The Olympic Trials are just a few short days away, and there are still so, so, so many questions we need answered, like whether Maggie Nichols is going to show up with 2015-style with competitive top-three vault and floor routines to send tremors through the presumptive team of Biles, Raisman, Douglas, Hernandez, and Kocian.

And that’s it.

Crap.

How’s a person supposed to preview Olympic Trials under these conditions? When we’ve had so many competitions that we already know everything and have talked about it 45 times? I can’t work like this!

But of course I kid. Trials will be much more entertaining and interesting than simply waiting to see whether or not Nichols hits an Amanar and then cryogenically freezing ourselves until the Olympics. I mean, I’ll be at the meet, so it’s already more important and glamorous than anything else that has happened this decade. (Keep an ear out because we’ll be Gymcasticing from trials.) Plus, there are actually several other questions that will need answering in addition to the Nichols equation.

2. Will Madocklearashtocian finally catch on as the official BARS FIGHT nickname?
Only if Locklear beats Kocian by plural tenths. Otherwise, they’ll be back to their original mashup couple name, Kocian.

3. Will Gabby Douglas hammer throw a sack of Japanese kitchen knives labeled “stay pressed” into the crowd after finishing top three on bars on night one?
Will be tough for her, but she finished 4th AA at nationals and needs to do something heroic to make sure she earns one of the AA qualification spots at the Olympics. Continue reading A Very Important Trials Preview →

Well, we’ve all aged several years.

I actually don’t hate this team, contrary to what Amy Poehler’s face says. It’s been a long night. And Paul Feelings are not easily shaken off by logic or reality.

There will be plenty of time to dissect this in detail in the coming weeks, and then in even more detail after the US finishes fifth in the team final (too soon…?), but the US men’s Olympic team has been named following the harrowing events of the second day of Olympic Trials.

In a tender piece of mercy, Paul Ruggeri obliged us by falling on high bar in the first millisecond of the meet, ensuring that he was not getting selected in this lifetime and sparing our nerves and feelings once the announcement of the team rolled around. Scoring below Naddour on vault also didn’t help.

The big news here was the eviction of Donnell Whittenburg, which is more of a surprise of perception than it is of reality. If you’ve been reading my posts about the men’s team, I kept saying, “I do think Whittenburg will be on the team, BUT…” which is a reflection of his perceived status in the group (making all those worlds teams, being an American Cup choice…) but also the fact that running the team permutations kept spitting back convincing teams that did not include him.

During the broadcast, Tim was talking a lot about “oh…this rings score here, these floor landings there,” but really I think it came down to the fact that he and Jake Dalton cancel each other out. A team with both of them would always have some serious deficiencies on a couple other events. (There was still an argument for a Mikulak, Dalton, Whittenburg, Orozco, Leyva team that didn’t have those deficiencies, but Naddour put an end to that argument with his trials performance. That team wasn’t happening.)

Whittenburg didn’t so much throw his spot away, as we may hear. He just got beat by Jake Dalton. Dalton was better. And the strong performances from Brooks and Orozco at trials suddenly created a Whittenburg-less team option that might actually be able to score…theoretically…OK.

I really did enjoy our narrative switch from night 1 of “WHITTENBURG IS THE #2 LOCK” to night 2 of “WHITTENBURG HAS ONLY VERY LITTLE CHANCE.” Methinks Tim had a little sit down with the selection committee where they explained some things to him in a “Whittenburg is not making this team” kind of way.

Continue reading Mikulak, Dalton, Naddour, Brooks, Orozco →

Continuing their mission to make everything complicated and impossible, the men concluded the first day of Summer Winter Cup last night, and it went terribly. At least for me.

If you don’t start behaving, NO ONE’s going to the Olympics. I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND.

