Obviously, we’re starting with uneven bars. Let’s just get that sarcastic leprechaun’s fever dream out of the way right now. Here’s how it went down.
This morning, Nellie Kim met with all the women’s judges to tell them of her plans for a passage of one-legged, no-look acro elements from side position in releve requirement for beam, because TEH ARTISTRY, at which point the judges robbed a Xanax truck at gunpoint, downed all of it, then hosed themselves into the uneven bars final going, “8.7 EXECUTION PROBABLY. EVERYONE TASTES LIKE WINNERS [coma].”
Everyone tastes like winners, indeed. Except for Gabby Douglas, apparently, since the judges looked at her cleanest-routine-of-the-final and went “Not quite. BOOP.”
But notwithstanding Gabby and Sophie Scheder, who sadly got the rickets in the middle of her dismount and temporarily forgot what walking is, the judges thought it would be funny (not ha-ha funny, more like sylvia-plath funny), if they just gave everyone and everything, all the flora and fauna, the exact same score. Because who the hell cares? Not us! Great. Fun. So once Fan Yilin got a 15.366, they said “Bingo, there’s the one” and conferenced for several short life cycles of a sea turtle about how to get Komova’s score down to 15.366. And with that never-say-die attitude they’re so famous for, they did it! Because of…sure. And…reasons. Komova thought that was some hilarious bullshit. Throughout the whole tie process, from getting her shut-up-nonsense-steroid-conspiracy of a score to being forced to hop up on that sister-wives medal stand with everyone else, she was basically this.
And once they got Komova in the tie, why not get Kocian and Spiridonova into the mix too? I CAN THINK OF NO REASON. This is such a fun game of Electronic Talking Fuck It! You stepped? That’s fine. You missed some handstands in there? That’s fine. 15.366! It’s a party! Four golds! We’re doing our jobs and there’s no problem with this! We definitely won’t run out of medals and won’t have to invite tomorrow’s winners onto the podium to give them a scrap of notebook paper with “Redeemable for one Mother’s Day present” on it.
Can I break some news to you? There are guys in this competition. I know. Weird, right? Here are the scoresheets for tomorrow’s (tonight’s) opening day of Koheichella 2015.
The women’s qualification finished today, and I’m still slightly unclear about whether it was a fever dream or real life. Aly Raisman is inconsistent now, or something, and I don’t really understand what to do with that. At least no one tried to perform a Dirty Romania on us, so that’s always a positive.
DAY 2:
-Welp, the US went today. As expected, the Pink Eagles are leading by roughly a googol. That said, it didn’t go super awesomely awesome. They had three falls, which according to the Martha Rules, is six falls too many. When a third of the team is having a near emotional breakdown in the post-meet interview, you know it wasn’t an ideal day.
-The biggest news was that Carmen Sandiego stole Aly Raisman and replaced her with some nervous, erratic hot pink replica. Aly threw herself out of bounds on her opening floor pass, won the gold medal in the triple jump on her vault landing, and then 2010-2011ed her bars routine. Fortunately, in true “Here’s my beam-ah! NEXT BEAM-AH!” fashion, she came back and was solid enough to be useful on beam, although she did not get D panel credit for…really anything. The judges were just like, “No skills here…” The US filed a petition on the D score, which Nellie Kim threw immediately into the round circular filing system in the corner of the room. Raisman won’t advance to any event finals or the all-around, though she will advance to an awesome narrative for next Trials season, so that’s something. I’M FULL OF REDEMPTION.
-Aren’t you really impressed that I got through two whole paragraphs before turning into a barrel of slime about the Maggie Nichols AA qualification situation? Because I am. I’ll just say this: Maggie would have needed a 12.985 on bars to take the second US AA final spot. And after that, I’m just going to stare straight ahead and blink a whole lot. Once Martha is done yelling at the team, she needs to buy Maggie an apology alpaca or something. Whatever they use for currency in Karolyiopolis. Because Maggie got hosed by the system here. Fight the power! Continue reading Worlds 2015 – You Guys, I Think We Broke the Aly Raisman→
It occurs to me I never wrapped up my thoughts on the national championship, so here are just a few behind-schedule cognitive tangles about that competition before we move on to remembering that there are still two more national team camps before the WC squad is named and two more months until the actual competition.
On day 2 of nationals for the women, the world righted itself, with most of the competitors remembering that hitting routines is a thing you should probably do. It also reinforced why prospective team selection is such a fun game. There are a TON of realistic permutations for Worlds teams this year, all of which will end up scoring very similarly to one another, and some of which belie visual impressions from the competition. But which one do you choose?
Take Kyla, for example. Expectations are a funny thing. Kyla has been a top-2 AAer for the US this whole quad, majoring in not sucking at bars. So when she suddenly has a nasty Nationals and looks weak on bars, the sky is falling. That was certainly the attitude of our broadcast team. Al was even asking whether Kyla would make the selection camp. (Tim was like, “Derp. Obvi she’s making the selection camp.”) Yes correct, Tim.
