Meet Preview

American Classic Preview

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For 2018, USA Gymnastics has added a third “you can watch this like a real sport” competition into its summer schedule, the previously semi-secret and always unhelpfully named American Classic.

“No one will get this confused with the U.S. Classic!” said USAG, full of wisdom.

Like the U.S. Classic at the end of July, the American Classic is first and foremost an opportunity for gymnasts to achieve the qualifying score necessary to advance to the national championship. The American Classic is therefore a showcase of prudent gymnasts, those who would like two tries to get that AA total rather than one.

But this year, rather than taking place at Martha’s House, the meet is being held at Greg’s House, which seats a cool 15,000+. Meanwhile, Martha’s House seats 4 llamas and a scream. So this is better.

Junior elites compete on July 7th at 11:00am MT, with senior elites at 4:00pm MT. USAG will stream on YouTube. Let’s discuss the major topics.

(Programming note: I will not be able to live blog the American Classic.)

SENIORS

Roster: Shania Adams, Sloane Blakely, Jade Carey, Audrey Davis, Kara Eaker, Jaylene Gilstrap, Olivia Hollingsworth, Madeleine Johnston, Shilese Jones, Emily Lee, Isabel Mabanta, Grace McCallum, Riley McCusker, Alyona Shchennikova. Deanne Soza, Madelyn Williams

Jade Carey all-arounder?
Carey has already qualified to nationals by virtue of being on the worlds team last year, so this meet is more about getting a competition under her belt since she has not appeared at a real meet yet in 2018.

Of note, Carey has been showing bars work on various instasnaps, leading to some anticipation that she might add bars to her repertoire this elite season. Carey was never tragic on bars in JO, but she did not nearly have elite composition and therefore chose to prioritize her main competition events when going elite for 2017. If nothing else, Carey is working toward being a real bars option in college. But like Sacramone finishing 4th AA at nationals in 2015, Carey would have the scores on the other events to get a legit AA total in elite even if her bars is like, “Hi, I’m an 11”

If she’s going for full vault difficulty right now, I’m eager to see where the Amanar is, since that’s the newer of her two vaults and was a work in progress last elite season. Continue reading American Classic Preview →

Elite Things

Euros Team Selections

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The European Championship is less than a month away, and if you’re me, you’re already way too excited about it. Nominative rosters have been released and several countries have announced their final team selections, so let’s check in on who’s definitely going, who should be going, and every nation’s overall prospects.

Once we get closer to the event and the teams are finalized, I’ll do a full scoring analysis.

RUSSIA

Nominative roster: Viktoria Komova, Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Uliana Perebinosova, Maria Kharenkova

We know this nominative roster is nonsense because Perebinosova is injured and not going to Euros, so it probably just reflects some elaborate Valentina mind game (“I’d rather take an injured ghost than you, Varvara”).

At this point, I would consider Melnikova, Komova, and Simakova locked. At the even-year European Championship, there is no all-around final and the team competition format is 5-3-3, so if you’re a nation like Russia that’s expecting team gold here, selection is all about finding three people for each event. This locked group would give us

Vault: Melnikova, Komova, Simakova?
Bars: Komova, Melnikova, (?)
Beam: Komova, Melnikova, (?)
Floor: Melnikova, Simakova, (?)

So from there, you more or less need one more person for each event. Now, you could use Simakova for bars and beam and Komova for floor, but you want to protect Komova as much as possible, and there are higher-scoring options than Simakova on bars and beam. The most value you could add to this team immediately would be with Ilyankova.

Vault: Melnikova, Komova, Simakova?
Bars: Komova, Melnikova, Ilyankova
Beam: Komova, Melnikova, Ilyankova?
Floor: Melnikova, Simakova, (?)

That’s the best available bars trio, and while Ilyankova is not an ideal beamer, I don’t know that there’s a more reliable option out there right now. She could end up doing beam at Euros. For the remaining spot, a lot comes down to whether you trust Simakova to vault (she should have a vital rudi but missed for 12s a couple times at Russian Cup). If you do trust Simakova, then you’re left looking for only a floor routine and another possible beam option. That’s why Kharenkova—now a beam and floor specialist—has seemed an appealing choice. Yet, her inconsistency and general Kharenkova-ness could be her undoing.

Still, Russia may elect to roll the dice with Kharenkova and put up this team.

Vault: Melnikova, Komova, Simakova
Bars: Komova, Melnikova, Ilyankova
Beam: Komova, Melnikova, Kharenkova
Floor: Melnikova, Simakova, Kharenkova

If that’s too scary, then you replace Kharenkova’s name with Alexeeva (if healthy) or Zubova in the above scenario, though Zubova is in the exact same consistency boat as Kharenkova. I’m not sure there’s much of a difference. It’s all terrifying.

Another sensible option could be to hitch the wagon fully to Ilyankova for beam and go with Akhaimova as the fifth team member. Akhaimova could provide a third floor routine as well as a backup vault option instead of Simakova—though Akhaimova’s vault scores haven’t been that big lately either.

Needing a third DTY (Russia just can’t show up to the team final with some full) is how Nabieva or Trykina would get on the team, but floor would be a real problem in that case.

This may be the hardest team to pick, but Great Britain is in the running for that as well. Continue reading Euros Team Selections →

Rankings

National Team Rankings – July 2018

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How It Works
Taking into account all scores recorded at competitions in the last six months, each nation is given a team total based on how its best-scoring group of five senior gymnasts would do in a hypothetical 3-up, 3-count team final.

