For an Amanar, that sure did consist of only two twists.
Also, Vanessa Ferrari’s routine composition is not a role model!
I’ll be interested to see what D score Gabby gets for this because I’m not giving credit to that back tuck out of the back full or that turn combo. That’s why it’s called podium training, though. Deep breaths. She’s certainly trying to squeeze every last tenth out of that routine to make a push as the third floor worker.
Cheryl Hamilton certainly had some background faces and some conversations with Kittia about that one.
On bars, Maggie is looking pretty much on track with where she was last year. It’s a 6.0 difficulty, which isn’t necessarily going to make a splash on these days when you’ve got the Locklears and the Kocians and the Gabbys and then Hernandez doing 6.4, but that dismount landing looked normal and secure without tentativeness.
On beam, nothing looked too troubling or scary either. There are still a few unfortunate moments like that wolf jump to front tuck, but at least she has seen the light and eliminated the two consecutive wolf turns at the beginning, so let’s all celebrate forever what we have been given. Looks like she’s going for 6.1 here.
Onward we travel to Women Part 2: The One That’s Slightly More Meaningful Than the Last One. It’s nationals, which means everyone needs to start trying now, doing the all-around, and maybe showing an Amanar or something. At the classic, we didn’t get any desperately chucked Amanars. I mean, come on. What is wrong with you people?
Classic did provide partial answers to a few pressing Olympic questions, but for the most part, I gave it a C- because of how many people didn’t compete events I wanted them to. (The most frequently competed floor skill at Secret Classic was nothing.) One routine? What are we even supposed to do with that? Nationals will be better.
While it’s not the final step in the Martha-brick road—we’ll hear a lot about how everyone is supposed to be at 90% this weekend (Oh no! I was competing at 92%! What will I do?!?!)—nationals will be the first legitimate opportunity to compare everyone on all the events at the same time and will provide our most viable glimpse so far of what a top three on each event might be.
But until then, we still have a number of wispy, ghostlike issues that hopefully will look a good deal more corporeal by this time next week.
1. Minnesota Maygie
The Queen in the North’s meniscus is easily one of the top-five most famous cartilaginous clumps in US gymnastics history. It has single-handedly provided us with nearly all the uncertainty and meritless speculation we could have ever wanted from an Olympic selection process. Maggie Nichols’ level of competitiveness will be the single most important piece of new information we get from nationals.
Expectations should be tempered. Not only is it unrealistic to think that she’ll be all 2015 Worlds coming right off knee surgery, but this is also more or less her classic. She’s on a displaced timetable and won’t necessarily be expected to roll into St. Louis and perform at exactly 91.3% like the others. Nichols’ true competition of consequence will be Olympic Trials.
At the same time, we did learn an important lesson in 2012 from Nastia, who taught us that Sprawling Hair Shanty Town is the new bun. Also that even though we might say, “It’s just nationals. There’s still time to put together a bars dismount before trials,” mmmm…not that much time.
It’s unrealistic to expect a massive change in level in just two weeks. People don’t tend to upgrade between nationals and trials. I have to think that Nichols needs to show all her intended difficulty (*cough* Amanar *cough*) at least in podium training at nationals, especially while living in Martha’s Funhouse of Verification and Proving Yourself.
Secret Classic is just Secret Classic. It’s the first step, not the decisive step. It’s never truly going to ruin anyone’s chances all by itself (which is code for “don’t write off Madison Kocian just because of that”), but this year’s competition did reveal a couple key changes in the D-score rankings as well as reinforcing the viability of several contenders on specific events, gymnasts who were closer to question-mark territory before the meet (which is code for “Aly Raisman had an important meet in spite of bars”).
So, as before, I have taken the current difficulty scores for the senior elites advancing to nationals and arranged the Ds by size, now updated to include the routines performed at Secret Classic if they reflected an upgrade (or change in composition—for instance, I put Rachel Gowey’s bars D back down to 6.3 from 6.5 as it appears she’s no longer doing inbar skills).
Once again, I removed the stick bonuses from the D scores because stick bonuses are the work of a multi-headed demon creature from below the sea and serve only to make the US scores even more misleading and unrealistic than they might be otherwise. Yurchenko fulls for seniors are also awarded just 4.7 instead of 5.0 at US competitions (because only stupid foreign jerks who are totally untalented do Yurchenko fulls), so I restored those to their actual 5.0 D level as well.
