Day 1 – Friday, August 9, 6:30pm CT (NBCSN)
Day 2 – Sunday, August 11, 6:30pm CT (NBC)
It’s the big one. At least until selection camp. Which, let’s be honest, is the bigger one. While Simone is Simone and blah blah blah, the supposed expansion of the senior national team to 10 members all named after nationals means that each of the 17 gymnasts in the senior field has something legitimate riding on this competition. Let’s go one by one.
Simone Biles
It may seem strange, but the least significant stakes in this meet accompany the performance of Simone Biles, the inevitable champion. She’s going for her casual sixth national championship, and it would take a catastrophic number of falls for her not to achieve that (I’m thinking at least four across the two days, probably more like five or six). Even if that were somehow to happen, it wouldn’t change anything with regard to her world-favorite status. Here, she just has to show up and give the people a thrill.
In that regard, let’s talk about that triple double. Because Simone showed us the triple double in podium training at Classic, that means she basically has to compete it at nationals, right? That’s the implicit agreement? Correct.
Sloane Blakely
Blakely’s goal here will be to try to make the national team, and as a member of that Pan Ams training squad of 8, she has to think she’s at least in the picture. But it’s going to be difficult. Blakely competed three events at Classic (VT, BB, FX) for a 39.900, and you have to think she needs to add back bars at nationals to have a shot at a national team spot. Bars isn’t always a great score for Blakely, but she did go 13.500 at Gymnix this year, which is her best score on the event as a senior elite. If we take that number and add it to her Classic total, that would put her at 53.400 in the all-around, which would have placed 13th.
We don’t know exactly how these national team spots are going to be assigned, if it will go directly by AA or if there will be some kind of thought and strategy used, but I have to think Blakely is the kind of athlete who needs to get there by AA placement. Blakely is capable of scoring much better than she did at Classic on both beam and floor—she didn’t fall but can realistically add at least a half point to her E score on both pieces—but she’s probably looking at needing to have an ideal meet both days of competition to get into that top 10.
Jade Carey
For the most part, Jade did Jade on vault and floor at Classic. Of course there are form things we can go into, but she tied for both the 2nd-highest floor score in the competition and the 2nd-highest vault score. Her argument to go to worlds to compete vault and floor for the team and for possible individual medals remains quite strong, and as long as she keeps it up on those events, she’s in solid shape.
To me, her bars and beam routines are essentially irrelevant to her prospects. Putting together worlds team permutations, I don’t see a possible realistic team where she does those events even in qualification. They have no bearing on her quest for an individual Olympic spot and should have no bearing on her position on the national team, which should be a lock. I say should.
Still, hitting bars and beam at nationals could put her surprisingly high in the all-around standings.
Jordan Chiles
Without much training time under her belt, Chiles set a solid progress point at Classic, particularly with a beam routine that looked more confident than we’ve ever seen her on that event.
That Classic performance was good enough for 11th place in the AA, but to get on the national team, and to make the selection camp group, we’re going to have to see Chiles level-up again at championships beyond what we saw at Classic. She’ll need to reproduce those strong bars and beam routines while also delivering the floor landings and difficulty—or, dare I say, bring back the Amanar again. If she does, she’ll have an excellent shot at getting on the national team, but Chiles is certainly not in a safe position. She has to hit, hit, hit at nationals to make it happen. Last year, she didn’t hit, hit, hit at nationals, placed 11th overall, and didn’t make the national team—though she did attend the selection camp as a non-national team invitee.
Kara Eaker
Following the results of Classic and Pan Ams, it’s now easy to declare Kara Eaker a legitimate all-around contender. I wouldn’t say she’s a favorite to win the non-Simone category at nationals this year, but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility, and that certainly wouldn’t have seemed the case only a couple months ago.
With her mostly great performance at Pan Ams (the team competition and event finals combine to outweigh the all-around, paper covers rock) there’s not a lot that Eaker needs to do at nationals to prove herself, because she just did that over back-to-back weekends. One of the most interesting questions at nationals will be how much the Pan Ams athletes do (or don’t) back off the training numbers and events and difficulty, although because Eaker remains so reliant on a big beam number for her AA scores, backing off on the repetitive pounding may not affect her as much as others who are more reliant on vault/floor.
