Tag Archives: Bridget Sloan

Meet Recap, Olympic Trials

2008 Olympic Trials Part 2: The Landmark Case of Bieger v. Sloan

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Onward to night two!

The final chance for these poor vagrants and wandering hobos to impress the WATCHFUL EYES OF MARTHA KAROLYI (not Martha, just her disembodied, sentient pair of eyes floating around the arena) before the team is…oh, wait. There’s still a selection camp after this. And then a prep camp. What fun. My legs aren’t bedazzled kindling wrapped in Shayla’s Little Orphan Annie ribbon. What are you talking about?

The fact that those reclaimed bird limbs that Nastia charitably calls her joints stayed intact through this whole process and into the Olympics remains a miracle to me. Praise be to Prod’s shaved eyebrow stripe.

BUT IT’S STILL THE LAST CHANCE.

toprove

Incomplete sentence. To prove what? To prove a theorem? To prove bread? Never explained. No other words are used. Just “TO PROVE.”

“Earning a spot on the Olympic team is one of the most important things these girls have to accomplish.”

One of? Martha, I’m disappointed in you. We all know it’s the only important thing. That’s how you can tell Martha did not have script approval here. I suppose it is an improvement over the original draft, “If Alicia falls on beam, I will burn her family.”

“If you’re not able to perform under these situations, then you obviously would not be the right player.” PLAYER? Martha. Come on. You’re falling apart around here. You’re not some mouth-breathing NCAA bro-mmentator named Chert who usually does lacrosse games. You know they’re called gymnasts.

We’re treated to the highlights of night one, which include Nastia and Shawn hugging each other and that’s all. You know, the important part.

Much like a TGIF program of the 90s, an opening credit sequence is used reintroduce us to the cast of characters in case our small child brains have forgotten who they are since yesterday.

Rachel

Shayla wishes she were just flinging that menu down anywhere like Aunt Rachel. This is why no one ever ate at Rachel’s Place.

The “players” are even broken up into helpful categories: On The Cusp, As Expected, and The Comeback. You know, the three categories. Like when political pollsters call and ask you to rate a candidate’s favorability on a scale of On The Cusp to The Comeback.

Shayla, Sam, Bridget, and Ivana are all shown doing various levels of terribly to reinforce that they’re on the cusp because of sucking and being not special like Nastia. After the tenor of night one, I’m kind of surprised Ivana got On The Cusp, instead of being placed in her own YOU SUCK AND WE HATE YOU, IVANA category.

asexpected

Nastia’s wedgie…AS EXPECTED. “Yep, that’s the one. Use that shot.”

Russian DNA and Cereal Box continue being part of a balanced breakfast, but they’ll also be joined on the team by THE COMEBACK, meaning Alicia and Chellsie.

What exactly is Alicia supposed to be coming back from? Competing at the last three consecutive world championships? WOW, I can’t wait for Simone’s comeback this year, you guys! Alicia is coming back from…falling on beam once four years ago? SUCH A COMEBACK. Continue reading 2008 Olympic Trials Part 2: The Landmark Case of Bieger v. Sloan →

Stuff and Nonsense

Things Are Happening – May 6, 2016

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Upwards of several things occur each week that aren’t significant enough to warrant a full post, because meh (they’re not critical news like GIFs of beam boob-stabbing or making fun of Trautwig’s every word), but they still happen. And I might suddenly have strong opinions about them starting now, so here we go…

1. SHOCK! DOCTOR Rene Lyst will not be returning to Arizona State next season.

The first stiletto of the offseason has dropped. I know you have to pick your jaw up off the floor about this astonishing and unexpected development. After ASU put DOCTOR Rene on the side of the road in a ditch “administrative leave” with only a couple meets left in the season, there was a really huge chance she would be welcomed back with open arms for 2017. Risa Perez 7, Rene Lyst 0.

Now that the saga is finally over and Rene is hanging up her Ghost of the Moulin Rouge meet dresses, it’s time to start compulsively whispering JEN KESLER and ELISE RAY into an old stovepipe to see if that does anything. You never know.

Based on team quality and reputation (these days), the ASU job would be a step down for most of the current D1 head coaches, but also MONEY PLEASE, so not necessarily.

Most teams in this position, however, will try to go with the fresh-faced, up-and-coming assistant coach/lower-tier head coach who might be planning to stick around for a while to build a program into something we remember to pay attention to. That’s what Arizona just did with Tabitha and is 99% why I want ASU to look at Elise Ray. We need Tabitha and Elise going head-to-head as NCAA head coaches.

2. Meanwhile at Penn State… Continue reading Things Are Happening – May 6, 2016 →

Meet Recap, Olympic Trials

2008 Olympic Trials Part 1: THERE IS NO NEXT YEAR, Except Next Year

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Remember that time I decided to relive recent US Olympic Trials history and then abruptly stopped after two cycles? Well, I do. Sort of. Now. With the 2016 Trials suddenly just two months away (wait, what???), it’s time to get back to business.

2008!

Youtube’s offerings for NBC’s 2008 Trials broadcast are sporadic and wildly unhelpful, so we already feel right at home. The scene has been set.

You can watch some of the meet following part one here, but for the rest you may simply have to rely on me to walk you through the action with my brilliantly poetic and definitely true-to-life account of the broadcast. That is, unless you remember it minute-for-minute, which is also possible.