Sam Mikulak remained a lock for the team but aggressively botched his first two routines, still somehow managing to score 14.975 on PBars even with a fall. This competition successfully confirmed that Sam Mikulak could strip naked, glue tassels to his nipples, and do the macarena and still get a 16, while also doing nothing to deter conspiracy theorists who believe that the Chosen Ones will get the Chosen Scores regardless of performance (see also: Jake Dalton’s floor).

In the most important news and the only topic any right-minded person cares about, things didn’t go great for Paul Ruggeri on high bar for 14.650. It’s not so devastating if you look at the actual results (Paul remains in the top 3 on three events even after last night’s competition), but in the world of gymnastics where narrative is king and evidence is merely the court jester, it’s not a good look.

I said in the preview that selecting a team is way easier when Ruggeri is doing poorly and as such he couldn’t give the selection committee any reason to slap him with the alternate paddle, but that’s just what he did. Let’s all hope he gets saved by the algorithm. Everyone except Chris Brooks has messed up high bar at some point during the process, but Ruggeri did so more recently than some of the others. Continue reading Trials 2016: The Olympic Team Is Nobody →

As a companion to the Olympic team calculator, I’ll be keeping all of the man scores here—along with each gymnast’s overall high and average on each event— and updating this throughout Olympic Trials. The top 3 high scores and top 3 averages on each event are highlighted. Because color-coding makes the dream work. Or something.

Again with the men!

Amidst the hoopla of next week, with all the competitions and the podium trainings and the women’s things to care about, I’m deeply concerned that I may forget to preview the men’s Olympic Trials. Deeply. AND THEN WHAT WOULD WE DO?!?!? So, just to be safe, I’m doing it now.

It is the Olympic Trials, after all. And as we know, competitions of this magnitude cannot officially begin without making a ranked and numbered list of items most pertinent to the outcome and to our lives. It’s what separates us from the animals.

So, here’s what I’ll be watching at next week’s Man Trials.

1. Everyone except Sam Mikulak

I mean, sure. For fun, obviously. But Sam is pretty…much the least important part of the Olympic Trials. He’s going to Rio. It’s happening. Mikulak is the US’s least pipe-dreamy shot at getting somewhere close to an all-around medal, and the team may or may not need him on all six events in the team final (more on that later).

He could fall a crapload of times at Trials, and that wouldn’t change his status, nor would it matter that much in the long run because his Trials performance won’t be at all indicative of how he’ll fare at the Olympics, either way. All of us who are not warlocks have long since given up trying to predict when Darth Sam will decide to rear his ugly head.

So, to the others.

2. Donnell Whittenburg — Lock or Likely?

Heading into nationals, I think most of us viewed Mikulak and Whittenburg as close-ish to lock status with everyone else fighting for the remaining three spots. Then something happened on the second day of nationals, namely Whittenburg going to Womp Town via the Splatty Express. Suddenly, the highest-possible team score coming out of nationals belonged to the Mikulak, Dalton, Brooks, Ruggeri, Naddour quintet, leaving out Whittenburg and casting at least some doubt on his team status by opening the question of whether he and Dalton ultimately cancel each other out too much.

Whittenburg is supposed to destroy the world on vault and floor, but at nationals, even his hits were a couple tenths behind Dalton, Ruggeri, and sometimes Mikulak, making him look more like a 1-2 eventer than the 4-eventer the team needs him to be. Now, I still think Whittenburg erases that doubt with a hit meet and ultimately will make the team because he has been part of the In Club this whole quad and the men’s selection committee only punishes members of the In Club for poor performances when they’re Danell Leyva. But, there are more questions around him now than there should be, along with a somewhat compelling argument for excluding him largely because of…

3. Beam of starlight, Paul Ruggeri

To my mind, no development at nationals complicated the team selection picture more than Paul Ruggeri’s top-three placement on three events. Mwahahaha. Picking a team is so much easier if Paul Ruggeri doesn’t do well (there are only so many NO ME GUSTA pommel horse routines you can put on one team), but if he continues TFing on vault, floor, and high bar, how do you say no to that? Continue reading Men’s Olympic Trials Preview →