Category Archives: Olympics

Olympics

Olympic Preview — Team Italy

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To Italy we go! Much like the Japanese, the Italians are a perennial team-final qualifier that we can always count on to finish 5th-7th, but they’ll have to withstand increased opposition this year to keep that run going.

The scores from this month’s national championship (for which Lauren has helpfully noted the domestic bonus to be removed) forced us all to develop a nervous tic about Italy’s chances for another 5-7 finish. Even giving Meneghini a hit beam, and accounting for Fasana not being at full strength, Italy comes out of that somewhere in the lowish 173s, around a couple points behind what the Germany, Canada, Japan, and Netherlands teams were getting domestically this summer in their own trials.

Now, I think that dramatically overstates the difference between these countries (some nations will be brought seriously back to earth at the Olympics when we definitely won’t see a parade of 174s and 175s), but those scores do provoke questions about Italy’s competitiveness on certain events. Certain events named bars.

Italy’s eternal F Core of Fasana, Ferlito, and Ferrari remains the heart, brain, skeletal system, viscera, and really entire body of the Italian team, but is that consistency an asset or does that indicate that Italy has leveled off this quad while other nations are progressing upward? We’ll find out in…oh…a week. (A WEEK.)

Team
Erika Fasana – Never not the Italian floor champion, double double, DLO, deceptively good spins, only somewhat made of bandages
Carlotta Ferlito – 2016 Italian silver, 12th AA in 2015, the team’s beam star, desperately trying to come up with memorable qualities that aren’t the Simone incident, 2013 Worlds 5th place on beam, oh crap
Vanessa Ferrari – 2006 World champion, and a lot since then, casually her country’s best gymnast for an entire decade
Elisa Meneghini – 2016 Italian bronze, 2016 Italian floor champion, preposterously gigantic layout full on beam that’s almost actually a layout, the team’s secret weapon
Martina Rizzelli – 2016 Italian bars champion, on the team to make the bars not depressing, also has a DTY

Projected Olympics Lineups
Vault – (Ferlito) Fasana, Ferrari, Rizzelli
Bars – (Meneghini) Ferlito, Ferrari, Rizzelli
Beam – (Fasana) Ferrari, Meneghini, Ferlito
Floor – (Meneghini) Ferlito, Ferrari, Fasana

Continue reading Olympic Preview — Team Italy →

Olympics

Olympic Preview — Team Japan

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Because Japan doesn’t have a high-profile national championship or a helpfully scheduled pre-Olympic continental championship (and because the men’s team hogs all the attention), the women’s team has a tendency to be overlooked or be an afterthought in addressing the major players at international competitions.

When discussing who replaces Romania as the next member of the Big Four, Japan never comes up. And yet, Japan has qualified for the last six consecutive team finals (including the last two Olympics), an achievement matched only by the US, Russia, and China. As far as perennial powers in recent years go, Japan is the fourth one. This is my way of saying it would be foolish to underestimate Japan’s ability to do some damage at these Olympics, exactly like I’m about to do.

Not really. Japan has more than enough talent to make this team final, but it will be a close-fought thing and is not a comfortable proposition. The team’s recent top scores from the two national championships and NHK Trophy would put Japan somewhere on the cusp of the team final (in, but just in)—acknowledging of course that comparing scores from different national meets is a fool’s game—and the rise of teams like Germany, Brazil, and the Netherlands back into the mix is making it that much harder to feel comfortable about the prospects of recent sure-things like Japan and Italy.

Team
Sae Miyakawa – 2015 floor 4th place, the one who has all that floor difficulty like front 1/1 + double front, should medal all the time
Mai Murakami – 2015 AA 6th place, 2016 Japanese champion, weirdly doesn’t make teams sometimes even though she’s obviously the best one, on this team though, sleeper pick in AA
Aiko Sugihara – 2016 Japanese AA bronze, 2016 Japanese bars and floor silver, line and leg form are her cool jams, deceptively competitive floor
Asuka Teramoto – 2015 Japanese champion, 2014 beam 4th place, the one you’ve seen a billion times, here to save beam forever
Yuki Uchiyama – The one you haven’t heard of, 2015 Japanese silver and world team alternate, here to make sure Murakami doesn’t have to do all the bars.

