US times and US streaming links.

Wednesday, July 21
6:30am ET/3:30am PT – Men’s Podium Training United States	STREAM
It’s men’s podium training. They’ll do a couple skills. The exciting part is that this will signal the ACTUAL OLYMPICS being ACTUALLY HERE. Brody Malone’s absence from a streamed training session earlier in the camp process provoked some concern over his status, so this will be the test for whether that was nothing or something.
Thursday, July 22
2:10am ET/11:10pm PT – Women’s Podium Training United States	STREAM
Typically, anticipation for US women’s podium training is based mostly on it being the opportunity to see who gets to do the all-around in qualification and who doesn’t, and then have a meltdown about that. With everyone getting to do the all-around in qualification this time, it’s more about the actual routine content (Yurchenko double pike? What passes is Lee doing on floor? Is Carey going to try the triple double?) and somewhat about the performance order and what that might tell us about the team final (i.e., where is McCallum in the order, and does that indicate what she’ll be called on to do?).
Friday, July 23
9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT – Men’s Subdivision 1 Russia, China, Ukraine, Spain McClenaghan, Zonderland, Deurloo, Srbic, Shatilov, Dolgopyat, Dragulescu, Georgiou, Koudinov, Jessen, Loo, Mohamed	STREAM
While Russia and China will qualify to the team final easily, eyes will be on the physical stability of Russia in this session as the controversial move to put Abliazin onto the team in place of Kartsev means that Russia will be relying on Abliazin to produce a counting floor routine. Abliazin has not competed a floor routine in nearly a full quad. The race to see which Chinese athletes make the all-around final (Xiao and Sun favored, but definitely not guaranteed) will be a tight one, and this subdivision also presents the moment of truth for a number of big-name individuals as we’ll see McClenaghan try to get into the pommel horse final, as well as if Zonderland’s reports of his own demise have been exaggerated or not.
Saturday, July 24
1:30am ET/10:30pm PT – Men’s Subdivision 2 Japan, Switzerland, Great Britain, Brazil Petrounias, Karimi, Shek, Davtyan, Petrov, Gonzalez, Le, Dinh, Corral, Cournoyer, Bull, Rumbutis, Huddleston, Eke	STREAM
Japan begins its quest to win team gold at home, and at this point we will have already seen Russia and China so should have some solid basis for comparison. Great Britain’s selection of Whitlock for the team was done in the interest of individual events, but we’ll see how that affects the team score across the other apparatuses for a country that should theoretically be one in the group of “well, I guess if something happens…” contenders. Switzerland’s team may be more complete this time around.
6:30am ET/3:30am PT – Men’s Subdivision 3 United States, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany Yulo, Colak, Arican, Onder, Asil, Ait Said, Tommasone, Frasca, Lodadio, Edalli, Tvorogal, Tikhonov, Heggemsnes, Abdurakhimov	STREAM US CAM
The United States team, which is expected to finish 4th here, will headline the final subdivision, looking to prove that they are closer to the medal teams than most of us think they are. Some major event contenders will be in action here, including Yulo on floor, Colak on rings, and Lee CK on pommel horse, plus we’ll get to see how 2012 vault champion Yang Hak Seon is looking.
9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT – Women’s Subdivision 1 Japan, Italy Varinska, Magistrati, Derek, Vidiaux, Holasova, Ting, Nekrasova, Tan, Nayak, Rutty	STREAM EVENTS
The Japanese women got no home benefit at all with their placement in the first subdivision, but the comparison with Italy here will be critical. Despite Italy’s 2019 bronze medal, the composition of the teams this year points to Japan being the stronger squad. If Japan is to play any kind of spoiler role, the team will absolutely have to be better than Italy in this subdivision. Floor is also key here. Murakami and Ferrari will both expect to make that final and will have to get the kind of scores that hold up for the whole day.
10:50pm ET/7:50pm PT – Women’s Subdivision 2 Russia, China, Great Britain Rooskrantz, Hämmerle, Ryan, Daries, Gehani	STREAM EVENTS
The big one. You’ll be drowning in two-per-country drama. Russia has Listunova, Melnikova, and Urazova on a pretty level playing field all aiming for the AA final, while every member of China’s team could end up as a top-2 all-arounder for them depending on the day (based on average score this year, Zhang, Lu, and Tang are all within a tenth, while if Ou hits, she can be the best one), not to mention China’s five-way race to make the beam final. Somewhat overlooked in this group is that Great Britain should have its own fight for spots in the all-around final with all four capable of getting there with hits.
Sunday, July 25
2:10am ET/11:10pm PT – Women’s Subdivision 3 United States, Netherlands Iordache, Holbura, Godwin, Whitehead, Martins, Mokosova, Francis, Sasnal, Castro, Savranbasi, Orrego	STREAM EVENTS US CAM
The US will solve its two-per-country questions here, with the clashes to make the all-around final (Lee vs Chiles…one would think?) and the vault final (Skinner vs Carey once and for all) looming particularly large, but floor is also lurking as a probable free-for-all. The Netherlands is one of the bubble teams attempting to make the team final against many of the teams in subdivisions 4 and 5 so will have to set a strong mark the others can’t catch. For the individuals, we’ll see what finals Iordache might make and how she shapes up in terms of all-around scores as one of the top…10ish?…contenders there.
4:05am ET/1:05am PT – Women’s Subdivision 4 France, Canada, Spain Steingruber, Chusovitina, Raz, Abdul Hadi, Alvarado	STREAM EVENTS
Most of the major medal favorites will have competed in the first three subdivisions, so in these later groups the race to make the team final will be the focus. Based on average scores this year, France and Canada would rank as the #7 and #8 teams in the world, so technically favored to make the team final, but only barely in a very close race. Chusovitina also competes in this group, hoping to make yet another Olympic vault final. She’s going to have to pull out her good ones to do it.
7:20am ET/4:20am PT – Women’s Subdivision 5 Belgium, Germany Andrade, Saraiva, Moreno, Kovacs, Yeo, Lee, Adlerteg, Mohamed, Ibrahim, Erichsen, Traukova	STREAM EVENTS
Belgium and Germany are also in contention to make the team final, but probably on the outside looking in right now. Helpfully, we’ll know what they have to score and whether it looks possible before this subdivision begins. With Derwael and Seitz competing in this group, the bars race won’t be settled until right at the end, and vault could be shaken up as well with Moreno and Yeo here as individuals. Andrade and Saraiva will both be aiming for multiple finals, and with Andrade as one of the top-scoring all-arounders in the world this year, it will be worth keeping an eye on how her score compares to the qualified AAers from Russia and China.
Monday, July 26
6:00am ET/3:00am PT – Men’s Team Final	STREAM EVENTS US CAM
Tuesday, July 27
6:45am ET/3:45am PT – Women’s Team Final	STREAM EVENTS US CAM
Wednesday, July 28
6:15am ET/3:15am PT – Men’s All-Around Final	STREAM EVENTS US CAM
Thursday, July 29
6:50am ET/3:50am PT – Women’s All-Around Final	STREAM EVENTS
Sunday, August 1
4:00am ET/1:00am PT – Men’s Floor Final	STREAM
4:55am ET/1:55am PT – Women’s Vault Final	STREAM
5:44am ET/2:44am PT – Men’s Horse Final	STREAM
6:27am ET/3:27am PT – Women’s Bars Final	STREAM
Monday, August 2
4:00am ET/1:00am PT – Men’s Rings Final	STREAM
5:00am ET/2:00am PT – Women’s Floor Final	STREAM
5:54am ET/2:54am PT – Men’s Vault Final	STREAM
Tuesday, August 3
4:00am ET/1:00am PT – Men’s Parallel Bars Final	STREAM
4:48am ET/1:48am PT – Women’s Beam Final	STREAM
5:37am ET/2:37am PT – Men’s High Bar Final	STREAM

