A. Stuttgart World Cup Canceled

Stuttgart, one of the three remaining all-around world cups in the Olympic qualification series, has said a big old NOPE to hosting the event this March. Per the FIG, they’re still hoping to find a different city in Germany to host the event (k…….) so that the process can go ahead as planned. Ish.

According to my frenemy, the 2020ONEST Olympic qualification procedures, the all-around series can go ahead and count if only three events are held instead of the planned four, but that would hinge on the Birmingham event still happening, which is—to put it mildly—a question mark at this point. If Birmingham can’t be held and no replacement hosts are found, then the series would contain just two events, the 2020 American Cup and the 2021 Tokyo World Cup planned for May. The Tokyo World Cup is also the Olympic Test Event, so if that can’t happen, we’re in much deeper water.

If there are just two events, the series wouldn’t count and the theoretical Olympic spots awarded from this series would be reallocated to “the highest ranked eligible NOC based on the team ranking results of Qualifications of the 2019 World Championships.” So, since all the countries are eligible for the spot at this point, the general consensus seems to be this means the top three from qualification at worlds. That would be USA, China, and Russia for the women and Russia, China, Japan for the men.

Continue reading Things Are Happening – January 14, 2021 →

Typically, this is an account of the routines that received a 10 from at least one judge, but as there were just three of those in week one (ahh, a light week), I’ll take us through everything that received a 10 or a 9.950 from at least one judge. And by me, I mean Gymnastea on YouTube.

The 10s

Kiya Johnson – Floor – LSU

The 9.975s

Trinity Thomas – Vault – Florida

Haleigh Bryant – Floor – LSU

Continue reading Top Scores of Week 1 →

A. European Championships

The We’re Still Doing This? Championships are still doing this. Yesterday, the big news came that Larisa Iordache has indeed been added to Romania’s team for the European Championships following her performance at the national championships, a showing that clearly reinforced that she’s the best one. Just in life.

Iordache replaces Daniela Trica from the nominative team. I mayyy have previously described it as “obvious” that Romania would bump Maria Holbura to make room for Iordache, and……stand by it? It’s not a huge deal for the actual team prospects—if we’re being honest, Romania should just count Iordache, Sfiringu, and Stanciulescu on every event and could fill out the team with a Ponor leotard and Claudia Presacan’s candle cup—but that’s sort of why I favored keeping Trica. Not only did she earn the spot over Holbura at nationals, but she could use this somewhat low-stakes but still significant opportunity more, especially since Trica is more likely to hang around and be needed next quad when Romania will try to pull itself out of the ditch. At the same time, I understand the desire to keep Holbura at competition readiness given that she’s going to the Olympics.

The men’s competition gets started this week with the juniors kicking things off early on Wednesday. The whole competition for both men and women will be streamed, qualification on SmartScoring’s site and finals as a real broadcast.

Continue reading Things Are Happening – December 7, 2020 →

I’m rounding out the freshman previews today with a full accounting of the elites—current and former—who will be joining NCAA programs in the coming maybe-season. First, links to those I’ve already dealt with in the individual team freshmen previews, then on to the rest.

Oklahoma – Audrey Davis (USA)
UCLA – Frida Esparza (MEXICO), Chae Campbell (USA)
LSU – Elena Arenas (USA), Olivia Dunne (USA)
Utah – Jaylene Gilstrap (USA), Lucy Stanhope (GREAT BRITAIN)
Florida – Ellie Lazzari (USA), Gabrielle Gallentine (USA)
Cal – Gabby Perea (USA)
Georgia – Victoria Nguyen (USA)
Denver – Isabel Mabanta (USA)
Alabama – Shania Adams (USA), Cameron Machado (USA)

STANFORD

Ira Alexeeva – RUSSIA
Isabela Onyshko – CANADA
Tan Sze En – SINGAPORE
Sandra Jessen – CZECH REPUBLIC

United Nations: Palo Alto Campus has the opportunity to change its team’s trajectory more than any other new class this season, standing among the most accomplished groups any team is welcoming. With these freshmen, and Kyla Bryant representing the United States delegation, those lineups can become formidable. Imagine the possibilities for not being abjectly petrified by Stanford’s bars rotation with a lineup that adds Alexeeva, Onyshko, and Tan—not to mention Amanda Zeng, the lone “just an American” in the club who is quite good on bars as well.

Irina Alexeeva, a Texas-based WOGA gymnast, competed as a junior elite in the United States in 2016 but was ineligible to represent the US internationally and opted instead to compete for Russia. She made Russia’s 2018 World Championships team, advancing to the all-around final and placing 13th, while also earning a silver medal in the team final where she contributed the team’s highest score and least stressful routine on beam.

Isabela Onyshko’s meteoric rise as a Canadian elite culminated in her reaching the 2016 Olympics, where she became the first Canadian to advance to an Olympic beam final after scoring 14.533 in qualification. Injuries subsequently derailed some of her all-around hopes in the next quadrennium, but Onyshko did win an all-around silver medal at the 2018 Canadian Championships and an all-around bronze medal at 2020 Elite Canada, shortly before the shutdown.

Tan Sze En, who trains at Legacy Elite, competed at her first World Championships representing Singapore in 2019, scoring a 48.098 in qualification that—by a margin of just .032 over Ireland’s Megan Ryan—was enough to earn her the final spot available there for the Tokyo Olympics.

