Monthly Archives: September 2022

World Championships

World Championships Nominative Roster News

Today, the FIG released the “definitely entirely meaningless but won’t stop me from talking about them” nominative rosters for the world championships, whereby countries submit the names of up to six athletes (five team members and an alternate) as placeholders to confirm that they do intend to send some athletes in those spots to worlds, even if not necessarily these exact individuals. So let’s get into what we “learned.”

  • The US women won’t conduct their selection camp until October 21-22, so for this list, they just submitted six gymnasts in all-around order from nationals: McClain, Jones, Chiles, Carey, Blakely, Zeiss. The only noteworthy part here is that they skipped over Kayla DiCello in that list of all-arounders, which one might decide to read as a tell regarding her intentions re: going for worlds.
  • The US men will conduct their selection camp this coming week on October 3 and 5 and submitted a nominative list that includes specialists Curran Phillips and Stephen Nedoroscik.
    • The other roster names are already confirmed team members Brody Malone and Donnell Whittenburg, along with Asher Hong and Colt Walker. That team of Malone, Whittenburg, Hong, Walker, Nedoroscik was the highest-scoring team based on the average of the two days of nationals (without bonus). “bUt WiLl ThEy TaKe A oNe EvEnTeR??????” – Me, all of next week.
  • Romania, see me after class. Despite qualifying a full team to worlds, the Romanian women have submitted just two athletes: Ana Barbosu and Andreea Preda.
    • Because Romania confirmed their team presence in the original allocation conducted after Euros, there’s now no mechanism in the rules to replace the Romanian women with the next team in line, which would be the Czech Republic. Instead, confirmed teams that end up not declining to send a full team receive a maximum of two athlete positions.
    • The Romanian men are like, “Look which side is suddenly the less disastrous one…”
  • Tyesha Mattis of Jamaica, who originally qualified her AA spot through the Pan American Championship, does not appear on the roster. Instead, there is a TBD placeholder spot for a replacement athlete from Pan Ams. Next in line for that spot would be Leyanet Pruna of Cuba.
  • Tran Doan Quynh Nam of Vietnam has not taken her vault and bars specialist spots. On vault, she is replaced by Mali Neurauter of Norway, which means Norway now has five women qualified to worlds but did not qualify a full team. Because there was literally no one left on bars (Tran had originally qualified as a bars specialist with a score of 0.300), her vacated spot goes unfilled.
  • Adam Steele of Ireland was originally confirmed for a floor specialist spot but does not appear on the nominative roster. He is replaced on floor by Niklas Syverhuset of Norway. Norway definitely gets the “hacked the system” award this year by getting 8 total athletes to worlds despite qualifying zero teams.
  • Leo Lehtinen of Finland, the #8 qualifier on high bar, did not take his spot. That instead goes to Rasuljon Abdurakjimov of Uzbekistan, who was already qualified for PBars and now has two events.
  • In noteworthy team submissions, Germany still has Sarah Voss on its nominative list, but she has been ruled out of worlds with injury. With that on top of Kim Bui’s retirement, Germany is pressed for depth as they wait for next year’s new seniors to save the day. On this nominative list, Anna-Lena König and Lea Marie Quaas appear alongside the obvious Seitz, Schäfer, Malewski group, though really, Germany’s best possible scoring plan would be to get Seitz and Schäfer back in the all-around.
  • Italy has listed Veronica Mandriota and Manila Esposito among its six—along with the obvious available four of Villa, Maggio, Andreoli, and Alice D’Amato. So right now the fifth spot looks to be between those two, which is about what we expected.
    • If you’re Italy, you basically want all your actual, real team final routines coming from the main four anyway, so it shouldn’t matter that much—except, we haven’t seen Alice D’Amato do beam this year, and you never know when Andreoli is going to fall 8 times, so I’d sort of want the fifth member to be able to have a team final beam if needed. Which is to say, I’m torn. Mandriota is elegant as the day is long and the better VT/FX complement to Villa’s UB/BB to make a well-rounded team, but if you want a beam score specifically, Esposito’s potential is probably higher.
  • Nina Derwael does indeed appear among Belgium’s six athletes. She was slated to return at the Paris World Cup but was a late withdrawal.
  • China has listed Tang Xijing, Wei Xiaoyuan, Ou Yushan, Zhang Jin, Luo Rui, and He Licheng as its six—six of the eight I’d have in major consideration, along with Wu Ran and Sun Xinyi, though given Wu Ran’s injury and Sun Xinyi’s beam specialist status, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see them miss out as we see on the nominative list.
  • Spain’s submitted six does not include their current best gymnast Alba Petisco, who was 12th AA at Euros and made the beam final. So that would not be ideal.
  • The Japanese men threw in 80-million-time medalist Kaya Kazuma as the alternate along with the already-named team. Must be nice. Kaya finished 4th AA after NHK and was not named to the team.
  • Ellie Downie, only recently back, is listed as Great Britain’s alternate alongside the Euros five, who have been announced as the team.
  • Eythora Thorsdottir is listed among the six for the Netherlands pending their upcoming selection competition. Watch that space.
  • Georgia-Rose Brown returns as part of the Australian women’s squad, and she is confirmed as part of Australia’s traveling six that will be winnowed to five after arriving in the UK.
  • Veterans Benjamin Gischard and Christain Baumann are part of Switzerland’s listed men’s team after being absent at Euros. The Swiss men haven’t missed a worlds team final since 2011.
  • Abigial Magistrati, Argentina’s best finisher at this year’s South American Championship, does not appear on the nominative list.
  • Carina Kröll, an essential part of Austria’s worlds qualification performance, does not appear on Austria’s list. She is replaced by Berta Schwaninger.

Live Blog

Paris World Cup Live Blog

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Today brings us the highly anticipated finals from the Paris World Challenge Cup—now that we’ve all decided to start paying attention to challenge cups starting this week and then never again.

It appears the finals will stream both on the French federation’s site as well as on Sport en France. Originally, Sport en France was only going to be streaming the second half of finals, but the schedule has been changed to include both sessions.

In qualification, the US women made all of their intended finals, though things got a bit shaky for Shilese Jones with a fall on bars and a double OOB/wolf turn debacle on floor that saw her finish in 7th and 8th respectively on those events. She is, however, the top qualifier on beam, just as you predicted. Jade Carey qualified first on vault by a large margin and received an 8.000 execution score on beam for the first time ever outside the US to qualify in second there. Jordan Chiles advanced to the vault and floor finals in 2nd place and to the bars final in 6th place.

In Brazilian news, Rebeca Andrade elected to compete on only bars, where she qualified in first (duh), while Flavia Saraiva is the top qualifier on floor but did not advance to the beam final after a miss.

Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos had a 3-fall nightmare on bars to miss that final but did qualify to beam, and Ellie Black made both of her finals on bars and beam, debuting a clear-hip piked tkatchev 1/2 on bars in qualification.

I’m currently connecting to watch by VPN. We have Main Guy, Lorette Charpy, and Paul Degouy on the call. Paul just got kind of scared by some pyrotechnics, so that was excellent.

We’re now getting some 1990s computer generated men falling on floor to show us that this is bad, which is stellar GIF potential.

We start with man floor, running by itself.

Men’s Floor

Montgomery – IRL – double double tucked, good, small hop – front full to double front, small shuffle – punch randi, more jarred landing back but OK – 2/1 side pass, stuck – russians, fair amount of movement – 2.5 to front lay, stuck, some knees – front 2/1 to lay 1/2, stuck – 3/1, also stuck. Excellent start to the day, great landings.

14.250 for him with 8.350 E score.

Guimaraes – BRA – front full to double front pike, shuffle forward – double double tucked, hop back – full out, high, bounce back – flare work – 2/1 side pass, stuck – way overcooks his 2.5 and cannot complete a layout out of it, fall – double front, finishes with nearly another fall, just saves himself from sitting down.

