the final push toward the Olympics. At the rate she was going, I was starting to think it would make sense for Chiles to just go to UCLA for 2020 because she has been progressively dropping farther out of contention for teams. But she’s not heading to UCLA for 2020—she has confirmed she’s deferring to 2021 to try for the Olympics—so if you’re going to do that, might as well go all in.
There’s also the return of Victoria Nguyen, who has been absent from the senior elite scene for a while now. Nguyen got a two-event elite qualifying score for vault and bars, so in a change from previous years, she’s only eligible to compete those two events at American Classic and US Classic (unless she were to, say, go to camp right now and get a four-event score).
In the past, even if you got a two-event score at an elite qualifier, you could compete all four at the Classic meets to try to get your AA score for nationals, but no longer.
Athletes who haven’t yet qualified to nationals via camp scores or international assignments are looking for a 52.000 AA here to clinch a spot at nationals.
so where is Mykayla Skinner in the midst of all of this?
Going to camp this weekend.
so she’s not doing the qualifying thing at amer classic? well, guess we won’t have any official video unless they decide to rel one…
Notably missing Zoe Gravier (MG Elite), Audrey Davis (WOGA), Kaliya Lincoln (Airborne), JayJay Marshall and Olivia Dunne. I think non of them is prequalified to either US Classic or Nationals so are they all done with elite?
It’s my understanding Jay Jay Marshall isn’t doing gymnastics anymore.
Very interesting to see that Jordan Chiles is still pushing for Tokyo. WCC is the best option for her since they extract maximum difficulty out of their athletes. Chiles needs a 100% reliable Amanar – which is beautiful when she hits – at a bare minimum. However, I’m not sure which other events she would be able to bring up to make sense on a 4-person Olympic team. Floor is most likely, but she’ll need double doubles and Chusovitinas rather than Dos Santos’ and double layouts to bring her D-score up enough.
But no other upgrades will be worthwhile if she doesn’t show a nailed Amanar at every competition leading up to the Olympics.
Chiles has potential on all four events but she’s basically never put it together. I think she could also use some cleaning up and new composition on beam. I think the gym change is likely to be too late in the game to make her a serious contender, but you never know.
Even if she does show a nailed amanar at every comp… AND? Still does nothing for her case to be on a 4 person team in Tokyo. Finish top 3 in more than 1 event, then we can talk.
eMjae. So her parents named their kid “MJ” and decided to spell it really weird? That’s unfortunate. (Wishing her luck and all, no dig on her, just – why do people do this?)
The only thing that’s unfortunate is you and your comment. Your assumptions are asinine and incorrect . If you don’t have nothing nice to say don’t say nothing at all . If you don’t know don’t comment. True ignorance!!!
As a person who has punctuation in my first name and two capital letters in my last name, I feel for her. She’s screwed because government forms hate anything outside the norm (punctuation, capitalization, length, etc) and she has not yet begun to experience the pain of the “official typo”. Chances are she’ll alter how she presents her name as she gets older as I have because you can try to fight the government pencil pushers but you can’t win.
Haven’t seen Hernandez either. It’s getting to be really late to make a comeback now or is she trying a nastia move?
I think trying a Nastia move/this comeback is mostly to please her sponsors. It’s a shame because some of her training videos look good and I would love to see her this year even competing just two events at Nationals but she would have needed to be at this camp at the absolute latest for it to happen and she is not so we aren’t seeing her this year except for likely an interview on NBC at Nationals talking about how great her training is going. I expect her comeback to be about as successful as Nastia’s was. Or perhaps less so in that she may not even make it to be able to compete at Nationals at the rate she is going. Or if she does, no guarantee she gets a courtesy invite to Trials.
Laurie Hernandez could submit videos that are similar to what she’s posted on social media (i.e. several level 10 skills executed in isolation, but no full routines, and no skills that are clearly above the level of a strong JO athlete)? Would the petition be accepted in a situation like that because she was a former Olympian? Or is it just up to the whims of the folks at USAG?
What happened to Kristal Bodenschatz?
As far as I know, she didn’t get her qualifying score at any elite qualifiers, so she’s done
Done for this year at least. She sounds like she is still continuing on to next year. She withdrew from a planned elite qualifier because her body wasn’t feeling up to it but posted about continuing to train.
I wish we had a sort of DTB Pokal/Serie A type event in the US – like a lower-level but still elite competition. I would love to see top NCAA gymnasts in the off-season compete against some of the B- and C-team and semi-retired elites. Maybe with a cap on how much difficulty can be credited, or something like that.
There’s a lot of reasons for it not being feasible, I know – can’t give prize money to NCAA gymnasts, most of these folks probably can’t physical handle extra competitions without risking injury, etc. etc…. but I would so enjoy watching this.
What happened to the elite qualifier that used to be held alongside the American Classic? When it became clear Kristal Bodenschatz wasn’t going to the Parkettes qualifier I figured she was just waiting for this one but… no?
Given the national team generally prefers to send anyone they consider to be in serious Olympic contention to meets in the spring of the Olympic year, it would probably be in her best interest to see if she could get herself qualified to elite and on the national team via some combo of video petition and camp verification over the winter, if she’s really serious about Tokyo. If she waits until the domestic series next year it’s probably going to be too late.