Tag Archives: Brittany Rogers

Olympic Preview — Team Canada

Moving on to the Great North, it’s high time we tackle the prospects for Team Canada at the Olympics. Coming off the brilliant 5th-place success of the 2012 Olympics, the beginning of this quad was disappointingly thumpity-thump-thump for Canada as a team, regressing to finish 12th in 2014 against a somewhat nondescript field.

Fortunately, things have improved recently in the build-up to Rio. Canada managed a 6th-place finish at 2015 worlds, one that better reflects the current talent level and expectations for the country, and has put together a group of five for the Olympics that looks almost sure to improve on that 167.697 TF score that put Canada into 6th last year.

The focus for Canada will not be medals, as the most likely outcome would see Canada leave the Olympics with no gymnastics medals, but a number of competitive finishes should be in the cards.

Team
Ellie Black – 2015 Pan Am All The Medals, 2015 Worlds AA 7th, the one who has been the best Canadian gymnast for the last 5 years, bum hops, Elsabeth not Elizabeth
Shallon Olsen – 2016 Pac Rims vault champion, actually brand new human, coming to save your country on vault and floor
Isabela Onyshko – 2016 Canadian champion, beam difficulty is COAL MINING + SMALL TALK, suddenly getting 58s, might finally have it together
Brittany Rogers – 2016 champion of all of life forever, best bars worker in NCAA, actually what will Georgia do without her, I can’t even, possible superhero
Rose-Kaying Woo – 2016 Canadian bronze, the one who’s the younger sister, here to make beam not sad

Projected Olympic Lineups
Vault(Onyshko) Black, Rogers, Olsen
Bars – (Woo?) Black, Onyshko, Rogers
Beam – (Rogers) Woo, Black, Onyshko
Floor – (Woo) Olsen, Onyshko, Black

The Canadian qualification lineups are pretty easy to come up with because of the excellent use of complementary specialists on this team. Well played, Canada.

On vault, Canada has four 5.8 options now that Onyshko is performing a DTY, though her DTY is still in the “got a zero at trials once” phase, making that vault more critical for her individual hopes than it is for the team, which already has three more proven high-difficulty vaults.

Canada will be relying on Onyshko and Rogers to prop up that bars score and keep it competitive, which they are capable of as long as we don’t have another 2015 TF incident. I’m not sure where I stand with using Black vs. Woo in the TF on bars. Woo has some lovely qualities, but her difficulty at trials was just 5.5, while Black’s is 5.8 in spite of her wanting to get off the bars as quickly as possible and then burn them because they’re a stupid jerk. The two have lately ended up with quite similar total scores, so Woo’s presence does allow for Black not to have to deal with bars.

Notably, Canada elected not to use Black in the TF last year, using a 13.533 from Older Woo instead. Black came back two days later and got 14.000 on bars in the AA final. I’ll be watching the comparison between the two closely in qualification.

Continue reading Olympic Preview — Team Canada

Things Are Happening – July 1, 2016

A. The Greatest Uneven Bars Routine You Will Ever See

Step aside, Nabz. There’s a new sheriff in town.

I love Russian Cup soooooooo much. It’s difficult to quantify the amount Mustafina is over this routine. I would say she’s having none of it, but she’s actually having negative numbers of it. She gets about halfway through and is like, “Mission complete! Bye bye now.”

This is a COMPETITION routine.

I would rather watch this than a gold medal routine any day. I basically haven’t stopped laughing. Praise be to Aliya.

B. Russian Cup

Did other routines happen? Because it doesn’t even matter at this point. I’m set.

Afanasyeva did not participate because of her case of chronic Russia, but she is theoretically still in the running for Rio. They’re pretty much just planning to cover her in healing spells and wheel her out on a gurney for qualification, hoping for the best. I figured it would be Mustafina who would have to be carried around the Rio competition floor by four strapping German nurses, but it looks like it will be Afan instead. #cantpredictgymnastics. Continue reading Things Are Happening – July 1, 2016

Things Are Happening – June 10, 2016

To be honest, not that many things are happening. Like maybe 3. Something about calm and storms. Thirteen days until men’s trials and women’s nationals. Twenty-eight days until women’s trials. Fifty-seven days until the Olympics. You can make it. I know it. Just keep swimming.

1. Samantha Partyka retires

Samantha Partyka announced this week that she’s retiring with a chronic case of Lifetime of Gymnastics. It’s a somewhat unexpected development because she seemed to have just recovered and was back on track in April doing the all-around.

For Utah, barely anything could have been worse. This increases the number of lost routines from last year’s postseason lineups to 13 out of 24. A.k.a., more than half. No fun.

The Utes will have Kari Lee returning from her Achilles trauma, ideally on four events, and will be adding Skinner, Reinstadtler, and Tessen, all of whom should be expected to make lineups on multiple events. Theoretically, 13 replacement routines is doable for this group, but each and every one of them will have to deliver as promised, along with increased contribution from sophomores like Schwab, Merrell, and the MIA Shannon McNatt. We’ll get into all this in detail during the preseason, but if you’re like me, you have Obsessive NCAA-Lineup-Creation Disorder and have already decided what Utah’s lineups should be next year. FACT AND DONE.

Utah also now has an unforeseen open scholarship spot, so…any Canadians/Australians/Brits out there eager for a last-minute change of plans? Anyone want to graduate high school early?

2. Florida lineups v. Alabama lineups

In other fascinating NCAA news, Emily Gaskins is switching from Florida to Alabama and had some telling comments about the move, particularly the implication that it’s very hard to make lineups at Florida (extremely true) but will be much easier at Alabama because she’ll be one of the top gymnasts (well…). It’s still Alabama. Making lineups at Alabama is no picnic. Just ask the 2016 freshman class. Continue reading Things Are Happening – June 10, 2016