Osberger – FRA – punch randi, stuck – doubel double tuck, small hop to the side – 2.5 to front lay to front full, small hop – russians – relax and kiss the floor for a second – 2/1, stuck with arm wave – front 2/1 to front tuck full, stuck, some leg position – 3/1, bounce back, keeps it in bounds. French crowd apparently getting murdered during every pass.

14.200 and just behind Montgomery.

Emard – CAN – front 2/1 to double front, stumble and OOB, just does keep it to his feet but a stagger with steps, preposterous that he didn’t fall – double double tuck, low, hop forward – FTDT is stuck, strong – 2/1, stuck – 2.5 to high front layout, pretty, stuck – 3/1, lunge back. Lots of errors in first couple passes, but a solid finish for Gymnastics Andrew Rannells. 13.500

FYI, I’m watching on the French federation site with a VPN after making an account and logging in. You know, easy.

Dolgopyat – ISR – front 2/1 to double front goes disastrously, sits it, no chance on double front – double double layout, landed, somewaht short, hop forward – 2.5 to double front, lunge forward OOB, his second double front of the routine after he had to tuck his opening intended pike – back 1.5 to front rudi, stuck, arm wave – double double tuck, chest down, hop to the side – russians – FTDT final pass and falls again. Well he just threw his body out there and was like, “we’ll see how many limbs I have at the end.” It’s none.

Tsumura – JPN – double front pike, hop – randi, hop back – 2.5 to front layout, somewhat low on layout, hop to the side – solid flare work—I lost it on the VPN front for the second half of this routine. It was going so well until then!

But he went 13.850 to move into 3rd place.

Tang finishes his routine with a 3/1 and a small hop to the side. He went 14.200 to move into 2nd place on the execution tiebreak.

Kaneta – JPN – to finish the final, we’ll see if the stream survives – double front side pass, lovely landing – well, that’s what I got to see – he had a double front pike with a hop forward.

I’m going to try to reconnect for the women’s finals to begin and we’ll see if we can salvage this very wonderful live blog.

Ultimately, it was Montgomery in 1st, Tang in 2nd, and Osberger in 3rd on floor.

I’m switching from the French federation site to Sport en France and hopefully that will be better for the next couple finals.

Pommel Horse and Women’s Vault

The crowd just saw Devillard bounce out of a timer and LOST ITS SHIT.

Kurbanov and his entire lack of hipbones really add to the line on pommel horse.

He opened with 14.450 and a very emotive conversation with his coach. Looked like a very short routine for him, which I assume is what they were talking about.

Chiles – VT 1 – DTY – solid, bounces back slightly but minimizes the size – good height and direction

Chiles – VT 2 – Lopez, it’s really working for her – a larger bounce back than her DTY, but only a little pike in the second half of the vault.

14.025 average.

Sawant is up second on horse, lost leg form a couple times on one pommel, a moment of loose back between the pommels but overall a successful hit – good straight position on magyar – russians dismount and steps.

Mayer – VT 1 – Nice controlled landing on her yfull, one very small step – some pike at the end, good layout position at the start. 13.150

Mayer – VT 2 – Tsuk back layout with a large bounce back.

12.625 average.

Devillard – VT 1 – hits a really solid rudi, good height, step back – lots of leg crossing in the air but not a worry about landing.

Devillard – VT 2 – nice high Yfull, lunge back, good amplitude – probably won’t have the difficulty to pass Chiles.

13.350 second vault and a 13.850 average to put her in second place.

Ude finishes the first half of the men on horse following Tsumura going 14.050 in the third spot. Ude was going very comfortably through the whole thing until his dismount, where he just had to banana up to handstand and then hop off.

Holasova – VT 1 – yfull is hit, only a little chest down at the end, hop back –

Holasova – VT 2 – Tsuk back layout for her second vault as well, large bounce back and another small step.

Ude into 4th place with a 13.650 on horse after the dismount debacle.

French MyKayla Skinner and Brandon Wynn out in her tinfoil jackets shooting t-shirts to the crowd.

Shiao on pommel horse through with a smooth hit, his legs only slightly getting caught in a windmill on the dismount. 14.350 is second place.

Vaelen – VT 1 – hits her handspring rudi, chest down some at the end, small hop to the side – some leg form, not as much amplitude as Devillard. 14.050

Vaelen – VT 2 – Tsuk layout full, lunge back, some piking

Top qualifier McClenagahan is up next on horse, scores haven’t been too high yet to should be plenty of room for him to move into first with a hit, which is what he delivers. It’s just pretty pommel horse, flat hip position, elevation over the horse, elegant.

Vaelen into 3rd on vault with 13.600 average, behind Chiles and Devillard.

Carey – VT 1 – Cheng, no trouble, bounce up in place – foot crossing, some leg separation on block. 14.750

Carey – VT 2 – easy DTY – high, some direction, couldn’t tell from this angle if she stayed in the area.14.000

14.375 average and first place for Carey.

15.100 for McClenaghan, easily into first place.

Arican shows a lot of exciting elements on horse but is all over the place in this routine, got so low on a Russian he was basically under the horse and a couple other crazy leg moments, including the dismount. 13.400

Taman – VT 1 – hits her DTY first vault, good height, legs crossed throughout, including on landing with was slightly concerning, step to the side and out of the area.

Taman – VT 2 – ro 1/2 on front tuck, lands it but she’s quite locked legged, which was also scary, lunge back and out of the area.

Clay finishes out the horse final, he has a leg separation on a Russian travel but otherwise a really smooth showing. One of the highest E scores but doesn’t have the difficulty to get into the medals, ends up in 4th.

Tanskanen VT 1 – struggles to control her Y1.5, lunge forward and another step, bouncing out of the area. 12.950

Tanskanen – VT 2 – Tsuk layout full, some piking – both the streams I have up lost it during the landing of that vault, so I’m going to blame that on the feed itself. 12.900 for a 12.925 average.

Finals

WAG Vault
1 – Carey
2 – Chiles
3 – Devillard

Not much drama there, lots of difficulty and execution separation between the three medalists, as well as between them and everyone else.

Horse
1 – McClenaghan
2 – Kurbanov
3 – Shiao

McClenaghan miles ahead of everyone else. Impressive that Kurbanov could still take silver when removing .7 D score from his routine.

Uneven Bars and Rings

Whittenburg starts on rings – maltese raise to planche is solid – ideal flat cross position – front pikes and tucks to maltese – hesitation in handstands – double double layout dismount is excellent, maybe a small rebound in place.

Oliveira – BRA – good first hs – maloney to pak, small legs break – van leeuwen, solid – front giant full goes crazy and she loses rhythm but stays on with an extra swing – continues on the bar to piked jaeger – finishes front giant to double front step forward.

Whittenburg goes 14.500, 2 tenths up on qualification. The commentator just called him Whitburger, which is his new name.

Really comfortable planche positions from Lin on rings – some hesitation in maltese coming out of the Yamawaki Jonasson – double double tuck dismount, also stuck, chest forward.

14.450 and just behind Whittenburg.

12.950 for Oliveira on bars.

Szekely – HUN – Shaposh to pak is clean – good hs on low – maloney with legs into gienger, good rhythm – piked jaeger – short case – giant 1/2 to attempted toe 1/1, can’t get over on the full and has to hop off. Resumes with FTDT dismount, lunge back.

Zahran can’t keep the stick competition going on rings with a lunge back on a double layout full. His cross position was pretty high, but he’s also like, hi I’m doing a swallow so bye. 14.250 and 3rd place.

Jones – USA =- UB – Stalder full to stalder shap to tkatchev, hits today well – toe full, such great finish position on her full priouettes – to stalder tkatchev piked to pak, nice – van leeuwen,a bit of legs – toe 1/2 to front giant to double front, nailed landing. Excellent routine.