Projected Olympic Lineups
Vault – (Sugihara) Murakami, Teramoto, Miyakawa
Bars – (Murakami) Uchiyama, Sugihara, Teramoto
Beam – (Uchiyama) Sugihara, Murakami, Teramoto
Floor – (Teramoto) Sugihara, Murakami, Miyakawa

Deciding who will do the AA in qualification is quite straightforward for Japan. Miyakawa’s bars and beam are weak—she won’t be forced to do them—and while Uchiyama is fine on vault and floor, she’s clearly below the level of the others. Murakami, Teramoto, and Sugihara will do the all-around, with Murakami and Teramoto expected to be the highest scorers and advance to the final.

The potential team final v. qualification lineups are a bit trickier to figure, especially for beam because it’s such a problem. I’d love to see Uchiyama get a shot on beam in the team final because she has wonderful qualities and a more difficult routine than Sugihara (6.1 to 5.9 attempted at NHK), but she has fallen a bunch this year. To me, she’d still have to earn that spot in qualification because right now, Japan is looking at a lot of lower 13s on beam—a devastating possibility. The team absolutely must value hitting above scoring potential. A 13.6 is workable. A 12.5 is not. Continue reading Olympic Preview — Team Japan →

Olympics

Olympic Preview — Team Russia

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So this is happening now. Officially.

The IOC has finally deigned to deliver its spineless, toothless, lots-of-other-things-less message on Russia that if you conduct an expansive, multi-sport, state-sponsored program to cheat, subvert doping regulations, and actively undermine the ideals of the Olympics…it will work out mostly fine for you in the end. Go have fun in Rio, you crazy kids.

In its infinite wisdom, the IOC put its foot down to say that the buck stops…26 other places that aren’t here BEST FRIENDS AGAIN?!?!?!?!

At least we can keep ourselves warm at night by snuggling up with the silver lining to all of this, that we get to see the Russian gymnasts at the Olympics. Phew. Mustafina makes it all better.

The depressing part of this whole ordeal for the Russian gymnasts is how much they have been let down by their country. We’ll never actually know for sure, but the gymnasts—female gymnasts especially—probably are innocents in all of this. Still, every one of their accomplishments in Rio (let’s hope there are some, he says nervously eyeing a German hospital) will be tainted by the bad name their sports officials and athlete peers have given Russian sport. Sadly, that’s the kind of taint that can’t be switched out through a hole in the wall. You think the headline would be Spiridonova Wins Bars Gold? No. That Cheating Russian Cheater Wins Bars Gold.

But enough of that nonsense. (Actually, the real tragedy here is that I’ve been forced to talk about things that aren’t gymnastics for multiple paragraphs. I’m the victim.) To the sports part!

Russia has been looking the normal amount of in-several-pieces-on-the-floor heading into these Olympics, woefully absent the talents of Komova and Afanasyeva that could have rendered this a very special team. Still, a group able to wheel this many jewel-encrusted, medal-worthy routines out there should be able—and be expected—to medal barring a case of 2015-itis. Much will depend on which Mustafina shows up, but come on. It’s Mustafina. She’ll pull it together.

Team
Angelina Melnikova – 2016 Russian champion and (unofficial) European AA champion, young enough to still have hopes and dreams, will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting
Aliya Mustafina – 4 Olympic medals, 11 World medals, defending Olympic bars champion, hero, role model, regal bird of prey
Maria Paseka – 2015 vault champion, world record for Amanar improvement in a single quad, bee farm
Daria Spiridonova – 2015 bars champion, bars, bars, bars, bars, bars, please don’t make me do the others, bars, bars, bars, bars
Seda Tutkhalyan – 2014 Youth Olympics champion, is going to have to do beam, light the candles, we still believe in you

Projected Olympic Lineups
Vault – (Tutkhalyan) Melnikova, Mustafina, Paseka
Bars – (Paseka) Melnikova, Mustafina, Spiridonova
Beam – (Spiridonova), Tutkhalyan, Melnikova, Mustafina
Floor – (Mop with a bucket for a head), Mustafina, Tutkhalyan, Melnikova

I guess the expectation should be that Spiridonova will have to dawdle her way through a floor routine in qualification since Paseka didn’t do floor at Russian Cup. As for bars, Paseka has been much stronger there this quad, which is why I have her in the qualification spot, but I’d love to see Tutkhalyan get a chance at the AA.