Gather ‘round, children, for it’s time to begin. Once upon a time, many iOS updates ago, there was a quadrennium called 2008.

Frigid and starving, we were forced to abandon the homeland we knew and strike off into the new world, leaving behind our various Bhardwajs and McCools and Pattersons and ultimately just agreeing to disagree with Kupets’s floor routine by accepting it as part of life’s varied and colorful experiences.

kupets

Who can sayyyyyyy if I’ve been changed for the better, but because I knew you, I have been chaaaaaanged…for gooooood.

What luck, then, to learn that this new world was full of lush beauty, and soon we were introduced to all two of the gymnasts who competed during the year 2008, Iowa’s very own sentient pair of American flag pants, Shawndolyn Johnson, and some frrrreigner who seems like she’s probably a bitch. We truly are home.

Welcoming us to 2008 is the jaded, eternally half-sarcastic whirr of Costasbot 3000, who has been exhumed from his regeneration capsule and de-gooped for the occasion.

Discussion question: What do we think Costas did to get plopped in the dunce corner and saddled with Bela-herding duty for the 2008 Olympics? I can only assume he waterboarded an intern or whipped a pork tenderloin at Ann Curry again because little else would merit such public indignity and corporal punishment.

The first routine of the evening is Shawn Johnson taping her foot. 16.800.

Aww, isn’t she just the wholesomest all-American sweetheart Iowa smile corn-fed Wheaties butter sculpture?

Shawn2008tape

Aaaabove the fruuuuuited plainnnnn. Amerrrrrrrica. Amerrrrrrrica.

Meanwhile, Nastia just resting-bitch-faced the town of Des Moines to dust like some Russian-born Russian from Russiagrad who’s totally Russian and not America’s sweetheart at all. Did we mention she was born in Russia? Ugh. Nastia. Why can’t you be more from Iowa? 14.350. Continue reading 2008 Olympic Trials Part 1: THERE IS NO NEXT YEAR, Except Next Year →

NCAA Gymnastics Nationals

National Championship Preview Part 4: Do We Care About Individuals? (Not Really)

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Individuals are the worst.

The quest for the individual AA title and event titles has never been anywhere in the vicinity of a primary focus during the NCAA gymnastics ALL ABOUT THE TEAM Championship, brought to you by THE CLOSEST GROUP OF SISTERS. Spoiler alert: It’s all about the team. All in. No regrets. Life lesson. Teamwork. Growth. Having each other’s backs.

Individual accolades are the ugly stepsister of college gymnastics, the one who is hidden in the attic and not allowed to come out when guests are around. (You have one of those too, right?) Publicly acknowledging a desire for individual recognition is strictly taboo. I’m just here to help the team succeed. No member of the team is more important than any other. Leader in the training gym.

To reinforce this culture, the coaches elected to do away with Sunday’s individual event finals entirely this season, ostensibly because of the new TV deal that will televise Friday and Saturday’s competitions live, even though…what does that have to do with Sunday? You could still have competition on Sunday, even if it’s not part of the TV broadcast. This has never been explained. Now, the individual event titles will be decided on Friday along with the all-around and the qualification to Super Six, making it, if possible, even more of a crapshoot afterthought parade of nothing than it was before. Remember how Lloimincia Hall never made a floor final in her whole career?

Individual Events

Let’s be honest, the winner of each event title will be whichever gymnast anchors the lineup of the last team competing on that event. You know it. On vault, that would be Gnat in the first session and Bresette in the second session, so we’ll go with Gnat. She would likely be the choice anyway. On bars, that’s Rogers in the first semi and Sternberg in the second, and I have no problem at all picking Rogers to win bars (even though it will probably be Wofford or one of the Floridas, both going in the 5th rotation of their semifinals). On beam, it’s Sloan in the first semi and Capps in the second semi. OOOF. Two very likely nominees to win. We’ll go with Capps. On floor, it’s Atkinson in the first and Hughes in the second. That’s tougher. They’ll both get good scores, but Gnat and McGee are probably the floor favorites.

Still, sticking to my principle that scores are too heavily based on lineup and rotation order and that the winner of each event will simply be the most recent competitor, my official picks are Gnat on vault, Rogers on bars, Capps on beam, and Atkinson on floor. Feel free to submit your own. We’ll all have a good shot of winning because I’m sure there will be a billion ties even with the increased number of judges.

Silver lining: we will no longer have to wait through an interminably long event final because thousands of qualifiers tied for fourth place in a semifinal. Those vault finals some years, when they did two vaults, and had 25 qualifiers…

Plus, what would have been the day of event finals is now the day of the WAG Test Event, so we can still use that to help pretend our lives are full. Romania, you guys. We broke it and it never got fixed.

All-around
The all-around title, also decided on Friday, is usually slightly less random, but only slightly. We all know who the top all-arounders are, and they’ll each be pecking around the top of the standings, but then also sometimes Kim Jacob wins. When the scores are this closely packed, weird things can happen very easily. To break the race down, I’ll run through the gymnasts I see as the most likely winners, so we know it will be none of them.
Continue reading National Championship Preview Part 4: Do We Care About Individuals? (Not Really) →