Caio Souza with nice flat body position on his maltese holds – some strength to maintain these handstands but finds – but botches his dismount, can’t get his triple tuck around, rolls forward out.

I, also, love seeing a closeup of Shilese instead of the beginning of Andrade’s bars.

We miss the Maloney but see Stalder full to tkatchev piked to pak, good – van leeuwen lovely legs – piked jaeger, so high and lovely – toe full, some body position piking and late, not her usual – into FTDT, no Fabrichnova, stuck landing. Excellent.

In behind Jones! Jones on 14.700 to Andrade’s 14.650. First surprise of the women’s finals. Andrade ahead on execution but .2 back on difficulty.

Hoeck had a pretty big struggle in his final handstand on rings but works out the dismount, stuck double layout full in a fairly pronounced hollow position. That’s enough to move ahead of Whittenburg byt a tenth and into 1st.

Black – UB – maloney to hindorff, good – the Black into yezhova, nicely done – van leeuwen, some legs – gaint full – toe on front tuck 1/2, bounce back. Good hit. The Black, the piked Hindorff 1/2, is a good attempt at a real 1/2 turn in tkatchev, and it helps her Yezhova not look insane.

Pilakouris with a step to the side on his DLO 1/1 rings dismount.

12.850 for Black is 3rd on bars. Her face is like, “OK werkkkk.”

Friess – UB – FRA – inbarish? to maloney to pak, leg separation – toe full, works it out into van leeuwen – clear hip to jaeger, low but caught – double front, step forward. Through a hit but more to take execution wise than the other hits.

Tsumura was first reserve into this final, got in when Malone withdrew. Did not show the difficulty of the others on the rings, but did throw out a double double layout dismount, some leg crossing and a couple small steps.

13.600 puts Friess into 4th place. If she had been ahead of Black….

Vaelen – UB – stalder tkatchev 1/2 to yezhova, hit, more of a cross grip catch on hers – maloney to pak, nice legs position – van leeuwen, clean – toe full, pause in the middle with some legs – FTDT, lunge back.

Asil definitely has the smoothest rings work of anyone in the final – moving from one element to the other without looking like he wants to die – double double tuck dismount, lunge back.

Vaelen does go 14.100, which puts her in third ahead of Black.

Chiles – UB – toe full, a little late into huge piked tkatchev – does not connect into pak – maloney to gienger, solid – piked jaeger, comfortable – bail to toe shoot – good final cast hs – FTDT, better dismount than qualification, hop forward. So many casts though, will get vertical-positioned to smithereens here.

14.800 for Asil gets him the gold on rings.

13.750 for Chiles puts her in 5th. 7.950 E score. The E scores in the 7s here compared to the 8.3s at nationals will be something to watch for Chiles.

Finals

Bars
1 – Jones
2 – Andrade
3 – Vaelen

Jones defeating Andrade will be the story there. Likely came down to full pirouette finishing position today. Jones was RIGHT on top of the bar, and Andrade had that weird toe full before her dismount.

Rings
1 – Asil
2 – Hoeck
3 – Whittenburg

It was rings.

We’re now on a break of allegedly about 45 minutes until the second half of finals.

The second half of finals begins with beam and men’s vault, so you know, grab onto the ship’s hull and clench as best you can.

Beam and Men’s Vault

Cheryl Hamilton standing there like, we’re all giving Jade a 9 in execution or you’re not invited to my hotel later.

Dolgopyat – VT 2 is a high handspring double front, hop to the side, limping off like a slight death.

14.325 average for him. Missed the first vault with some simultaneous buffering from all three windows I have open. Too many windows? Maybe. Not enough windows? Almost surely.

Carey – BB – bhs loso loso is secure, she omitted the second loso in qual – side aerial, pause before split and straddle – aerial, small arm wave – switch to switch 1/2, short on switch 1/2 but normal short – switch side, secure – split jump 1/2 from side – bhs bhs double pike dismount, step to the side. Solid work.

13.750

Guimaraes VT 1 – a really high Kas 1.5, pretty large lunge forward, some foot crossing

Guimaraes VT 2 – handspring double front and fully runs to Belgium on the landing with a hand down.

De Jesus Dos Santos – BB – front pike mount, leg up wobble but holds onto it – front pike, another fairly large break, stays on – bhs lay 2 feet, leg up again – switch to switch 1/2, check, lovely initial switch – aerial to split, check – sissone to pike jump is lovely – switch ring, step forward – double pike, lunge back. Well, it was a wobble burger, but a delightful one. 12.650

Plata – VT 1 – lands his Dragulescu while still alive, so that’s a win – deep landing, a hop out of the area and then an additional stagger.

Plata – VT 2 – DTY second vault, it did not look like he got much of a block there but he got it around for a stick, chest forward.

14.025 average and into second.

Gadirova – BB – switch to switch 1/2, some low back leg on the mount – back tuck, secure – aerial, check, pretends she was going to scale – split to straddle combination – straddle 1/2 from side, good height, holds it – bhs loso loso, secure – side aerial, feet, solid – double pike, lunge back. Good one for her. 13.450.

Souza – VT 1 – very good Dragulescu, just small hop to the side – minimizes the cowboy compared to most. 14.900

Souza – VT 2 – Kas 1.5, also hit pretty well, hop to the side again, looks like he kept it in – good straight position. He can win with those vaults. 14.575 average.

Szilagyi – BB – side split handstand to one arm mount, somewhat tentative leaving one arm – wolf 1.5, rises some and kind of bails out of it but stays on – side aerial, smooth – switch to straddle, good positions – bhs bhs loso, took it right to the end, shortish landing to keep it on the beam, check – aerial with knees into split – side somi, secure – double tuck, hop back. 12.550

Asil – VT 1 – piked Dragulescu and again lands it as an alive person – shows a clear pike shape, chest well down, but just a medium hop forward. 15.000

Asil – VT 2 – Tsuk double pike, again a hit, lunge forward and out of the area. Two hits today. He missed the Tsuk in qualification.

14.725 average for Asil and into first.

Pedrick – BB – switch mount, pretty large break, bend at hips – switch 1/2 and falls – resumes with Korbut – side somi, pretty quick connecting to split jump 1/2 in side, that was nice – full turn – bhs loso, step back – side aerial, large leg-up break – 1.5 dismount, lunge forward. 11.150

Asato goes for AHHHHHH – a Ri Se Cannonball and lands it face first. He’s down for a while but getting up now. That is NOT. GOOD. His neck looks like it’s not in a fun place.

WHY ARE YOU DOING A SECOND VAULT.

Asato VT 2 – well he did a Kas 2/1 and sat it down but in a normal sit-down kind of way, so I guess that’s a win?

Black – BB – switch mount to switch 1/2 to korbut, quickly connected, short on switch 1/2 – double turn, check – full turn to straddle jump, solid – front tuck, arm wave – bhs to layout 2 feet, secure – side somi, also solid – 2.5 dismount, legs, step forward. Nice one.

Mohamed – VT 1 – pretty nice Shewfelt, hop to the side, loses feet some at the end, good initial layout position. 14.550

Mohamed – VT 2 – handspring double front attempt, well short and sits it down.

13.700 for Black so she goes behind Carey.

Boyer – BB – switch mount – bhs layout 2 feet, secure, pretty solid height – switch, check, breaks connection into switch 1/2 which is rather short – aerial to split to sissone – side aerial, holds it – side somi, small check – full turn – double pike, hop back. Really nice one for her. Comfortable.

Grasso – VT 1 – TTY is hit but with a fairly large stumble back, a couple lunges.

13.750 for Boyer, she goes into first ahead of Carey on the E tiebreak.