Aleah Finnegan
We’re mostly on post-concussion watch for Finnegan after she had to withdraw from the event finals at Pan Ams with a suspected concussion. Wariness about that concussion adds an extra wrinkle to the affair for Finnegan because even though she did well at Classic to place 7th AA and get herself onto the Pan Ams team, she’s not clear enough from the challenging pack to feel that she has a locked spot on the national team. (As long as there’s no predetermined agreement about the Pan Ams athletes making this year’s national team, which there might be, we just don’t know about it.)
If things go a little differently at nationals than at Classic—Chiles and Jones hit, Finnegan has a miss or two—suddenly she’s in the national team danger zone. How do you then balance concerns about that concussion and having just been through Pan Ams with the pressure to get an all-around score and Finnegan’s reliance on vault and floor scores to get that AA number up?
Morgan Hurd
The success Morgan Hurd has enjoyed the past two years comes with perks. In this case, it has allowed for a lack of drama or concern—or less than one would normally expect—when a worlds team favorite places 6th AA at Classic and misses the all-around final at Pan Ams despite producing a hit meet. The precedent of 2017, when Hurd finished 5th at nationals and later became world all-around champion, taught us that this trajectory is not unusual and not cause for hyper-analysis. Yet.
At some point, and some point soon, we will need to start seeing more from Hurd on floor because that is an essential event for her individual and team-contribution hopes. It doesn’t need to happen until selection camp, but will it happen at nationals? Even though Hurd did compete in the team competition at Pan Ams and had to go through all the training and the exhausting rigamarole of travel, she did not compete as much as the likes of McCusker and Eaker and therefore may have been less taxed by the experience, and less in need of taking it easy at nationals.
Shilese Jones
Because so much of the worlds team decision-making process won’t happen until selection camp, the race for the national team spots and the selection camp spots takes center stage at nationals. And in that respect, Jones figures very large as one of those borderline gymnasts whom you can absolutely see making the NT, but it also wouldn’t be a shock if she’s left off.
Jones finished 9th all-around at Classic and came just a smidge from making the Pan Ams team, even with a beam-grab. That tells us that a super-clean meet from her at nationals should suit her quite well and get her comfortably into the 55s. If Classic is any indication, gymnasts are going to need to be able to score 55s in the all-around to be in the mix. Because this is the world we live in now. Vault is Jones’s best event, so a controlled landing is critical for her there to gain a couple tenths on the other DTYers.
Emily Lee
In a field of just 17, there aren’t many “just happy to be here” gymnasts, though Emily Lee comes the closest. It’s a significant accomplishment for her just to make it this far and compete with this caliber of gymnasts at nationals, though I wouldn’t go about completely writing her off.
Lee finished 12th AA at Classic with a 54.450, just a couple tenths behind Jordan Chiles, and that was with a hand-grab of her own on beam. With a full hit on that event (her best one, although her very strong floor performance at Classic might be changing that narrative), she’d be really close to that coveted 55 zone. Especially if some of those Pan Ams athletes do back off a little, an opening could arise for someone like Emily Lee to sneak up the standings. There’s no one in this competition who’s truly out of the national team mix.
Sunisa Lee
Is she doing the all-around? That’s the major question for Lee, whose two-event, no-beam-dismount performance at the US Classic has provoked questions about whether she’s going to be at full strength on four events come nationals since…not very much time has passed since Classic.
If we see a repeat of the gymnast who competed at Jesolo and won the title there, then Lee could place as high as 2nd place in the all-around here. After that Jesolo competition, we were all ready to put her on the worlds team to do three events in the team final, but having the attention span of goldfish eggs, we can’t be expected to remember those feelings. At Classic, Lee competed two events and was not named to the Pan Ams team, while simultaneously that top six competed so well in the AA…and just like that Lee suddenly looks like she’s on the outside again. Whether she does four events, and how much difficulty she’s doing on those potential four events, will determine quite a bit—not just for Lee but for other top all-around athletes who might be thinking they, too, could contribute a bars routine.
Grace McCallum
McCallum recorded a 57.700 at Classic for what was just an OK performance overall, one she’ll expect to improve on at nationals. I’d say that’s especially true on floor despite the high score. Because McCallum did not go to Pan Ams and therefore will have had more time to focus exclusively on preparing for nationals, expectations will be quite high. Particularly if McCusker does not go all out at this meet, it’s easy to imaging McCallum sliding in as the favorite for 2nd place.
At the same time, McCallum still has to fight for her life for a potential spot on a worlds team because there’s no single event where she boasts a “you have to take me” score, the way Eaker can on beam, or McCusker can on bars and beam, or Carey can on vault and floor. That’s why it’s more important than it might otherwise seem for McCallum to place 2nd in meets this summer and fall. Once you drop down to third, you start being susceptible to “well maybe this specialist makes more sense” thinking.