Each individual’s best scores may come from any official competition (they need not all be from the same meet), and whichever group of five gymnasts would produce the highest score is the one selected.

Countries that have not shown enough senior routines in the last six months to fill a 3-up, 3-count team on each event are not included.

Rankings will be updated on the first of each month, and scores will expire after six months in order to provide the most up-to-date snapshot of where nations are at the current moment. The current rankings include only scores from January 2018–June 2018.

Joining the rankings this month were Poland, Latvia, and Thailand. No nations dropped off.

Last month’s ranking is in parentheses. Continue reading National Team Rankings – July 2018 →

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – June 29, 2018

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A. The Ranch

The DA and assistant DA in Walker County, Texas provided an update on the investigation into the ranch today, announcing that That Guy has been indicted on six counts of sexual assault of a child, and (the surprise here) that Debbie Van Horn has also been indicted for sexual assault of a child. This was for “acting as a party” in one of the assault charges against That Guy, according to the DA. Yikes. There’s more and more and always more.

If you haven’t been up on it, Van Horn is the one who was always sitting on the folding chairs amongst all the backpacks at every competition and you asked “who is that lady?” every single year—the trainer who we’ve said should have seen, should have known, should have watched, should have questioned, and should have followed up. But such a direct charge, acting as a party in the sexual assault of a child, comes as a surprise.

They didn’t announced any other indictments, but the investigation is ongoing. They did mention that several other people would have been charged with failure to report, but the two-year statue of limitations has expired, so they couldn’t charge them. They interviewed the Karolyis, Steve Penny, and Rhonda Faehn as part of the investigation, making a specific point of sassing Steve Penny’s lack of cooperation. “He didn’t provide much assistance.” Yep. We know.

Martha also definitely worked her magic because the DA and assistant DA were very keen to tell us about how the golden child did nothing wrong and was just a humble coach who was bamboozled by USAG. They found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the Karolyis, so it seems they’re off the hook here.

B. American Classic

While most of the US gymternet erratic-twirl-machine has been consumed with the news of Tom Forster becoming the new women’s High-Performance Team Coordinator, which I wrote up yesterday (short version: He sounds like the best of the available options, proceed with caution because of USAG and 90s coaching, hilarious GIF), we also received the roster for the newly broadcast American Classic on July 7th at Utah.

Senior elite
Shania Adams
Sloane Blakely
Jade Carey
Audrey Davis
Kara Eaker
Jaylene Gilstrap
Olivia Hollingsworth
Madeleine Johnston
Shilese Jones
Adeline Kenlin
Emily Lee
Isabel Mabanta
Grace McCallum
Riley McCusker
Alyona Shchennikova
Deanne Soza
Madelyn Williams

Junior elite
Ciena Alipio
Love Birt
Skye Blakely
Sophia Butler
Kailin Chio
Claire Dean
Kayla DiCello
Amari Drayton
Addison Fatta
Aleah Finnegan
Delaney Fisher
eMjae Frazier
Gabreille Gallentine
Elizabeth Gantner
Karis German
Trista Goodman
Zoe Gravier
Olivia Greaves
Maeve Hahn
Selena Harris
Kaytlyn Johnson
Levi Jung-Ruivivar
Alonna Kratzer
Lillian Lewis
Kaliyah Lincoln
Lauren Little
Mallory Marchelli
Konnor McClain
Sydney Morris
Brenna Neault
Sienna Robinson
Katelyn Rosen
Lyden Saltness
Abigail Scanlon
Ava Siegfeldt
Ui Soma
Calvary Swaney
Tori Tatum

The senior roster is fairly typical for American Classic, where the biggest names who have been competing recently do not attend because there’s literally no reason for them to, but we will see the likes of Riley McCusker, who’s getting back into competition form after a medium-sized injury absence, and Jade Carey, who has been adding skills on bars this spring.

USAG will be streaming the meet on YouTube, juniors at 11:00am MT, seniors at 4:00pm. Hopes sessions will be the day before.

Scores at this one are important because seniors need to have a 52.000 AA (or 39.750 three-event score, or 27.000 two-event score) to advance to nationals if they didn’t already reach that score at one of the verification meets or a USAG international assignment. (Jesolo and Gymnix don’t count for qualification since they weren’t official USAG assignments—because, you know, that makes the scores less valid or something?) As for the juniors, they need a 51.000 AA and cannot qualify with the three- or two-event score. Both juniors and seniors will have another chance to get their scores at US Classic on the 28th if they don’t get them at American Classic.

By my count, the seniors who have already qualified for nationals are Morgan Hurd (2017 worlds team member), Ragan Smith (2017 worlds team member), Jade Carey (2017 worlds team member), Ashton Locklear (2017 worlds team member – currently injured), Jordan Chiles (2017 worlds team alternate), Margzetta Frazier (February verification), Grace McCallum (February verification), Maile O’Keefe (2018 American Cup), Trinity Thomas (2018 Tokyo World Cup), Adeline Kenlin (April verification), Gabby Perea (April verification), and Alyona Shchennikova (April verification). Shilese Jones also got a 3-event qualifying score at April verification.

Note: Kenlin’s vault at the April verification was on a soft surface, so I’m not sure if that was allowed to count for her qualifying score. As always, this information is cobbled together and incomplete (because a public list is not kept by USAG due to FUN), so there may be others who have qualified already and we never saw those scores. Continue reading Things Are Happening – June 29, 2018 →

Because gymnastics is a comedy, not a drama