Grasso – VT 2 – Tsuk but just does a single back tuck full out of it – which I mean same. We call that vault a single-twisting “I Just Saw Asato”

Jones – BB – Arabian, secure, just a bit deep – side aerial, small check – bhs loso, hit – switch side, it was nice, corrects working out of it with a larger leg up wobble – straddle jump from side with a lean – then a bit tentative on her split 1/2 from side – switch to sissone is hit – bhs bhs double pike, step back, another small step. Wobbly and uncertain in several places but a stay-on. 13.400

Finals

Beam
1 – Boyer
2 – Carey
3 – Black

Beam specialist Jade Carey almost won the title there. Nice for Boyer to hit a fairly secure one at her home event.

I feel like they got some E score adjustment notes after the first day, because Carey’s finals beam was way stronger than her qualification beam and got a lower E score.

Men’s Vault
1 – Asil
2 – Souza
3 – Dolgopyat

So those people were the good news. The bad news is gahhhhh men’s vault.

The second half of finals begins with beam and men’s vault, so you know, grab onto the ship’s hull and clench as best you can.

Beam and Men’s Vault

Cheryl Hamilton standing there like, we’re all giving Jade a 9 in execution or you’re not invited to my hotel later.

Dolgopyat – VT 2 is a high handspring double front, hop to the side, limping off like a slight death.

14.325 average for him. Missed the first vault with some simultaneous buffering from all three windows I have open. Too many windows? Maybe. Not enough windows? Almost surely.

Carey – BB – bhs loso loso is secure, she omitted the second loso in qual – side aerial, pause before split and straddle – aerial, small arm wave – switch to switch 1/2, short on switch 1/2 but normal short – switch side, secure – split jump 1/2 from side – bhs bhs double pike dismount, step to the side. Solid work.

13.750

Guimaraes VT 1 – a really high Kas 1.5, pretty large lunge forward, some foot crossing

Guimaraes VT 2 – handspring double front and fully runs to Belgium on the landing with a hand down.

De Jesus Dos Santos – BB – front pike mount, leg up wobble but holds onto it – front pike, another fairly large break, stays on – bhs lay 2 feet, leg up again – switch to switch 1/2, check, lovely initial switch – aerial to split, check – sissone to pike jump is lovely – switch ring, step forward – double pike, lunge back. Well, it was a wobble burger, but a delightful one. 12.650

Plata – VT 1 – lands his Dragulescu while still alive, so that’s a win – deep landing, a hop out of the area and then an additional stagger.

Plata – VT 2 – DTY second vault, it did not look like he got much of a block there but he got it around for a stick, chest forward.

14.025 average and into second.

Gadirova – BB – switch to switch 1/2, some low back leg on the mount – back tuck, secure – aerial, check, pretends she was going to scale – split to straddle combination – straddle 1/2 from side, good height, holds it – bhs loso loso, secure – side aerial, feet, solid – double pike, lunge back. Good one for her. 13.450.

Souza – VT 1 – very good Dragulescu, just small hop to the side – minimizes the cowboy compared to most. 14.900

Souza – VT 2 – Kas 1.5, also hit pretty well, hop to the side again, looks like he kept it in – good straight position. He can win with those vaults. 14.575 average.

Szilagyi – BB – side split handstand to one arm mount, somewhat tentative leaving one arm – wolf 1.5, rises some and kind of bails out of it but stays on – side aerial, smooth – switch to straddle, good positions – bhs bhs loso, took it right to the end, shortish landing to keep it on the beam, check – aerial with knees into split – side somi, secure – double tuck, hop back. 12.550

Asil – VT 1 – piked Dragulescu and again lands it as an alive person – shows a clear pike shape, chest well down, but just a medium hop forward. 15.000

Asil – VT 2 – Tsuk double pike, again a hit, lunge forward and out of the area. Two hits today. He missed the Tsuk in qualification.

14.725 average for Asil and into first.

Pedrick – BB – switch mount, pretty large break, bend at hips – switch 1/2 and falls – resumes with Korbut – side somi, pretty quick connecting to split jump 1/2 in side, that was nice – full turn – bhs loso, step back – side aerial, large leg-up break – 1.5 dismount, lunge forward. 11.150

Asato goes for AHHHHHH – a Ri Se Cannonball and lands it face first. He’s down for a while but getting up now. That is NOT. GOOD. His neck looks like it’s not in a fun place.

WHY ARE YOU DOING A SECOND VAULT.

Asato VT 2 – well he did a Kas 2/1 and sat it down but in a normal sit-down kind of way, so I guess that’s a win?

Black – BB – switch mount to switch 1/2 to korbut, quickly connected, short on switch 1/2 – double turn, check – full turn to straddle jump, solid – front tuck, arm wave – bhs to layout 2 feet, secure – side somi, also solid – 2.5 dismount, legs, step forward. Nice one.

Mohamed – VT 1 – pretty nice Shewfelt, hop to the side, loses feet some at the end, good initial layout position. 14.550

Mohamed – VT 2 – handspring double front attempt, well short and sits it down.

13.700 for Black so she goes behind Carey.

Boyer – BB – switch mount – bhs layout 2 feet, secure, pretty solid height – switch, check, breaks connection into switch 1/2 which is rather short – aerial to split to sissone – side aerial, holds it – side somi, small check – full turn – double pike, hop back. Really nice one for her. Comfortable.

Grasso – VT 1 – TTY is hit but with a fairly large stumble back, a couple lunges.

13.750 for Boyer, she goes into first ahead of Carey on the E tiebreak.

Grasso – VT 2 – Tsuk but just does a single back tuck full out of it – which I mean same. We call that vault a single-twisting “I Just Saw Asato”

Jones – BB – Arabian, secure, just a hair deep – side aerial, small check – bhs loso, hit – switch side, it was nice, corrects working out of it with a larger leg up wobble – straddle jump from side with a lean – then a bit tentative on her split 1/2 from side – switch to sissone is hit – bhs bhs double pike, step back, another small step. Wobbly and uncertain in several places but a stay-on. 13.400

Finals

Beam
1 – Boyer
2 – Carey
3 – Black

Beam specialist Jade Carey almost won the title there. Nice for Boyer to hit a fairly secure one at her home event.

I feel like they got some E score adjustment notes after the first day, because Carey’s finals beam was way stronger than her qualification beam and got a lower E score.

Men’s Vault
1 – Asil
2 – Souza
3 – Dolgopyat

So those people were the good news. The bad news is gahhhhh men’s vault.

Women’s Floor and PBars

Gadirova – FX – DLO, hop back – such a high split jump full – full in, small slide back – switch ring to split leap full – switch full attempt is somewhat short in the position department – front loso to back tuck, hop back. 13.250, good.

Whittenburg – PB – good healy – peach to peach 1/2, quick, some leg position – diamidov – double tuck to arms well done – front straddle to arms, solid – doubel front 1/2 out, hop back. Good. Usual moments of feet and leg positions but didn’t add in any errors. 14.200

Stickler – FX – split jump full, good – DLO, a little shorter than Gadirova, step to the side – front loso to layout full, hop back – switch ring to switch full, pretty well done – double pike, step back – pulls around wolf turn. 12.650

Bernard – PB – diam, hit – peach 1/2, some hand position and a little lean – makuts attempt, misses hand and comes off – resumes with good diam and diam 1/2 work – healy – double pike dismount is pretty in the air but a large lunge back and another step on landing. 12.750

Jones – FX – double double, hop to the side – double L turn, around – popa, hop out of it – DLO, hop back – front tuck through to double tuck, bounce back, keeps it in bounds – L hop full to switch 1/2, better than the element she attempted in qual – still struggling with that wolf turn, gets about 1.65 around this time.

13.500 is enough for 1st.

