Winter Cup Sunday Live Blog – February 28, 2021

Back to Winter Cup today for the junior women and the remaining senior women who were not popular enough to get an invite to the party yesterday. LILLY LIPPEATT YOU CAN SIT ELSEWHERE. With the added pleasure of getting to make fun of a FLO broadcast. It’s at least 70% why I’m here.

I’m expecting this meet to be verrrrrrry junior. We shall see.

Everyone’s favorite junior is already Paloma Spiridonova because of the name Spiridonova.

Li Li giving a State of the Meet address to thank the athletes or whatever, and I agree that it’s kind of weird timing. It feels a little mandatory. Like, let’s all stand at attention and listen to The Leader.

Anthem and intros done, moving on to touch warmup. The vault and beam feeds are currently down for the touch warmup. It’s going great!

We’re startings.

Rotation 1

Continue reading Winter Cup Sunday Live Blog – February 28, 2021

Saturday Live Blog – February 27, 2021

Saturday, February 27
Scores Stream
8:00am ET/5:00am PT – Winter Cup – Junior (and select seniors) Women’s Podium Training N/A FLO
12:30pm ET/9:30am PT – Winter Cup – Senior Women LINK NBC
2:00pm ET/11:00am PT – Oregon State @ [13] UCLA LINK P12N
2:00pm ET/11:00am PT – Big Five ([12] Iowa, Penn State, Michigan State, Rutgers @ [5] Michigan) LINK BTN+
3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT – Kent State @ Northern Illinois LINK NIU($)
3:00pm ET/12:00pm PT – San Jose State @ Stanford    
4:00pm ET/1:00pm PT – North Carolina, Temple @ [25] NC State   ACCN
5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT – Winona State @ UW-Whitewater LINK FREE
5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT – UW-Oshkosh @ UW-La Crosse   FREE
5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT – Winter Cup – Elite Team Cup (Junior Men) LINK FLO
8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – [16] Southern Utah @ [20] Boise State LINK FREE

It’s an elite/NCAA combo live blog today as a couple NCAA meets I want to follow will be commingling with the end of the senior women’s Winter Cup session. How progressive of them.

Senior women’s start list is as follows:

VT – Jones, McCusker, Carely, E Lee
UB – Rosen, McClain, Blakely, Torrez, Malabuyo, Barros
BB – Kratzer, S Lee, Fatta, Alipio, Frazier, Saltness
FX – Drayton, Miller, Chiles, Hernandez, Greaves, German

Doesn’t mean everyone is doing all the events (or is still competing because that bars group has already had an injury apocalypse in warmup), but these are their assigned groups and starting events. Faith Torrez has officially scratched the meet now per the live scores after her vault warmup injury, as well as Katelyn Rosen after her beam injury. We’re all surprised it wasn’t the Texas Dreams athletes. Although live scores also say Malabuyo and Barros have zeros on bars.

Can’t wait to see what gems Tim and Nastia have in store for us today. We’re literally watching them get ready on the stream right now. Nastia is NOT HAPPY with this turtleneck situation. FIX IT. The third injury of training: Nastia’s turtleneck.

Road to Tokyo. Tokyo Tokyo Tokyo. Laurie Hernandez “and others.” I mean…

Laurie is watering down floor because her Jenny just wants her to have fun. I’m so here for every subtweet of The Haney.

Terry telling us that they will have more on Geddert after the first rotation. GOODY.

THE UNITED STATES COULD FIELD TWO OR THREE OLYMPIC TEAMS.

Rotation 1

Jones – VT – “future Florida Gator” is she though? Because she keeps not signing – solid enough DTY, not her most control, larger bounce back, some leg crossing, solid, chest up, pretty comfortable for her. 14.550.

McCusker – VT – “…coaching change…” – pulls around a DTY, a little deep, has some better amplitude, but still a lower landing. They’re really talking up the change. I mean it was a little better, but not like a WOW change. 14.050

Carey – VT – hits a solid Cheng, medium bounce back, chest well up on landing, easily completed, typical leg crossing but she looks ready with that vault. 14.800. 9.100 E and .3 ND.

Tim is trying to explain the +2 Olympic spots.

Continue reading Saturday Live Blog – February 27, 2021

Friday Live Blog – February 26, 2021

Friday, February 26
Scores Stream
5:00pm ET/2:00pm PT – Big Five ([8] Minnesota, [19] Illinois, [21] Ohio State, Nebraska @ Maryland) LINK BTN+
6:00pm ET/3:00pm PT – New Hampshire, Towson @ LIU LINK FREE
6:00pm ET/3:00pm PT – UW-Stout @ Gustavus Adolphus   FREE
7:00pm ET/4:00pm PT – [2] LSU @ [14] Kentucky LINK SECN
7:30pm ET/4:30pm PT – Illinois State, Centenary @ SEMO LINK  
8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – [10] Denver, Lindenwood, TWU @ [3] Oklahoma LINK FSOK
8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – [7] Alabama @ [6] Arkansas LINK SEC+
8:00pm ET/5:00pm PT – [15] Georgia @ [23] Missouri LINK SEC+
8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT – [18] Auburn @ [1] Florida LINK SECN
9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT – [9] Cal @ [4] Utah LINK P12N
9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT – [22] Utah State @ [11] BYU LINK BYUTV

The Nastia Liukin Cup is wrapping up now, and the thing I always forget about this meet is that it’s very boring and I don’t care about it at all. There’s a reason L10 meets are just for the parents and there aren’t L10 fans.

Starting with today’s Big Five meet, every team there still has a low score (relative to their expectations) sitting in the NQS picture that they would love to drop today to pad that ranking. For Minnesota, that’s a road 196.3. For Nebraska, the team in the most precarious current position at #35 in the NQS rankings, that’s a 194.725. Nebraska’s peak so far this season is a 195.350, which is just not safe enough when there are 30 teams that already have an NQS average better than that.

Minnesota starts on a bye.

Nebraska starts on floor, which has hit 49 just once this season but should have a full lineup today. Maryland starts on vault, which has been their high score the last two meets.

Rotation 1

Continue reading Friday Live Blog – February 26, 2021

Winter Cup Preview

Winter Cup—now with added women for heart health!—has arrived. The men and the Nastia proteges will get things started on Friday, with the elite women competing Saturday and Sunday. Full weekend gymnastics schedule.

If we’re being honest, there’s not a ton riding on the women’s competition when it comes to Olympic prognostication because it’s still so early in Selection Time—especially as national team spots can now be earned here, at March camp, or by petition. Also, most of these people haven’t competed since they were several feet shorter, so I’m going to try to cool it on TEH STAKES. (When has that ever worked.) But there are still some athletes and concepts I’m eager to see play out this weekend.

Laurie Hernandez

A shining treasure and the dove of peace, Laurie Hernandez is finally set to make her return to competition at Winter Cup, 54 months since the last time we saw her get a score. In large part, Hernandez’s participation in this competition is about the fact that she’s there and that’s exciting. She’s a star of the sport who has overcome the Haney of it all to make a return.

As yet, we haven’t seen any D-score-based indications that she’s making a capital-O Olympic push, but we also haven’t seen any actual competition work. This performance, then, will be revealing in terms of what track she’s on and whether the timing looks realistic. Hernandez is preliminarily expected to compete beam and floor here, understandable as the two most likely events on which she would be up to competition level.

Riley McCusker

For MG Elite refugees in general, this competition can be a significant benchmark because the last time we saw McCusker compete, she was being escorted off the floor after bars so that no one could see how rhabdo she was. Time has passed.

Continue reading Winter Cup Preview