The presumed top all-arounders will be Melnikova and Mustafina, but part of me would live for the oft-dismissed and slighted Seda going full Raisman on one of them in qualification to get a spot in the final. That actually may be the best argument for why Tutkhalyan won’t do bars in qualification. If Valentina, Flotsam, and Jetsam plan on Melnikova and Mustafina in the AA, they may not want to give Tutkhalyan a chance to snatch one of their spots. Continue reading Olympic Preview — Team Russia →

Olympics

Olympic Preview – Team Germany

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Watch out for the Germans. (I would, at this point, like credit for refraining from any and all World War II jokes for the entirety of this preview. Thank you.)

Germany hasn’t made a team final in approximately 186,000 years (it’s 5), but the squad the Germans will bring to Rio looks primed to recapture the nostalgic glory of those bygone, black-and-white era gymnasts like Seitz and Bui and Chusoviti…oh wait that’s still now.

Excitement over Germany’s potential has built lately following a team score of 174.25 in Chemnitz, coming directly after a trials performance from the five team members that would have translated to a 175.763 team score, both numbers good enough for bronze at last year’s world championship.

That’s an unrealistic expectation for this German side (those trials scores in particular had a hefty dose Laurie-Hernandez-domestically to them). Germany is going to come in several rungs behind the Russian and British teams and would need to root for meltdowns, but the idea of finally returning to an Olympic team final and knocking out a perennial qualifier is quite reasonable, verging on expected, given the scoring potential this team has shown.

Team
Tabea Alt – 2016 Test Event AA bronze, beam split leaps for days, side aerial + loso + loso, that American Cup performance was not very representative
Kim Bui – Two-time German champion, back from the dead to do bars but also all the events, Bhardwajs like Peng
Pauline Schaefer – The Sch- one who’s good at beam, 2015 world beam bronze, did that physically preposterous side somi 1/2 that you still don’t understand
Sophie Scheder – The Sch- one who’s good at bars, 2016 German champion, toe pointing you into the grave, dismounted into a tub of leg anesthesia in the 2015 bars final
Elisabeth Seitz – Billion-time German champion, still alive, bars looks better than ever, still miss the def, and the shap 1/1

Project Olympic Lineups
Of all the countries, Germany has the most difficult lineups to pin down and the most challenging and numerous decisions to make regarding who will compete each event. The team basically has five even-steven AAers who could finish in any order on any given day. Who does the AA in qualification? We’ll see how it plays out. This is what I would do.

Vault – (Seitz) Scheder, Schaefer, Alt
Bars – (Alt), Bui, Scheder, Seitz
Beam – (Seitz) Scheder, Alt, Schaefer
Floor – (Scheder), Alt, Bui, Schaefer

I have Alt and Scheder as the only two AAers with this lineup, Scheder as the national champion and Alt as the one with the biggest upside. The trouble is that on most events, the 4th and 5th gymnasts are so even that they’re interchangeable, giving rise to a number of different, equally viable combinations.

I don’t have Bui on beam because I think she has the lowest scoring potential, but she could very easily replace Seitz on beam and vault to go into the lineup as a third AAer. Conversely, Seitz could stay on vault and beam and slip in on floor as well to get into the AA, though I think Scheder probably gets that floor spot over Seitz so that she can do AA herself.

See, isn’t it really clear and obvious?

Floor is the toughest lineup to settle on because, under normal circumstances, you’d definitely want Alt’s routine in there. Her last two floor scores, however, have been 12.766 and 12.800. That could mean she’s the one who loses a spot to Seitz since Seitz finished ahead of her at both trials and Chemnitz. I’d still give Alt a shot at the AA, but those floor scores may be cause for rethinking.  Continue reading Olympic Preview – Team Germany →