Souza – PB – a little quick on peach 1/2 handstand psoition – double front to arms, high – healy – front straddle, also strong – tippelt, smooth – double front 1/2, stuck. Really good work. 14.700, easily in first

Casabuena – FX – piked full in, around, some leg form throughout, step to the side – double y attempt, falls out of it – double tuck, good, small bounce back – front full, hop forward – switch ring to split leap full, good split position in split full – double pike, a little low, slide back. 12.750

Arican – PB – diam, nice – stutz, bounces along the bars for a second but steadies himself – peach to one is insane, goes for a journey one way, then back the other, but stays on the bars – peach 1/2 – makuts is hit – finishes with a nice stick on double front 1/2.

Arican’s just like, “Today, my routines will be the weirdest.” 13.450

Chiles – FX – 1.5 through to FTDT, good height, bounce back – DLO 1/1, sticks the landing – wolf double, love a camera cut in the middle of an element – L turn full to split leap 1.5, pulled around – switch side 1/2, a little under – front loso to double tuck, bounce back. Good one, really really good. 

Phillipe – PB – a hesitation on one rail – diam body position is ragged – really smooth makuts and healy, lovely – stutz, good – again another pretty crazy diam element – double front, step forward. 13.550 and into 3rd.

14.050 and comfortably into first for Chiles. The 8.250 E score will also be encouraging.

Medina – FX – DLO is somewhat low but around, a little bit of pike – FTDT, hop to the side – split jump full, good – front tuck through to double tuck, more secure, only small movement – y turn single – switch ring, some feet into split leap full – double pike, stumble back. 11.600

Kaneta – PB – slight hesitation out of healy, hand placement – front straddle looked a little crazy – good stuz – bhavsar is hit – titppelt good – great toe point throughout – double pike, pretty large bounce back. 13.950 now puts him in 3rd.

Mayer – FX – split jump full, good amplitude – FTDT, hop forward, some legs – double pike, larger bounce back – falls out of double y attempt – switch ring and split full, no trouble – 1.5 to front tuck, little hop – double tuck, somewhat short, lunge-covers out of it. 12.300

Mir – PB – and he’s immediately off on a peach element – resumes with peach, hand wlak forwar d- tippelt, lands it a little low but gets up to handstand – hit bhavsar – nice high front straddle – stutz, clean – double pike, nearly holds the stick with a step back-salute. Lovely second half of routine, but…

Saraiva – FX – DLO 1/1 attempt and it’s insane – she rebounds herself into the sky and then onto her hands – we cannot have nice things – DLO, step back – lovely split leap – tries to pull around a split 1.5 and a switch ring 1/2 – 1.5 to front full, crossover step – double pike, step back. 12.550

Malone – PB – opesn with a hit makuts – little hesitation in peach – diam, arm walk – front straddle, solid – tippelt, clean – healy – stutz, a little under handstand – double front dismount, holds onto stick with a small lean.

14.600 puts him a tenth behind Souza and in silver position, ahead of Whittenburg in bronze.

Finals

Women’s Floor
1 – Chiles
2 – Jones
3 – Gadirova

Very encouraging result for Chiles, hit all her routines at this event, and a floor routine where she got all her difficulty and a reasonable execution score.

PBars
1 – Souza
2 – Malone
3 – Whittenburg

While floor and vault didn’t go as planned for Whittenburg in qualification, he got medals in both his finals.

One left!

High Bar

Georgiou – tak full, late but normal on tht and tak 1/2 – Cassina, hit – Kovacs to Kolman and he loses it there – Kolman way way high and off the bar and all the bars – so good on the Cassina and Kovacs too – finishes with a double double layout, hop forward. 13.050

Tvorogal – good tak 1/1 finish – tak 1/2 also pretty solid – layout tkatchev to tkatchev to piked tkatchev, super high, good – rybalko – DLO 1/1 is quite piked, step back. 13.850

Kotoge – Yam, only a little pike – tak 1/1 and tak 1/2, OK – Kolman, a little close but fine – layout tkatchev – tkatchev – DLO 2/1, lunge forward. Lower amplitude on his releases than others, so we’ll see how that is treated. 13.700 and behind Tvorogal.

Nory – tak 1/2 – liukin is hit well – layout tkatchev, floaty to tkatchev – his layout jaeger full ruins our lives, fall – resumes tak 1/1 to yamawaki, hit – stalder – DLO 2/1, step forward. 12.650

Srbic – Kolman hit – tak 1/1, good vertical – tak 1/2, same – stalder tkatchev – layout tkatchev to tkatchev – DLO 1/1, nearly stuck, small step. Good clean work.

14.050 is enough for first place.

Ilias Georgiou – tak 1/2, good – Cassina, ust did catch it – Kolman is nice, good height – layout tkatchev, solid – tkatchev – tak – DLO 2/1, chest down, bound forward, stays on his feet

14.400 and he’s in big first place. Tin’s face said, “Or, how about you eat my farts.”

Malone – Casina, good – Kolman also hit – layout tkatchev to tkatchev – tak finishing positions are strong – holds onto DLO 2/1 dismount landing with a little lean.

14.650 and takes over first place.

Myakinin – tak 1/1 – Cassina, hit – kolman, well done – tak 1/2, good vertical – tkatchev – DLO 1/1 is a struggle, lunge forward and then additional lunges – 13.200

Shout out to me, who just now realized there are 9 people in this HB final. I was like BYE NOW…

El Maraghy – tak 1/2, solid – Kolman with crazy straddle leg on catch – layout tkatchev – tkatcehv to piked tkatchev, good amplitude – inbar – tak – hop to the side on dismount. 13.400

High bar
1 – Malone
2 – Georgiou
3 – Srbic


Great Moments in Gymnastics

Cry Us a River, Murderer: A Dying to Win Recap

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This month, Lifetime released its Cannes Film Festival submission called Dying to Win (I am bowled over by this title originality), which is described as follows: “A gold medal gymnast gets caught in a web of lies when her mother and stepdad are found murdered in the family home.”

In.

Love a “gold medal gymnast.” If she had ever once finished second, it would have been a pass from me.

Should we get into it?

We meet Jesse Wagner (alias Shawn Peszek-Sloanaroney) hobbling near a precarious cliffside beach mansion while wearing every piece of Team USA swag ever produced smashed on top of each other. Is this supposed to tell me she’s a US gymnast? No way of knowing. We’ll get Nancy Drew on it.

I LOVE TO WEAR MY NATIONAL TEAM LEO ON CLIFFSSSSS.

At this point, we also learn that Jesse has never once used a phone before this moment.

Do I….touch it?

She immediately goes live to 56k viewers on SnapstaReal to say, “What you don’t know is how this last week has crushed me.” So she’s every single college gymnast’s every conversation during finals?

She then says, “This is how I choose to end it, goodbye” and pretends to be jumping off this one-foot-high sand dune.

What I love is that her viewers go down by 500 during this fake suicide. Those 500 people were like, “BO-RING. SEEN IT.”

But just one week earlier, she was on top of the world!!!! She was dismounting beam with a back pike! She was conveniently cutting away before her split position! She was doing a layout full on floor! She had…THIS THING:

As if it even needs to be said after that magic, Jesse is the Olympic champion. Well, actually we can’t legally say “Olympics,” so…she won the only gold medal available at “the big competition.”

The reflected glow of winning Gold Medal at Big Competition was enough to book her a spot on the Katie Moore Show, a local prop closet full of old candlesticks and cat statues that streams live to 4s of people on the interwebs.

Katie Moore is supposed to be sort of like if Katie Couric and Tyra Banks had a talentless child that they gave up for adoption, and she immediately delivers an A+ moment in the history of misunderstood line readings by telling us that over five years ago, Jesse “won America” instead of the actual line, that she “won America over.”

So…she won America? Big Competition was America??? And she won it????

President Jesse proceeds to trot out for this interview, sporting the latest look from the Nana’s Curtains collection.

