A. RUSSIA…could you just not?

In today’s ridiculata, Russia announced that it will not send Nikita Nagornyy and Lilia Akhaimova to the American Cup because of the coronavirus. And we all went, “Wait huh?” Does…does that make sense? Oh, it doesn’t? Cool.

All the other countries are like, “K fun, I’m gonna head to Milwaukee and lick a bus stop and get my Olympic points. Peace.”

There’s actually a lot to follow on this fine Sunday. I’ll start with Kentucky’s visit to LSU—in LSU’s second meet of the weekend. LSU did not follow my instructions (big surprise) and pretty much went for it with the lineups on Friday, adding back Edney on vault and Desiderio on floor. We’ll see if it’s the same today.

LSU took a big step with Friday’s performance, the first of the whole season that I would classify as a “good meet” by LSU’s standards, but now does face the most challenging remaining competition on the team’s schedule until SECs, Kentucky.

“A rear Sunday.” John’s words…

A. Kerri Strugglin’

Obviously, the first order of business. A Kerri Strug biopic is currently being shopped around, with Olivia Wilde attached to direct. We’ve all been workshopping this story for 24 years, so…battle stations.

Even if this gets made and distributed (long way to go), there are 99 ways it could go wrong, so prepare for all of them, and hope that we’re actually in the correct moment in time for this movie to be made…slightly non terribly? No one is interested in pretending everything’s great anymore, right?

Because if this had been made in 2006, it would have been all sports movie, she did it on one leg to win the gold for RED WHITE AND BLUE, hooray, Bela saved America by shouting you can do it, Kerri doesn’t talk in a “been in the gulag for too long” whisper at all I don’t know what you mean, EVERYTHING’S FINE [nervous laugh], American hero teammates who love each other.

We’ve got some delightful Pac-12-hosted meets on the schedule midday today, probably the two meets of the weekend I’m most interested in—though by all accounts Georgia/Arkansas was a thriller yesterday. I haven’t gone back and watched the ones I missed on Friday, though I promise (maybe?) I will. If for no other reason than finding some good GIFs for the weekly GIF recap.

Meanwhile in early action Rutgers is having a true nightmare, with two falls on vault and three falls in the first three bars routines.

A. Maggie Haney suspended

The long-delayed Maggie Haney hearing finally started this week and within 13 seconds resulted in a provisional suspension, pending the results of the hearing and investigation into allegations of verbal abuse such as threats, bullying, and harassment in addition to having gymnasts compete while injured.

It is at least somewhat encouraging that USAG has decided the prospect of garbage behavior like that gets you a suspension now, instead of a cake like before. Cut to the other elite coaches hiding their Most Verbal Abuse trophies from previous quads.

For now, Maggie has been added to the suspended members list and prohibited from contact with minors. There is a logistical wrinkle to this since Riley McCusker is 18 and could therefore continue to train with Maggie should she so choose—but there could not be any minor gymnasts in the gym at the time, and Maggie couldn’t coach at camp or at meets. So basically she’s suspended from coaching for the time being.

We have a crap-ton of meets starting at 4ET/1PT, most of which should be really competitive. The plan is to pop around here and there, but we’ll see if I get sucked into any one in particular. At least the Iowa/Penn State meet is on actual TV, which will help with stream prioritizing.

Full attention will be on Metroplex when that starts later in the day, in case you’re not FLOing. I don’t have a live score link for that because of course there isn’t, so we’ll just have to do our best.

Intros underway at OSU/Arizona. Basketball running long before Iowa/Penn State because these ball sports are so self-indulgent.

Why are some of these vaults on the Arizona highlight reel Yurchenko timers?