A. Russian worlds teams
Today, Valentina stood atop a bell tower and yelled the names of the worlds team members. It appears some degree of sanity has prevailed with Dalaloyan (as well as Nagornyy and Belyavskiy) not in fact attempting to compete at worlds next month. Only Poliashov from the men’s Olympic squad will be competing, while Melnikova and Urazova from the women’s squad will be there.
Urazova is not slated to do the all-around and will compete only select events along with Yana Vorona. I assume you’d give Vorona a chance to do beam, while you’d want Urazova on bars. The other team members, Melnikova and Maria Minaeva, will go on all four, presenting another excellent chance for an all-around medal and possible victory for Melnikova here.
B. “Please don’t sue us about the Olympics, here you can go to worlds”
Only Becky Downie, Georgia-Mae Fenton, Taeja James, and Ruby Stacey competed at the British worlds trials, while Claudia Fragapane was in action winning the floor title at Koper. A number of competitions are taken into account for selection, so the Olympians didn’t have to compete here, though Kinsella has ruled herself out with an ankle injury and Amelie Morgan is at Utah.
It would be peak gymnastics for Downie to get good enough scores at the Olympic trials to be named to the Olympic team—and be snubbed—and then struggle at these Worlds trials and be named to the worlds team.
C. More Worlds News
In the land of the Dutch, the Weverseseses and Thorsdottir will not try for worlds this year. With those characters out, I would imagine Volleman, Visser, Van Pol, Veerman, and Geurts are the frontrunners for the four spots. Here’s hoping Geurts gets a shot as she had a strong argument for that Olympic team.
Casimir Schmidt and Bram Verhofstad are among a larger group trying for the men’s spots.
D. NCAA News
As part of the parade of new Division III gymnastics programs, Simpson College in Iowa has announced it is adding women’s and men’s gymnastics teams for the 2023 season. And in a brand new twist, this particular institution seems to be not insane, which is extra crucial.
In roster developments, Emma Brown is transferring back to Denver. She was at Denver for her first year, transferred to LIU last season and did not compete, and now is at Denver again. In terms of departures, last year’s freshmen Quinn Smith and Julianne Fehring do not appear on Oklahoma’s roster this season, while Jensie Givens is gone from Alabama’s roster.
Auburn got a jump on everyone by being the first to release it’s Suni Tour Dates 2022 season schedule, featuring the usual conference slate, a late-season visit to Michigan, and the addition of Georgia and Arkansas to the usual Auburn-Alabama Elevate the Stage meet.
Meanwhile, Jessie DeZiel is the new head coach at UW-Eau Claire, which finished the 2020 season in last place nationally and has been toward the bottom of the UW pile for a while now.
E. Upcoming meets
Chinese National Games is looming on the horizon, with men’s competition beginning on the 19th and women’s on the 20th. The entire gang is slated to compete because it’s National Games.
The Mersin Challenge Cup is this weekend, with qualification on Friday and Saturday and then all ten finals crammed into Sunday. We haven’t had a roster update in a good long while, but Larisa Iordache is signed up to compete bars and beam.