This interview is almost as much of a goldmine as Big Competition, where the big GOTCHA moment is that this whole movie is actually about the 1992 all-around.

This is history’s best gymnastics interview. Bless you for bestowing us with this GIF.

We learn that the True Deserving Winner was actually fellow American Aurora Van Doren, who was 100% going to win Big Competition because here she is doing a Yurchenko back pike at probably the Olympic Trials—which is famously held at a middle school.

Breaking: Big Competition might be L9 regionals.

But why didn’t Aurora win??? Did she fall on beam???? Did she have a 0.7 D score on every event???? No!

It was because she DIED IN A CAR ACCIDENT shortly before the meet—while Jesse was driving!

So, I mean, can she really have “deserved” to win gold if she was dead by the time the meet happened? Sorry, but someone had to say it. She didn’t compete ANY routines at Big Competition.

At this point, Jesse pulls out her greatest and only trick, which is turning to camera and emotionally remembering all the good times she and Aurora had standing on podiums together while hearing sirens to indicate PTSD.

To be fair, Hearing Sirens While Standing On Podiums was what they were going to rename JO before they came up with Developmental Program.

Also, Jesse’s Momager Extraordinaire is literally in the back of the shot during the interview. What even is this show, KATIE.

Maybe that’s why you have to scream “BUT MY RATINGS” every other line. Just a thought.

Anyway, the only possible conclusion one can draw after this interview is that Jesse is a full murderer who drove Aurora right into a brick wall because Aurora’s Yurchenko back pike was so Olympics.

Which, Momager Extraordinaire explains, is bad.

It definitely won’t get her invited back to judge on Nonspecific Reality Show.

“With the way it went, we’d be lucky if they ask you to be the mascot.” WHY IS THERE A MASCOT?

But honestly, you won Big Competition a full five years ago and you’re not even out there dangling a Half-Assed Comeback for media attention? Have you learned nothinggggg? Sheryl Shade wept!

Obviouysly Nonspecific Reality Show is ready to move on from you! I mean, who was the gold medal gymnast at the most recent Big Competition, where you apparently didn’t even compete? Suni is IN THE WINGS ready to Eve Harrington your shit. Think it through.

After the interview, we get into the car and Momager Extraordinaire immediately starts Cruella De Vil driving at a shocking…….73 miles per hour?

CALL THE POLICE.

She starts sort of haphazardly screaming the word FOLLOWERS at anyone and anything while checking all the boxes: I’m living out my own failed dreams through you, you need to have an eating disorder, we’re barely making ends meet.

But also…why are you barely making ends meet if Jesse had a network TV job until, what a couple months ago? That seems like a red flag.

So Momager starts doing regular things like pretending to drive right into the back of a semi until her daughter screams that winning is the most important thing in the world (you know, mom stuff). And then we arrive home to…THIS IS THE MOMAGER’S BOYFRIEND????

How? But like how? I need a whole sequel about how she tricked this man into looking at her.

Anyway he’s fully burning these clumps of dinner and no one notices even a little.

Obviously, Jesse wants to bang her maybe-stepdad x1000. That doesn’t even make the top 50 of weirdest things that are happening here, and she escapes to her bedroom to doodle Mrs. My Stepdad in hearts all over her school (?) notebooks.

Which brings us to this character’s age.

Because what is it? Depending on the scene, she is either 14 or 21, and it switches interchangeably back and forth as needed. Sometimes she is an adult woman getting served in a bar, and sometimes she is straight-up 11.

Back in her room, Jesse discovers that she dropped below 1 million followers on SnapstaReal following her being obviously a murderer (but for why?????), so she takes a handful of Drug Pills about it, does two pushups, and struggles on a press handstand to make her followers like her again. SOLVED.

The next morning, she comes downstairs as Momager Extraordinaire exclaims, “Jesse, it’s over!”

What exactly is over is unclear and never explained. But it’s over. IT.

The two get into a fight over it—and whether it’s over or not—and then one of the finest moments in cinema history occurs, when Momager slams a glass onto the counter and one of the shards manages to torpedo itself due east right into Jesse’s cheek-eye.

Alas, Jesse has suffered one of those cuts that doesn’t appear until you get to your bedroom, at which point she decides to crawl out the window and escape to the house of the Only Person She Can Trust In A Not Ominous Way, her agent Connor HiredForFace.

Connor lives with his housekeeper Ava, whose accent is from a different country in every scene. They force Jesse to guzzle 80 liters of There-There Lemonade so that she can calm down—only to realize “MY PILLS ARE AT HOME.”

Telegraphing nothing, Connor goes, “Pills? Why, I have pills! My favorite kind of pill is pill. Do you need pill? Take pill.”

Jesse’s like, “Cool, seeing as all pills are interchangeable, I will now, sight unseen, down 3 whole containers of pills from pill cupboard.” She also eats two potato chips, which is treated with the exact same gravity.

Upon looking at a bottle of vodka, Jesse is then instantly teleported to Disco Ball Club (which is how it works), where she starts dancing the old “93 pills and a vodka” blackout shuffle.

The bartender begins staring at her with deep concern, and you think he’s going to be like, “Do I need to call you a car or a morgue?” but instead he’s like, drink uppppp let’s dance while I’m on my shiffftttt. Cool.

When we rejoin the action, it’s about 3pm the next March when Jesse returns home, so either she went to town on that bartender for a damn semester, or she joined an elaborate opossum family and learned all their customs.

But OH NO. She walks inside and there are three books on the ground! The universal sign that something awful happened here!

They’re dead! Hot boyfriend and Momager! Dead by murder! We know they’re dead because of a closeup of bare feet, which is also how doctors do it.

Later that day, the MURDER Detectives arrive, allowing the tone to shift drastically to police procedural as everyone starts auditioning for Law and Order so hard they tear an ACL.

“Alibi. Suspect. Perp. Do some digging.”

Mmm…we’ll let you know.

OK, wait. Excuse me. Excuse me. The murder weapon is supposed to be this Target-ass lamp?

That thing couldn’t kill a dream!

If you got hit with that you’d be like, thanks for the scalp massage.

The MURDER Detectives question Jesse about MURDER in front of her gigantic period advertisement that she has on the living room wall.

She’s like, wait, I’m not perp! I have alibi! “I went to a nightclub!”

A nightclub??? A nightclub. What, did you go see Ricky Ricardo at the Tropicana?

After three hours of interrogation (that’s not me saying that, that’s the actual movie saying that), the detectives have asked a grand total of one single question and established that she may or may not have been at the Tropicana, so they’re about to move on to the “you seem…like sort of murdery?” portion of the interview.

That’s when Cooper HiredForFace bursts in. “I’m taking Jesse home, to my home, which is a normal thing to do!”

Once back at normal home, Cooper reintroduces Jesse to vodka (BUM BUM BUMMMM) and that same pill bottle from before. Nothing in this house isn’t that one pill bottle. Except for…HIS OFFICE.

Wait. Wait. Your office is a little side table with a typewriter on it? I have so many question about your office. Stop the movie. What? How does this work? Where do you sit? What if you need the internet?

He then shows Jesse—gasp—a bedroom, with a bed in it, to show us that he’s thinking about what happens on beds. Which is sex.

Jesse decides to take a shower and remember that her mom died this morning, which she indicates through the medium of shaking. When she gets out, she finds that same pill bottle in the pocket of her robe. Again, nothing in this house isn’t that pill bottle.

Fortunately, pill bottle fixes dead mom, so Jesse is feeling dandy as punch now. She casually tweets that she’s living with her agent now that her mom died this morning (zero QTs on that one probably) and then starts messaging Bar Hookup.

We learn a crucial piece of information at this point, that Bar Hookup’s screen name is “QuinnTheLastBarmanPoet.” Nope. Kill it.