That’s at least if a team is being selected that way. If it’s all about the all-around standings, then all logic is out the window. But that would benefit an athlete like McCallum.
Riley McCusker
In the review of Pan Ams last week, I stated my case that the IS RILEY MCCUSKER INCONSISTENT question can probably be answered in the affirmative at this point, but it’s also not particularly relevant to the selection of a US women’s team that can afford to be inconsistent without consequence.
At the same time, it never hurts to erase any kind of potential argument that can be used against your placement on a team (or to do the all-around in qualification on said team). Hits on bars and beam both days of nationals would help undermine the fervor of any kind of McCusker inconsistency questions (see attention span of goldfish above). That’s therefore the task for McCusker at nationals because after finishing 2nd at Classic, qualifying first AA at Pan Ams, and finishing as the top American in the AA final despite a miss, McCusker is comfortably in the first tier, will be on the national team, and will be at the selection camp with a strong argument to make the worlds team even if nationals doesn’t go great.
Gabby Perea
In Perea’s comeback performances this year, we have not yet seen the gymnast we saw when she was a junior, save for a few flashes on bars at Classic when we all collectively had a “oh, THERE you are Peter” moment. Good thing there’s nothing going on with her gym or coaching situation that might be a distraction at nationals. La la la, no news to see here.
Coming off a 52.050 performance at Classic (with a fall on beam), Perea is certainly an outsider to make that national team group since there’s a lot of ground to make up to reach that coveted 55 plateau. It’s hard to see that happening with the current vault and floor difficulty, but there’s still tremendously high potential from those bars and beam scores. That can go a long way.
MyKayla Skinner
Vault went as well as could be expected for Skinner in the Classic competition itself, where she scored a 14.900 that tied Jade Carey’s first vault, but that was just stage 1 of the process. Skinner’s performance at nationals will be about whether the extra three weeks of training she’s had in between events has allowed the other events to catch up. Floor was not there yet at Classic as it unraveled in that final pass, and while she showed bars in podium training, she did not compete it.
With limited national team/selection camp spots up for grabs in this deep group of seniors, a lot is riding on this performance for Skinner. If floor has progressed and she puts up a hit bars routine, 55 looks quite doable for an all-around performance, but she’s also still a borderline figure with no guarantee of a national team spot. There are a few gymnasts like Chiles and Jones whom I think have a lot riding on hitting their meets at nationals, and Skinner is in that group.
Trinity Thomas
Because Thomas is an NCAA gymnast who’s kind of in and out of the team selection picture as her schedule permits, it’s easy to overlook her chances, but she swooped in to make the national team last year and could very well do so again this year, especially if those 14s on bars and beam from Classic are any indication. Add a Y1.5 and some Trinity floor passes and leaps to that equation, and the path to 55 opens up ahead with lots of well-lit signage.
But of course the most important thing is that we see Thomas finally stop being polite and start getting real when it comes to her floor difficulty. Because we know she can do more than she’s ever really gone for in competition, and why not?
Faith Torrez
When trying to pare this group down to what looks like it will be a national team of 10 gymnasts (go on, try, I dare you), it’s easy to trim Torrez from the list in one of those last-minute cuts because she’s a less recognizable name than most of the rest of them, being so new to the elite field. But, Torrez followed a 54.850 at American Classic with 55.250 and an 8th-place finish at US Classic. Those aren’t the scores (or the routine compositions) of a gymnast who gets easily cut from the national team picture. Those are the scores of a gymnast who beats some bigger names for a coveted spot.
So don’t write off Torrez.
Leanne Wong
The Mystery of the Not Doing All-Around at Pan Ams. Was it truly because Kara Eaker was just so good in training that she had to be used on all the events in qualification? Or was there something going on to cause the team to leave Wong off floor (where she had the highest D score of the squad) and vault (where she typically has the cleanest DTY of the squad)? Nationals will tell us.
Best-case scenario, Wong is yet another among the very realistic contenders for 2nd place at this meet—she has the execution and the composition to do that—but it’s going to take not just a hit but a comfortable hit of that very challenging floor routine for her to place close to that high. Eyes on that routine.
If you’re feeling like some numbers, here’s an update of the scoring charts following Pan Ams, arranging the seniors here by top score recorded on each event in 2019
and by average score recorded on each even in 2019
Wait what’s going on with Gabby Perea’s coaching situation?