Sandra Jessen, a Parkettes gymnast, spent some time competing for the Czech Republic in 2019—recalling the career trajectory of another Stanford gymnast, Nicole Pechanec. Much like no one was able to stop telling you that Nicole Pechanec competed elite as Nicole Pechancova, I’m sure we’ll hear about how Sandra Jessen is Sandra Jessenova to the FIG. Like Tan, Jessen competed at her first World Championships in 2019, competing vault, beam, and floor for the Czech team that finished 23rd.

Continue reading Elite to NCAA 2021 →

A. That Maggie Haney NYT Article

Ugh. Must we?

So, the New York Times published an article yesterday seeking to answer the question that no one was asking: “What’s Maggie Haney thinking?”

It’s a fairly ludicrous piece, one that goes too far to the side of uncritically presenting the views of this cult of gymnastics without contextualizing how bonkers what they’re saying is.

But it is obviously bonkers. That dad saying, “If I wanted her to come home happy and smiling every day, I’d send her to clown school” is a line I’ll never forget.

The real highlight comes right at the beginning, when Maggie completely unironically says the words, “I think my mistakes were that I cared too much.”

And my biggest weakness is that I’m a perfectionist. And my biggest challenge is how beautiful I am.

The self-awareness is just dripping off of this one.

Continue reading Things Are Happening – December 1, 2020 →

A. European Championships…still a go?

Despite a flurry of withdrawals, the nominative rosters have been released for December’s European Championships in Turkey. That’s still, we guess, going to be a thing.

Of note, exactly 8 women’s teams have entered a sufficient number senior athletes to get a team score, meaning all of them would advance to the WAG team final. That’s Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Turkey, Czech Republic, Latvia, Croatia, and Luxembourg. Yes, Luxembourg has entered 3 seniors. It’s the only thing keeping me going. This seems like a wildly ill-advised and preposterous championship that I am growing more excited about by the minute.

	SENIORS	JUNIORS
AUSTRIA	Elisa Hämmerle
AZERBAIJAN	Marina Nekrasova Samira Gahramanova	Milana Minakovskaya
BULGARIA	Yoana Yankova	Valentina Georgieva Viktoria Glavtcheva Viktoria Chakova Darina Nachina
CROATIA	Ana Derek Tijana Korent Christina Zwicker Petra Furac Tina Zelcic	Nika Kukuljan Frelta Sara Sulekic Katerina Strinic Antea Ercegovic Emi Matoscevic
CZECH REPUBLIC	Natalie Brabcova Aneta Holasova Domikia Ponilizova Magdalena Coufalova Sabina Halova	Nela Kaplanova Lucie Marikova Nela Stepandova Daniela Halova Klara Peterkova
HUNGARY	Zoja Szekely Zsofia Kovacs Hanna Szujo Noemi Makra Dorina Böczögo	Greta Mayer Kira Balazs Emma Horvath Anna Szmirnov Nora Peresztegi
ISRAEL	Lihie Raz
LATVIA	Elina Vihrova Anna Locmele Zane Petrova Arina Olenava	Anastasija Ananjeva Marija Prostasenko
LITHUANIA	Agata Vostruchovaite
LUXEMBOURG	Chiara Castellucci Celeste Mordenti Lola Schleich
MALTA		Tara Vella Clark
ROMANIA	Antonia Duta Maria Holbura Silviana Sfiringu Ioana Stanciulescu Daniela Trica	Ana Barbosu Maria Ceplinschi Andreea Preda Iulia Trestianu Luiza Popa
SLOVENIA	Lucija Hribar Sara King	Zala Trtnik Ziva Konic Tia Pavlin Zakovsek Neza Erpic Nina Davidovic
SLOVAKIA	Barbora Mokosova
TURKEY	Nazli Savranbasi Dilara Yurtdas Cemre Kendirci Goksu Uctas Sanli Bilge Tarhan	Derin Tanriyasukur Beyza Ozen Sevgi Kayisoglu Bengisu Yildiz Kardelen Paryaz
UKRAINE	Diana Varinska Anastasia Bachynska Angelina Radivilova Yana Fedorova Valeria Osipova	Viktoria Ivanenko Daniela Batrona Yulia Kasianenko Daria Lyska

The juniors will have an all-around but no team competition this year, and since there are only 20 athletes eligible for the AA final (after 2-per-country), those countries sending full teams will just have an intrasquad in qualification to see who gets Wiebered, and those with two or fewer will be automatically in.

On the senior men’s side, there are 11 senior teams with at least three athletes: Turkey, Ukraine, Israel, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, and Lithuania. Though, some of these teams like Lithuania and Croatia are only maybes in terms of being able to cobble together three routines on each event. I hope Croatia tries again. My sole dream on the men’s side is for Croatia to default into the team final and have everyone vault handspring timers like at 2018 worlds. There’s definitely something wrong with me!

B. Gymnast alliance

Today, we learned that Riley McCusker is suing Maggie Haney for all of the…all of it—bullying, body shaming, unhealthy diet, period prevention, and strenuous training on injuries including 2019’s exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis.

Continue reading Things Are Happening – November 12, 2020 →