Sadly, Jesse’s fly-ass mood is spoiled when she meanders onto the balcony to see Connor having a really natural and well-acted fight with Implied Mobster. This man’s mobishness is implied due to his being dressed entirely in black. The color that mobsters wear, and no one else.

But that’s not all! Ava is also missing and Cooper looks EVERYWHERE for her.

GLASS CRASHING SOUNDSSSS. PROBABLY UNRELATED.

Someone—it’s impossible to say who—threw a classic message in a brick through the window.

Does this mean we’re not supposed to trust him? And why is Trust capitalized?

Ava then suddenly reappears in her uniform to clean up the glass. She has a moment alone with Jesse. Could she have just said the words “don’t trust him” now, or also at any other point ever? No. It had to be via window brick and only window brick.

In “remember that the mom’s dead” news, the mom is dead, and it’s the funeral. Meanwhile, that boyfriend/stepdad apparently does not get a funeral.

Cooper is here live streaming the mom’s funeral to ALL THE GYMNASTICS FANS. That’s you, btw. We have:
-Depressed lady sitting on bed
-Doctor watching this funeral in the middle of doctoring
-Woman in restaurant with creeper boyfriend
-Stylish gay man at kitchen island

You are one of the four. Or all four.

Jesse eulogizes how her mom would “help me practice my drills.” Whoa, cool it on the insider gymnastics jargon.

OK FUNERAL OVER THAT’S ALL.

The nanosecond the funeral is over, Cooper immediately runs to his second office—one that apparently has an internet machine in it—to check all the very legitimate-looking emails in his spam folder.

Yes, this is how you get rehired for the fifth season of your TV show, via all-caps email. Just dripping with professionalism.

To celebrate being done with thinking about Dead Momager for basically the rest of the movie, Cooper then takes Jesse upstairs to be like, “I have a giant closet full of various women’s clothing that I bought at the Don’t Worry About Why store, and also here’s a necklace, and also a framed picture of you and Aurora as children that I have by my bed and it’s fine.”

Weirdly, Jesse’s first and most urgent question about the picture is, “Where did you get this?”

I mean…Instagram probably.

Their ensuing conversation about Aurora features a delicious little nugget that the car crash—the one where Jesse obviously drove Aurora directly into a brick wall so she couldn’t do her Yurchenko back pike—happened ONE SINGLE WEEK before Big Competition.

One week before????? Why were you driving randomly near brick walls ONE WEEK before? Why weren’t you at least in a local gym in the same city adjusting to the time change? Who was Aurora’s alternate? What was the 3-up, 3-count backup plan when she died of murder-car? Tom Forster would have been fuccckkkkeedddd. Why wasn’t the whole movie about this?

Seeing his trauma opening, Cooper tries to lean in to kiss her, and Jesse’s like, “BUT I’M ONLY……11 or 14 or 21….maybe?”

Back at the Police Officer Store, this movie really outdoes itself as the Murder Detectives make A BREAKTHROUGH. “You know, the bartender looks a lot like the mom’s boyfriend.”

Now, to be clear, these are just two entirely separate black men with beards, seen here.

Pour one out for the moment you spent thinking that this movie might be trying to make a point about racial profiling in police work until you realize they’re all just like “great point detective, you cracked it!” and then never mention it again.

Apparently this counts as Jesse’s motive for murder, and it’s deeply unclear how.

We’re back to the Katie Moore Show for some reason! Katie Moore is alone in her dressing room shouting, “Ratings, ratings, we’re just shy of #1!” to herself again. You know, like you do. But now that Jesse is so Funeral Famous that she has become Spam Email Famous, Katie Moore wants her back on the show. “I’ll even give you the questions in advance!” she exclaims, apparently modeling her level of journalistic professionalism on Hoda Kotb’s Tokyo Fangirl Adventure.

To introduce today’s interview, we see Jesse’s layout full and double cannonball again, but this time we add a squat on to high bar. THE GOLD IS YOURS.

Going live to 11 people on the show, Jesse professes that, in the wake of her mother’s lamping, she LOVESSS POLICE AND FOLLOWERS THE MOST, THEY’RE HER BIG TWO. So…she’s definitely going for the GOP nomination then? She then starts opining about her love for vodka for some reason, so yeah, she’s running.

But Katie Moore’s big GOTCHA moment this time comes in the form of…wait for it…an UGLY SCREENSHOT.

Because of the law, this ugly screenshot confirms that Jesse was the one who lamped her mother—EXHIBIT A, YOUR HONOR—and Jesse is shocked, shocked I tell you that the interview went like this.

Given Jesse’s second consecutive Murder Interview in the span of a couple days, the internet is convinced. And honestly same.

Most importantly, one of these screen names is “Mars_MLR” because you’re all simultaneously big Marz Frazier and Mary Lou Retton stans. YOUR TWO QUEENS.

Meanwhile, for reasons that it’s best not to try to think about because they are as loose as the wind, Cooper has decided to kill Bartender Hookup. Cooper disguises himself as Cooper In A Jacket and finds the bartender in a room full of fake trees and masks and an organ and a DECAPITATED DOLL BABY BEING HELD BY A MASSIVE SKELETON, reinforcing that this entire movie looks like it was shot backstage at someone else’s experimental Halloween play.

Like…WHAT IS THIS. Why are we not talking about only this?

Cooper knocks Bartender out with…1920s chloroform I guess?…and then shoots him in the head, which famously produces two single droplets of blood in a little row.

Back at home, Cooper’s like “Probably not relevant, but we should flee to Indonesia like STAT,” and Jesse’s like, “That’s a normal thing to say, I don’t think you did any murders based on that.”

But then the MURDER Detectives show up to announce that the bartender is dead from an obvious suicide that we have no questions about—mentioning nothing at all about the decapitated doll baby being held by a massive skeleton—and that he wrote his suicide note on a typewriter.

A TYPEWRITER????? I’ve seen one of those before!!!!!

Cooper then says, “Have a good night officers” in what is very obviously the middle of the day.

Jesse runs upstairs to look at the smoking typewriter to confirm that it’s a typewriter. Yep! Typewriter! I knew it! Evidence!

She’s onto him now!

During Confrontation In The Kitchen Nook, Cooper tries really, really hard to deny that he has a southern accent—or I mean that he’s a murderer who did all of the murders—and it works pretty horribly.

Jesse’s like, “If a Target lamp can kill my mom, I can definitely kill him with this frying pan!”

But, alas, it does not work. Paper covers rock, and Target lamp beats frying pan. Cooper is only unconscious, and when he awakens, the police are there to be like, “Where are the clues????”

They go look in the backyard, where murders are, and which is where Jesse is hiding. WAIT WHY ARE YOU STILL THERE. You had the whole time he was unconscious and the whole time it took the police to get there and you were just waddling around the backyard? Arrest her.

After hiding behind a single leaf to evade capture, Jesse sneaks back into the house. That’s when Ava reappears, this time with an accent originating around Lower Eurotania, to be like, “YOU DUMB BITCH WHY ARE YOU STILL IN THE HOUSE.” Good question.

Ava goes, “Meanwhile, Cooper is literally keeping me as slave in this household,” and Jesse’s like, “That’s not really on message, so back to my problem.”

So Ava sneaks Jesse into Useful Second Office, where they have the internet, and Jesse exclaims, “MY BIRTHDAY” every time she enters a password into any device like she’s in that insufferable Google commercial where they pretend like they just now invented saving passwords for the first time.

By sneaking onto Cooper’s computer, Jesse learns that “every two weeks, he’s been making a deposit into a offshore account.” Offshore tells you that bad guy.

Jesse just now, at this moment, realizes that she should have actually been making money from appearing on a network show for four years. Not the sharpest tack, our Jesse.

She also steals back Ava’s passport—to tell us that Ava was supposed to be from Mexico this whole time—and sticks it in the cleaning bucket for her.