She trains at Legacy Elite, where Anna Li and Wu Jiani are under fire for alleged verbal, emotional, and physical abuse of gymnasts.
Unfortunately, this ⤵️
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/08/05/u-s-center-for-safesport-investigating-usa-gymnastics-rep-anna-li-and-her-mother/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Oh duh, I forgot she trained there. I knew about that, just didn’t know if anything was going on with her specifically
Please tell me someone has started a band called the Non-Simones.
Didn’t Skinner only get the 3 event score? I didn’t think she was going to be allowed to compete bars at Nats.
Spencer, can you clarify whether Skinner is permitted to do the AA here or not? If she qualified at Classic, I thought she couldn’t compete UB and so would have 0 chance of getting a 55?
On the flip side, doesn’t she have qualification to Apparatus World Cups on the line? It’s top 2 on an event at Nationals IIRC (which could be doable for her on vault)?
It is clarified here: https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=24214
USA Press release, clearly states that Skinner qualified to Nationals via US Classic. Sine she only did 3 events, she cannot compete the AA at Nationals.
Which I don’t think is a concern for Skinner because UB wasn’t ready at Classic and it’s not important that she do UB this year anyway. I don’t think Skinner’s goal is the World Team. She made one in 2014, but rather her focus is 2020 Olympics.
If she somehow made it to Worlds, UB wouldn’t be an issue, since she wouldn’t be doing it in team competition, similar to Carey not doing UB either. But not making Worlds wouldn’t be crushing to Skinner either.
I mean, if they take top 10 (or any other number less than 17) AA as the senior national team, it’s going to matter a lot. Carey can be top 10 even with weak bars, Skinner potentially could but not if/when she’s only permitted to compete 3 events.
Skinner can still make World camp without UB and compete them there. She can be added to the National team without the AA.
I absolutely think Skinner wants to make the World team, and I’m not sure why you think she’d be less interested in it than any other gymnast. It matters maybe ~slightly~ less for her than for the first year seniors, because Skinner has competed successfully at a Worlds before and can point to that experience as validating her as an international competitor, but that was five years ago under a different team coordinator. I am sure she would like to make that team and get the chance to lift her name up in the Olympic conversation, and I don’t think not making that team is any less crushing for her than it would be for Hurd, Chiles, or anyone else whose goal is the Olympics. I seriously doubt that there is a Worlds-caliber US gymnast currently competing who does not have 2020 as their major goal. Worlds is a step on the path to the Olympics.
Eh, I’m not taking that as the clarification. She is on the start list for all events.
Yup…that’s usually the case though.
Forgot to mention that while she won’t be doing UB at Nationals, if she has a strong three event score at Nationals, specifically with two strong VT/FX scores, that she will get an invite to Selection Camp. She can then compete UB and the AA there.
Did my HW on part two of this. Per , the options are get a world or Olympic medal on an event (2016-), win an event at nationals in 2018/2019, or win an event at an FIG event in 2019. And of course you can’t have been on the 2018 Worlds team. So I think Leanne Wong is now eligible due to American Cup.
It also means that unless Skinner can beat Biles on VT (not happening), her best bet to be allowed to go to the Apparatus World Cups and become the Carey-injury-insurance policy is being put on the Worlds team and medaling on vault there.
Tom Forster has said in an interview that Skinner isn’t going for the World Cup spots and that she is trying for one of the AA spots on the team.
Good luck.
When will Eaker debut her DTY? She did it in Feb Camp… She did it well. It would make her AA even more solid.
If she does have a strong and competition-ready DTY (like the one in that video) it would be very useful for the team as well. But there must be some issues – I can’t imagine that she would have one that she can reliably throw and not be using it yet this far into the season.
I did not like that 1.5 she threw in Pan Ams AA finals – it was so tucked in the second half that it could’ve been devalued, and I’m surprised there wasn’t more mention of that. I assume she was trying to hard to stick but it looked bad to me.
Agree. I was surprised people were calling it an NCAA 9.95 because the tuck was REALLY noticeable. But again, the way NCAA judging went this season, it could have been
“stop being polite and start getting real”
OMG Spencer are you also a fan of The Futbol? Are you watching the B/R Champions League series on YouTube? Or was this just the most ridiculous coincidence ever?
FWIW, if you do watch soccer/football/whatever, I would 100% pay to read your previews and live blogs of the games.