A. Everything Is Fine

The US gymnastics community was thrown into a tizzy early this morning stateside (a 4:16am wake-up text to be exact, which I would like noted for the court record) with news that Olympic alternate Kara Eaker tested positive for COVID. Well, originally it was just an “unnamed teenage gymnast,” which was professional-sounding code for “we can’t say who it is yet but we need you to know immediately that it’s not Simone.”

So, Eaker—vaccinated and symptom free—now has to staycation at Hotel for Alternates, along with Leanne Wong for close contact reasons, instead of flying home with the other members of the shadow team.

As things stand, this doesn’t materially affect the US squad because the alternates were going to have to skedaddle soon anyway and we don’t yet know of any positive tests among the six actual team members. We’ll hope that holds up. No guarantees. This does bring up some questions and concerns for the powers that be should it…not hold up. For instance, why were the alternates training in the same building at the same time as the team members if the entire point of having this many alternates was for them to be able to step in should there be a COVID outbreak? Wouldn’t you want them to…not have any risk of the same exposure? Tweets that Simone’s tumbling acts as a “double vaccine” for the already vaccinated turned out to be a hoax, anyway.

Also, the latest Grave digging is that Eaker was also the one who had the alleged “false positive” this weekend. So sounds like that was maybe more of a false negative, with everyone very quick to claim “false positive” despite not having conclusive knowledge of that. Excellent work, all around. I’m so very glad you had her training with everyone else. Good, good.