Ava’s like, “MY WHITE SAVIOR! I MEAN, MY SAVIOR!”

Jesse escapes the house for actualies this time and shows up at the last place you’d expect—and by last place you’d expect, I mean literally the only place she ever goes—the set of The Katie Moore Show.

Katie Moore recaps the entire plot of the movie, and Jesse goes, “RATINGS RATING FOLLOWERS” so then they’re best friends and come up with a plan to do…plan.

Plan involves Jesse sneaking back into the Momager’s house and putting on all of her national team apparel so that she can match her look from the beginning, and for I think no other reasons. She starts doing a SnapstaReal from inside the murder house, and the gymternet is all like [poop emoji] and

Good one. “Cry us a river, MURDERER” is also my go-to.

At the Police Officer Store, the detectives see that Jesse the Murderer is going live, and by the time she finishes that same sentence, they’ve already arrived at the house. This movie really undersold the teleportation aspect of the plot.

Jesse proceeds to pour out some pills (her prescription drug addiction having been instantly cured by….he trailed off) and easily lure Cooper back to the house that is surrounded by police. V good criminal.

He then explains how he built a website (!!!!!!) and also hired Mob Guy to do Lamp Murder, and thank the sweet heavens that we get to see it.

This is perfect. I have zero notes.

But WAIT, immediately after his confession, Katie Moore emerges from a closet like, “SHE IS! I mean, I AM! Streaming. This confession.”

So anyway, Cooper stabs her, obviously, and then trots off on a light jog away from the scene of the crime.

Katie staggers out the front door going, “Coo…….per…….did…….it.” Which I mean, everyone knows at this point because of the internet. At least use your halting last words for something good.

Suddenly, Cooper’s jog has turned into a car, and now he’s driving away. But Jesse’s in the back seat! She tries to strangle Cooper with his own seatbelt, which is a good neck massage and useless, but does cause Cooper to abandon the car and run into a lush, abandoned cliffside beach house.

OH MY GOD IT’S THE HOUSE FROM THE BEGINNING.

He corners Jesse by the cliffside and she’s like, “So what was the motive here?” And he’s like, “I don’t know, love, fame, abuse, embezzlement, whatever you want. We never really settled on that,” and Jesse’s like, “Cool.”

He then decides to lunge at her, but being GOLD MEDAL GYMNAST, she can jump, so it goes a little bit like this.

And then he was dead.

This is when we see Jesse make her fake suicide video, but really, she just throws her phone off the cliff. OHHHHHHH. So when she said, “This is how I choose to end it,” she meant her phone plan.

Resolution! Everything is going great now!

Jesse appears on The Katie Moore Show for the 153rd time this week to announce that she “wrote” a “book” and created the Aurora Van Doren Foundation “to promote strength and confidence in young women” which tbh sounds like a front for her pill addiction.

She then gives an impassioned speech about the dangers of…I don’t know apps or something. OMG THE REAL MURDERER WAS SOCIAL MEDIA ALL ALONG.

But also that guy who killed a bunch of people, right?

Meanwhile, Katie Moore is like, “Hmm, I got stabbed for you, thanks for not asking about it once.”

THE END.

Scores

Top Event Scores of 2022

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Today, as we hurtle ever closer to worlds, I’m checking in on the best scores on each apparatus recorded in 2022*. Across all four of these top-10 lists, China owns 14 scores, the US has 13 scores, Gadirova Britain has 6 scores, Brazil has 4 scores, Italy has 3, and Hungary has 1.

*Only worlds-eligible gymnasts are included.

VAULT (2 VT AVERAGE)
1.Jade Carey14.650US Nationals Day 1
2.Jade Carey14.567US September Camp
3. Jade Carey14.475US Nationals Day 2
4.Jessica Gadirova14.150English Championship
5.Jordan Chiles14.117US September Camp
6.Asia D’Amato13.967Jesolo Qualification
7.Zsofia Kovacs13.933European Event Final
8.Leanne Wong13.900US Classic
8.Jessica Gadirova13.900British Nationals Event Final
10.Asia D’Amato13.875Mediterranean Games
BARS
1.Wei Xiaoyuan15.000Asian Championship Qualification
2.Rebeca Andrade14.967Pan American AA/Event Final
2. Rebeca Andrade14.967Brazilian Nationals Day 2
2. Luo Rui14.967Chinese Nationals Event Final
2.Wei Xiaoyuan14.967Chinese Nationals Event Final
6.Wei Xiaoyuan14.900Chinese Nationals Team Final
7.Shilese Jones14.850US Nationals Day 1
7.Luo Rui14.850Chinese Nationals Team Final
9.Alice D’Amato14.800Serie A Final
10.Shilese Jones14.767US September Camp
10.Wei Xiaoyuan14.767Asian Championship Event Final
BEAM
1.Sun Xinyi14.850Chinese Nationals Team Final
2.Konnor McClain14.800US Nationals Day 1
2. Zhou Yaqin14.800Chinese Nationals Team Final
4. Tang Xijing14.767Asian Championship Trial
5.Luo Rui14.650Chinese Nationals Team Final
6.Sun Xinyi14.633Asian Championship Trial
6.Wu Ran14.633Asian Championship Qualification
6.Wu Ran14.633Asian Championship Event Final
9.Konnor McClain14.600Winter Cup
10.Wu Ran14.533Asian Championship Trial
FLOOR
1.Jessica Gadirova14.600British Nationals Event Final
2.Shilese Jones14.250US Nationals Day 2
3. Flavia Saraiva14.133Brazilian Nationals Day 2
4. Shilese Jones14.100US Nationals Day 1
5.Jade Carey14.050US Nationals Day 1
5.Jessica Gadirova14.050British Nationals Day 1
5.Jessica Gadirova14.050English Championship
8.Jordan Chiles14.000US September Camp
8.Jessica Gadirova14.000European Event Final
8.Rebeca Andrade14.000Brazilian Nationals Day 2

Armed and not to be trusted with this information, it’s time to play a little game called What Is the Best Possible Worlds Team You Could Pick Using Anyone From Any Country? We’re still workshopping the title. Seems long-ish.

The highest-scoring team one could come up with is this one (using single-vault scores because that’s what team is):

Rebeca Andrade14.70014.96714.43314.000
Shilese Jones14.55014.85014.250
Konnor McClain14.40014.800
Luo Rui14.96714.650
Jessica Gadirova14.600
43.65044.78443.88342.850175.167

Now, if this were real life, I’m not sure that I would trust that Gadirova 14.600 from British as real and would also consider Jade Carey for that position on the team to deliver a floor score and improve the vault total by several tenths. A team with Carey in place of Gadirova also goes into the 175s.

In fact, a “light a candle and hold on for dear life” team with Jade Carey and Sun Xinyi joining Andrade, Jones, and Luo comes in only a tenth behind the previous team.

Rebeca Andrade14.70014.96714.43314.000
Shilese Jones14.55014.85014.250
Sun Xinyi14.850
Luo Rui14.96714.650
Jade Carey14.80014.050
44.05044.78443.93342.300175.067

Luo Rui delivers the best combination of bars and beam scores, though by only a little more than a tenth over Tang Xijing, whom you might also consider for having more realistic events, even though her floor wouldn’t be used on a best-in-the-world team.

Wei Xiaoyuan’s world-leading bars score doesn’t really get her into these five because the bars scores from Andrade, Jones, and Luo are very close to her, and they all have at least one other event.

For reference, the highest-scoring team you can come up with that doesn’t include Rebeca Andrade would be at 174.682, which would include Jones, McClain, Tang, Luo, and either Carey or Gadirova (both the same score). The top team that doesn’t include Shilese Jones would be at 174.882 and would include Andrade, Gadirova, Carey, Luo, and Tang.

So anyway, this was a very productive use of time and I’m pretty much the same as a doctor.