So…it went…better than it might have? All things considered, this COVID season has been effectively muddled through. Well, at least, it happened. And we’re now just two days away from it having finished happening.

No one will pretend it was ideal. We had Michigan State stopping its season, Stanford training under a bridge on a lily pad made of smoke, Auburn and Temple withdrawing from the postseason, and a number of teams not able to start at all. But it’s a win insofar as…no one died yet despite most team’s best efforts in mask usage, and it looks like a champion will be crowned?

Before that happens, some reflections on how things ended up playing out this season. (This was supposed to be a team final preview, and I still say Florida is the favorite if Thomas is able to do all four, with Oklahoma very close, and Michigan a legitimate, believable spoiler, but that’s about the extent of it. We don’t really know anything until after the semifinals, anyway. End of preview.)

My primary reflection on the COVID season: the quality of gymnastics wasn’t worse. This year was supposed to be worse, with abbreviated preseasons and various COVID delays and protocols and health measures and distancing, but you would not have known that based on the routines we saw, which were on par with a normal season. There’s probably a lesson to be learned there about over-training and over-scheduling and the importance of breaks, but when has gymnastics ever been interested in learning that lesson?

A. European Championships

Against all odds, the European Championships appear to be happening. And kind of soon!

This is the final opportunity for European athletes to secure Olympic spots, and in keeping with the theme, something strange is happening! Those Olympic spots (2 each for MAG and WAG) will be awarded based on the AA standings from qualification, rather than from the all-around final. OK great?

The FIG lovvvessss basing very important things on qualification, and it’s so counterintuitive. Isn’t the final supposed to be…like…the final?

I was against this at first because it’s just so weird, but I do kind of get it. Kind of. The idea here is to make sure everyone has a chance to get the spot. So, for example, Italy has a nominative team of Villa, Alice D’Amato, Maggio, and Ferrari. Villa and D’Amato competed as part of the Italian squad that qualified a team to the Olympics and are therefore ineligible to earn an additional Olympic spot for Italy at this competition. If Villa and D’Amato were to make the all-around final, then Italy wouldn’t have anyone eligible to get an Olympic spot. By basing things on qualification, Maggio could theoretically get in there and get a spot for Italy even if she places behind ineligible countrywomen like Villa and D’Amato. (With no temptation to fake-injury-scratch someone from the AA final.)

On the other hand, this does bring the eternal conundrum of score-rising through the qualification day into effect. At this meet, athletes from a single country don’t all compete in the same subdivision, and with different countries being assigned different subdivisions through the draw (Russia and Romania WAG have spots in the final subdivision, Great Britain and Italy do not), you haven’t necessarily created the most even playing field possible.

Regardless, the favorites to get the two spots on the women’s side at this point would be one of the Russians (limit one per country, and Listunova, Urazova, and Gerasimova are all in the hunt) and Larisa Iordache. But it’s going to take a hit meet. So it should be an exciting lengthy-qualification-day.