Um stop being polite and start getting real, is FROM THE REAL WORLD, in the 90’s when it first aired.
OK, I didn’t get that reference because I never watched THE REAL WORLD. There is an extremely funny series on YouTube right now parodying the men’s Champions League (pro soccer tournament in Europe) and the opening bit uses that line, except they pronounce “real” as “ray-al,” as in Real Madrid. I love soccer as well as gymnastics so got very excited to see the two (in my mind) intersect.
The stop being polite bit tells me this is the right place to put my “juicy” national team members for 2019 –
Please let someone like Faith T excel and let Skinner do amazing so both make the National Team, along with Jordan. Can you imagine how much fun (for us) it would be if former World team medalists DO NOT qualify for the 2019 team… 🙂
Torrez is my dark horse for the 2020 Olympics. She is really tremendous, especially on FX, and with some refinement could really contend for a spot.
The scoring columns in the graphics, are they VT, UB, BB, FX scores in that order?
That’s correct.
I’m from MN so I’m always rooting for the MN girls but I feel like Grace is Maggie 2.0. Could definitely see her placing 2nd at Nationals after placing 3rd at Classics(like Maggie did in 2015), she’s solid on all 4 events. But she doesn’t have those 1 or 2 events that make you go WHOA! Medal contender! She’s a LOCK for the World’s team! I think she does have more potential as far as form goes though than Maggie did so if she keeps up the difficulty and also improves her form that could change- something needs to.
Nobody is a LOCK for Worlds but Simone. That is what makes this year so darn exciting!
Hey, another Minnesotan here. Agree with you 100% on Grace.
That said, if Tom is just following AA standings and not bothering with any strategy, she could be in good stead. I also think that next year being a strong AAer will be really important for the team spots.
I don’t get why so many think Tom is obsessed with following AA standings. How many teams has he had to choose in his tenure and how many people actually disagreed with those teams? He didn’t pick 2018 Pan Ams from AA scores and for other key teams, the top AAers were a great team to send. Who was a better team for 2018 world team or 2019 Pan Ams? I never heard any complaining about Tom’s teams until Konnor McClain missed junior worlds due to a team selection process that was set out and known to all the athletes well beforehand, which I’m not even sure was fully Tom’s decision or not. Konnor was fully in control of whether she met the criteria of that preset process and she simply didn’t do well enough. If she’d performed better in the selection meet, I wonder if there would have been this much complaining about taking the top 4 AAers there.
It seems like that one disappointment of Konnor not making a team has made people decide Tom does everything by AA. But if world’s selection was going to be by straight top AAers, like junior worlds was, then Tom/USAG would go ahead and state that beforehand, like they did with junior worlds. I do think Tom is going to go by scores at selection camp, but not just AA scores. I may be wrong but there’s a lot of AA-only fears that I’m not sure are justified based on Tom’s overall decision making so far.
Tom said specifically in an interview that his preference is to follow AA standings. That’s why.
Ah well then that’s a good reason to think so then! I did hear he said that but no one was able to link it to a source so it was hard to know if there was more to it, if he just meant choosing who got to compete AA in the lineup or if he meant choosing the whole team. So much depends on the question he was asked. I just know I never heard any complaining until the thing with Konnor so it seemed like some might be overreacting. But maybe not. I guess we’ll find out!
The interview is in the hard copy of International Gymnast, which is why no one is able to link to a source. Here is a screen shot of it, however:
https://twitter.com/kentiemac/status/1156686510055448576?s=21
Also, the twitter thread includes the full interview.
UGHHHHH look just pick the top 3 AAers for worlds and then 2 more gymnasts (specialists or AAers) that provide for the highest team score built around the top 3 AAers. Skip the “individual medals” strategy – as I see it, it’s less fair because gymnasts can’t control their competition (and the best two specialists should get the chance to go regardless of whether the UB or BB or whatever field is more or less stacked).
There. Strateg-ish. Fair-ish.
So Jessica’s newest approach to any criticism of someone who she likes is avoiding the topic by calling it a conflict of interest? Cool. I liked it better when you guys could freely talk about your opinions without fear that it might tick off the Ms. Vals of the world (or ruin a friendship with Anna Li since Jessica “knows them, really likes them…this all seems crazy, I don’t know”).
Spencer- keep being your honest self, we appreciate you!
Yeah, I was not impressed with the way she shouted out conflict of interest again during the Wu/Li discussion. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, I think that what she is trying to say is that she feels conflicted because she knows and likes these people.