And now back to pretending this is a normal Olympics and everything is fine and that it’s totally OK to be doing this right now. La la la la la.

Continue reading Things Are Happening – July 19, 2021 →

One apparatus left to go. Over the last quad or two, floor has typically not been the deepest event in women’s gymnastics, but this year there is a slightly heartier crop of athletes contending for silver, and a whole bunch of people who could sneak in for a bronze medal depending on the day.

Rules – Each athlete will count her 8 most difficult skills, of which at least three must be acrobatic elements and three must be dance elements. Routines must also include a passage of two dance elements, an acrobatic twisting element, a double salto, and acrobatic elements both forward and backward.

Tier I

Simone Biles (USA)

Here, there is no question. Biles is so, so far ahead of the rest of the pack. Even with a Pride parade of going-out-of-bounds on her record this year and a full miss at Classic, Biles still owns a floor average more than half a point better than any other gymnast in the world. Even her 0.5 OOB routine from nationals outscored what anyone else has done this year (and if it had been correctly evaluated as 0.7 OOB, that would still be true). She’s going to be untouchable and in a tier of her own on floor.

Tier II

Murakami Mai (JPN)

The best hope for a home Japanese medal on the women’s side comes from Murakami’s floor routine. The 2017 world champion, she is the only non-American to have won a major floor title in the last decade (beyond Murakami, we’d have to go back to Afanasyeva in 2011), and she owns the second best floor average in the world this year, behind only Biles. Her tumbling is supreme, and as long as she gets credit for her difficult turns (a key area to watch), she’ll have among the very highest difficulty scores in the competition. There’s a lot riding on this routine, but she’s very capable of a medal.

Jordan Chiles or Sunisa Lee or Jade Carey or Grace McCallum or MyKayla Skinner (USA)

There will be two Americans in the floor final. The second one will be a medal favorite. The only question is…who? Chiles owns the peak score among the options with her 14.233 from the second day of Olympic Trials, and given her tumbling composition, that should make her the frontrunner for the second US spot. Yet, floor has been her least consistent event this year, and we’ve also seen those mid-13s that would be unlikely to get her into the final.

Lee is the defending world silver medalist, but I’d say she does need to add back full difficulty to place among the top two Americans in qualification and get into the final. Still, the 13.933 she recorded on the second day of trials while doing only three passes speaks to the level of 14ishness she might have here if her limbs fully cooperate.

Carey is the wildcard because we haven’t seen her do much in the way of full floor difficulty in 2021. But we do know that she has the tumbling to score well, is a world silver medalist on floor, and tied Lee in qualification at 2019 worlds, just missing out on the final because of the execution tiebreak. While Carey has a very different approach to scoring well on floor from Lee, she will nonetheless also have to pull out full difficulty to get her score into the rarefied 14s given the expected execution disadvantage. That full difficulty does not necessarily mean the layout triple double, which would have to look really good to be anything close to a code-savvy decision to put in the routine. But also please do it because that would be fun.

As for Skinner, her peak this year has been lower than the others, so I wouldn’t rate her as the most likely American to get into the final, but it’s certainly not out of the question if she has another Trials Day 1 in qualification. The same goes for McCallum. She has scored well on floor in the past, and also on the first day of Olympic Trials, but her numbers this year overall put her in last place among the US floor workers, so I’d put her in the longer shot category with Skinner. Perhaps that’s a little harsh on McCallum, but gaining more security on landings over the weeks since trials will be essential for her.

Angelina Melnikova (RUS)

There are very few athletes who have been able to maintain a floor average over 14 this year, and the defending world bronze medalist is among them, recording 14s not just at domestic Russian competitions but on two of three routines at European Championships as well. The rise of the new Russians has curtailed some of Melnikova’s individual medal opportunities, i.e. the all-around is a much longer shot these days, but floor—the event on which she has three-peated as Russian champion, including in 2021—remains her best medal chance.

Viktoria Listunova (RUS)

Listunova does have the routine composition and floor ability to score right with Melnikova and has done so on most occasions this year. Though not every occasion. We have also seen Listunova miss several times this year, with an emerging tendency to struggle on floor at the end of long competitions (both at the European Championships and Russian Cup), which is worth keeping in mind. That tendency has kept her floor average for 2021 behind that of her teammate Urazova, but there’s no ability-based reason why she shouldn’t be a medal contender on floor this year.

The 14ishness of Melnikova and Listunova means I would classify them as the clear favorites to make this final for Russia over the more mid-high 13 routines coming from Urazova and Akhaimova. If either of the favorites has a problem in qualification, Urazova or Akhaimova can very well knock them out, but if that’s the case, Russia might also be facing not having two athletes in the floor final.

Continue reading Olympic Floor Exercise Preview →