We’re now into the fifth month of a new code, a new cycle, a new wheel of celestial moonbeams,  which means…we know absolutely nothing about anything. So here we go.   

In the American department, the US has selected actual teams for a couple events thus far, so we have a fairly solid sense of the current hierarchy…at least the hierarchy that doesn’t include the gymnasts who have been competing in college or injured. 

Based on the top scores recorded on each event so far this year, the highest-scoring team of five for the US right now would be this group, which also passes the eye test in terms of the gymnastics we’ve seen:

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Konnor McClain	14.400	13.933	14.600	13.900
Skye Blakely	14.266	13.150	14.250	13.366
Shilese Jones	14.300	14.300	13.550	13.700
Zoe Miller	13.650	14.450	12.133	12.650
eMjae Frazier	14.133	13.400	13.700	13.850
	42.966	42.683	42.550	41.450	169.649

Other competitive scores in the currently active group include a bars from Nola Matthews, a beam from Kailin Chio, a floor from Katelyn Jong, and a…most of them?…from Ashlee Sullivan, but the above five would be the top-scoring team. Until all the college freshmen come back to elite this summer and take their spots. With Lee, Wong, Chiles, Carey, and potentially DiCello among others waiting to jump in, no one should expect this early-2022 group to be anything close to finalized.

Elsewhere in the upper echelon of teams, Russia is banned and the Chinese athletes have not competed this year, so we don’t yet know where their scores will factor in. Domestic events including Chinese nationals and multi-sport competitions like June’s University Games and September’s Asian Games have all been postponed, but China will have to send a group to the Asian Championships in Doha (June 15-18) in order to qualify a team to worlds, so we’ll know something by then. 

Along with the Americans, Italy is the other nation putting forward high-level teams in actual competitions this year, with a top-scoring five that shapes up like this:

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Asia D’Amato	14.233	14.500	13.650	13.550
Angela Andreoli	13.833	14.200	14.450	13.666
Alice D’Amato	14.100	14.700		11.250
Martina Maggio	13.900	14.600	14.200	13.600
Giorgia Villa		14.433	14.000
	42.233	43.800	42.650	40.816	169.499

I’d consider it a fool’s errand to compare the actual team totals at this point, especially with a few less realistic Serie A numbers in there, but we have seen Italy semi-somewhat close to this US group on both occasions they went head-to-head this year, with deficits of 1.3 and 1.8. 

Unlike the US and the changes we’ll inevitably see to the Best Gymnasts Club as the year goes on, this quintet would be a realistic team for Italy at any point. Even if Andreoli doesn’t start hitting beam, you’d be very happy with this five.

While the British have not yet sent a group to match up against the others in team competitions, we’ve seen an encouraging start to the year in domestic events, with most of the top athletes returning to compete.

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Jessica Gadirova	14.250	13.250	13.550	14.600
Alice Kinsella	13.750	13.550	12.750	13.550
Georgia-Mae Fenton	12.900	13.800	13.750	12.850
Ondine Achampong	14.250	13.100	13.650	12.500
Jennifer Gadirova	13.250	13.550	13.750	13.950
	42.250	40.900	41.150	42.100	166.400

Keep an eye on Achampong potentially moving up the ladder this year to disrupt the status of the established team members, as she and Fenton have recorded the most useful scores for a team so far with Amelie Morgan at Utah and absent from the domestic elite scene. And of course there’s the newly-re-AAing-again Becky Downie, who isn’t part of the highest-scoring team at this point but could very realistically push her way into the five when her bars scores get back to 14s.

In Japan, we have a team in the midst of rebuilding mode, with Murakami, Teramoto, and Hatakeda all having announced their retirements. Still, we did see a number of competitive routines at the All-Japan Championship last month (video: AA final).

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Kasahara Arisa	13.200	13.766	13.733	12.766
Miyata Shoko	14.300	12.433	13.433	13.266
Yamada Chiharu	14.033	13.766	12.733	13.133
Watanabe Hazuki	13.266	13.533	13.733	12.500
Sakaguchi Ayaka	14.000	12.766	13.233	13.300
	42.333	41.065	40.899	39.699	163.996

While she wouldn’t be in the highest-scoring team of five right now because of the other apparatuses, consider world beam champion Ashikawa Urara a necessary member of the group going forward. That said, we have seen Japan shoot itself in the eye before with its stringent, AA-based selection procedures, so…maybe keep more of an eye on that space than you should have to? 

For France, life looks very encouraging once you plug MDJDS into the group of gymnasts that have competed so far this year, a group that really should entertain expectations of a team medal at Euros as one of the three favorites with Italy and Great Britain. 

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Aline Friess	14.350	13.550	13.450	13.350
Carolann Heduit	14.050	13.400	13.333	13.200
Lorette Charpy	13.550	13.866	13.250	12.950
Louane Versaveau	13.650	13.800	12.967	12.300
Coline Devillard	14.450	10.950	12.833	12.000
	42.850	41.216	40.033	39.500	163.599

An interesting factor to watch this year will be double Olympian Marine Boyer, who has been competing domestically but doesn’t have the scores so far to get herself on the highest-scoring team. Typically, it’s Devillard who finds herself on the outside because she doesn’t really have a second event to go with her vault. But, if you have MDJDS, Charpy, Heduit, and Friess, you wouldn’t mind a fifth gymnast with only 1 event if she’s giving you such a useful vault score.

For Canada, the repertoire of routines shown so far this year is definitely incomplete, but veteran Denelle Pedrick’s performance at Stuttgart does have her with counting scores on two events.

	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Denelle Pedrick	13.966	12.250	12.700	13.166
Ellie Black	13.550	13.750	13.133	12.150
Sydney Turner	13.250	13.150	13.600	12.866
Shallon Olsen	14.300		12.600	12.550
Ava Stewart	13.133	13.700	12.900
	41.816	40.600	39.633	38.582	160.631

We’re also looking at a fairly incomplete picture of scores for other typical team final contenders like the Netherlands, Belgium, Brazil, and Germany, but there may need to be some alarms sounding for Germany because the absence of the long-standing stars in 2022 competitions has exposed some low scores that would put Germany behind teams like Romania and Hungary right now.