I am a big fan of Gymcastic and they have done great work around abuse in the last couple of years and holding USAG to task. But that’s two weeks in a row where I have been really disappointed with how Jessica has handled herself on a tough topic. It will be interesting to see how she handles any feedback she gets on the subject and if she addresses it or just ignores it. That will impact whether I continue to support the show or not. I was considering increasing my support of the show – now I am questioning whether I should support it at all.
I am always here to jump in and say that Jessica is extremely unprofessional and Gymcastic would be immensely better without her. She’s a groupie. Not a journalist.
Well Gymcastic wouldn’t exist without her. So I feel like that opinion kind of doesn’t take that into account. I also love Spencer and think he is amazing but a podcast that is just him talking to himself wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.
I definitely see the point of view that she is a groupie and she doesn’t help herself when she squeals over things. I agree that she could conduct herself more professionally. But I generally appreciate the enthusiasm that she shows and the positivity for the sport especially because there has been so much negativity as of late. In the past, she has generally been pretty good when people have criticized her or complained and has issued corrections and has generally taken constructive feedback well. I contrast that with, say, Lauren of the gymternet, who I would consider to be nothing more than a groupie and who does not take criticism well at all.
This latest episode has been disappointing to say the least. But I want to be evenhanded in criticizing someone who I think also has a lot of positives.
**addendum to my Lauren comment. She will be nice about corrections if you kiss her ass first. I forgot about that part. That woman must live a very sad life that she needs that kind of attention.
Oh and just to further turn this into a bash Lauren section, she just deleted a bunch of comments on her blog that were critical of her. And claimed that she doesn’t dox people and when someone called her out on a post in that exact instance of her doxing someone, she edited the post that doxed the person (thankfully) and deleted the post that accused her of doxing.
I can’t post this on Lauren’s site because she’ll just delete it.
I’ll step in and give Lauren some defense. I’ve corrected her multiple times on the Gymternet without giving any prefacing compliment, and she’s been fine with it.
I have never commented on either site before but I would second that Lauren seems reasonable and the comment in question to leave her blog was unspeakably rude. I doubt the poster would be willing to speak like that to her, or anyone, in person, and should not have posted like that online unless they were a troll.
Interesting take. I also don’t like Lauren much and think she does some very questionable stuff/acts a bit bizarrely, but I think she is much more of a journalist than Jessica. I have to give her credit for her dedication to covering the lesser known gymnasts and countries to such a degree. And i find her ass-kissing of Derwael a lot more innocuous than Jessica‘s behavior with regards to Val Kondos or (now) Jiani Wu and Anna Li.
Also, I’d rather no Gymcastic than a bad one, because it takes up space in gym media and discourages better podcasts from emerging (there’s not a huge market unfortunately), so that argument doesn’t hold a lot of weight for me. And i haven’t seen a lot of response to criticism from Jessica either. The bit where they sold t-shirts during the Nassar trial, people objected, and they were like yeah we are going to do it anyway… I mean technically that is responding but it isn’t a response I can have much respect for.
I have to jump in on the defense of Lauren. I have commented many times with many corrections (usually related to an oversight or typo, nothing major) and she has been nothing but pleasant and even grateful in some cases. Recently, during Pan American Games, I commented about something and she was very appreciative and even a bit self-deprecating. This has always been my experience with Lauren, and the only time I see her getting more defensive is when people are unbearably rude to her, as in the case of this comment yesterday. Frankly, I’m glad she is deleting these comments now because I hated to see her responding to them and giving the trolls the satisfaction. She said something yesterday about these people trying to justify being so rude by following it up with “geez, can’t you take criticism?” It’s so manipulative for these people to attempt to rile her up with awful comments and then turn around and make her look like the bad guy. Whether you love or hate how Lauren covers gymnastics, she does not deserve the hate that some people give with the amount of work that she puts in to provide fans with free coverage. If you don’t like her, don’t follow her blog or engage.
Unfortunately and sadly, i agree 100% . Very disappointing to hear the contradiction after listening to her passion and anger for years. I couldnt help but notice spencer’s discomfort. I think i sensed some anger, as well.
Thanks for commenting what many of us were thinking after hearing that episode.
Simone only trained the Cheng during podium training, I wonder if that means she’s only going to do 1 vault again like at Classics. Also, I wonder if she’ll ever compete the Biles again, haven’t seen it since world’s.