All-Around
Among the Timmy D comments heard ’round the gymternet during the competition was the categorical statement that Aly Raisman will not be doing bars in qualification at the Olympics. …OK?
Now, will Aly Raisman have the weakest bars routine on the Olympic team? Yes. But that didn’t stop Martha from holding Nichols out of the AA at worlds last year to give Raisman a shot at qualifying, only to have Nichols return to the lineup to perform her first bars routine of the competition in the team final (a conventional-wisdom no-no, but a decision that worked out well).
I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it happened again at the Olympics. Though imagine the hell that will be raised if, say, Laurie Hernandez gets held off of bars in qualification so that Raisman can do the all-around instead of her. Continue reading Checking Out Some D – Post-Classic Edition→
It occurs to me I never wrapped up my thoughts on the national championship, so here are just a few behind-schedule cognitive tangles about that competition before we move on to remembering that there are still two more national team camps before the WC squad is named and two more months until the actual competition.
On day 2 of nationals for the women, the world righted itself, with most of the competitors remembering that hitting routines is a thing you should probably do. It also reinforced why prospective team selection is such a fun game. There are a TON of realistic permutations for Worlds teams this year, all of which will end up scoring very similarly to one another, and some of which belie visual impressions from the competition. But which one do you choose?
Take Kyla, for example. Expectations are a funny thing. Kyla has been a top-2 AAer for the US this whole quad, majoring in not sucking at bars. So when she suddenly has a nasty Nationals and looks weak on bars, the sky is falling. That was certainly the attitude of our broadcast team. Al was even asking whether Kyla would make the selection camp. (Tim was like, “Derp. Obvi she’s making the selection camp.”) Yes correct, Tim.
But to me, and contrary to the overall tone of things, Kyla helped her chances to make the team with her performance on day 2 of nationals. At least, she made an argument for including her in the squad that she didn’t make on day 1. No, bars is not happening. But at this moment, it’s not really about bars for her. That’s the big change in expectations we have to make. With her current routine composition, Kyla isn’t making the team to do bars in TF even if she shaves several inches off her height and lands a dismount. (If she returns to her planned 6.3 and can hit by selection camp, it’s a different story, but that’s a lot to do.) Right now, it’s about beam. That’s where she can be top three. And she stepped up like hell there and did her job on day 2.
In fact, because she did her job (scoring several tenths ahead of a connection-free Aly Raisman and a strong Alyssa Baumann, and a point ahead of a wobbly Gabby Douglas), suddenly a team with Kyla on it makes a little sense now and outscores many of the other permutations. At least on the day. Playing the same game I did for day 1 scores, here’s the way some possible teams stack up according exclusively to their day 2 scores. Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Key, Kocian, Ross – 185.500 (Day 1: 181.750) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.850: Kocian 15.600, Key 15.300, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.050: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Key 14.700
This team didn’t score very well based on day 1 scores, but on day 2 it was stellar. Note that there’s a serious name missing from this group. This is why the numbers and team combinations sometimes don’t reinforce original visual impressions. Gabby had a pretty nice performance on day 2 (not Classics nice, but solid), and Kyla did not. Nonetheless, here we are, with this team and a 185.500. Now, I still think Gabby is necessary to the team and is among the safest selections, but she needs to show some “you have to take me” scores at camp to confirm her spot, particularly by outscoring Bailie Key on bars. Showing Classic-level beam would be nice too, though that wouldn’t be so nice for Kyla.
And to be fair, it’s not like a team with Douglas on it is scoring at all differently from this one. It’s just an interesting development. If you’re asking me my team, Gabby is on it without much hesitation.
Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Douglas, Kocian, Ross – 185.400 (Day 1: 181.850) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.650: Kocian 15.600, Douglas 15.100, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.150: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Douglas 14.800
Some of these options emphasize why Bailie Key is part of a safer team selection (she can go up on any event whenever and give you a usable score, which is a very convincing argument with Martha), but if you’re only using her for bars in TF, there are other choices.
Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Douglas, Key, Ross – 185.100 (Day 1: 181.600) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.350: Key 15.300, Douglas 15.100, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.150: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Douglas 14.800
More than anything else, these scores reinforce that it’s all essentially the same. Based on day 2 (a day of hit routines), all these different teams—leaving off Kyla, leaving off Bailie, leaving off Gabby—are scoring within a few tenths of each other. Choose any of the above, and it will be fine. The final scores will turn out about the same, and no one will have much of an argument that the selected team is unfair. Do whatever. Have a ball.