But to me, and contrary to the overall tone of things, Kyla helped her chances to make the team with her performance on day 2 of nationals. At least, she made an argument for including her in the squad that she didn’t make on day 1. No, bars is not happening. But at this moment, it’s not really about bars for her. That’s the big change in expectations we have to make. With her current routine composition, Kyla isn’t making the team to do bars in TF even if she shaves several inches off her height and lands a dismount. (If she returns to her planned 6.3 and can hit by selection camp, it’s a different story, but that’s a lot to do.) Right now, it’s about beam. That’s where she can be top three. And she stepped up like hell there and did her job on day 2.
In fact, because she did her job (scoring several tenths ahead of a connection-free Aly Raisman and a strong Alyssa Baumann, and a point ahead of a wobbly Gabby Douglas), suddenly a team with Kyla on it makes a little sense now and outscores many of the other permutations. At least on the day. Playing the same game I did for day 1 scores, here’s the way some possible teams stack up according exclusively to their day 2 scores. Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Key, Kocian, Ross – 185.500 (Day 1: 181.750) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.850: Kocian 15.600, Key 15.300, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.050: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Key 14.700
This team didn’t score very well based on day 1 scores, but on day 2 it was stellar. Note that there’s a serious name missing from this group. This is why the numbers and team combinations sometimes don’t reinforce original visual impressions. Gabby had a pretty nice performance on day 2 (not Classics nice, but solid), and Kyla did not. Nonetheless, here we are, with this team and a 185.500. Now, I still think Gabby is necessary to the team and is among the safest selections, but she needs to show some “you have to take me” scores at camp to confirm her spot, particularly by outscoring Bailie Key on bars. Showing Classic-level beam would be nice too, though that wouldn’t be so nice for Kyla.
And to be fair, it’s not like a team with Douglas on it is scoring at all differently from this one. It’s just an interesting development. If you’re asking me my team, Gabby is on it without much hesitation.
Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Douglas, Kocian, Ross – 185.400 (Day 1: 181.850) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.650: Kocian 15.600, Douglas 15.100, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.150: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Douglas 14.800
Some of these options emphasize why Bailie Key is part of a safer team selection (she can go up on any event whenever and give you a usable score, which is a very convincing argument with Martha), but if you’re only using her for bars in TF, there are other choices.
Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Douglas, Key, Ross – 185.100 (Day 1: 181.600) VT – 47.500: Biles 16.300, Nichols 15.850, Raisman 15.350 UB – 45.350: Key 15.300, Douglas 15.100, Biles 14.950 BB – 46.100: Biles 15.900, Ross 15.250, Raisman 14.950 FX – 46.150: Biles 15.850, Raisman 15.500, Douglas 14.800
More than anything else, these scores reinforce that it’s all essentially the same. Based on day 2 (a day of hit routines), all these different teams—leaving off Kyla, leaving off Bailie, leaving off Gabby—are scoring within a few tenths of each other. Choose any of the above, and it will be fine. The final scores will turn out about the same, and no one will have much of an argument that the selected team is unfair. Do whatever. Have a ball.
I like to consider myself a connoisseur of splatfests. It is my calling. And the first day of women’s competition at the national championships last night was a truly lovely vintage. It wasn’t quite 2000 Trials level (that’s an unrealistic standard to which to hold other competitions—we can’t all be 2000 Trials), but Aly Raisman did fall on a split jump, so it was pretty competitive. During the meet, I may or may not have started singing “Car Wash” but with “splatfest” instead of “car wash.”
Now, except for Maggie Nichols continuing to be a Solid Sandy and confirming her place in the new world order, and Simone Biles just casually throwing out the best E score of all time (have we confirmed that? I think it is, beating Nastia’s beam 9.800 at 2008 Pacific Rims, but has anyone scoured the records to make sure?), this meet will probably end up counting as an incomplete. For the rest of you, we’ll pretend it never happened and just start over tomorrow.
But, what I love about this splatfest most of all (other than how PISSSSSSED Aly and Simone looked the whole time—heartwarming) is that it throws some serious doubt onto that pre-summer presumptive team of Biles, Douglas, Raisman, Nichols, Key, Ross. Primarily because of bars. (And also maybe because of Alyssa Baumann…pleeeeeassse?)
There are still a million things that can change between now and the selection camp. Kupets will make a comeback. The Worlds team will be reduced to 2 and a half members (2 AAers and then whatever is left of Madison Kocian’s legs after this weekend). But, as we stand right now, that presumptive team has some pretty large cracks in it. Let’s talk about that to make this summer of selection a lot more interesting than it has been so far. At least until tomorrow, when everything will change again. I fully own the flippant and mercurial attitude I bring to team selection.
How do you solve a problem like Kyla? That’s not really the Sound of Music reference I would have expected to need to use about Kyla. She’s supposed to be the Edelweiss of USA Gymnastics. But her bars are turning into an issue. Partly because of the falling (this routine doesn’t make me feel warm and safe like a sweater the way her 2012 routine did), but mostly because of the potential score even when she does hit. Give her back a point for the fall yesterday, and she’s still in 7th on bars, well behind several of the bars specialists contending for a spot. Her difficulty is down to 6.0 from the more competitive 6.3 she was planning, and that’s not a good sign. She needs a selection camp step-up in that regard. For now, it appears that if Kyla does makes the Worlds team, it will be because she’s a known and trusted entity who can hit in major situations (regardless of these recent performances). Which is not an unimportant consideration. Even though her beam scores have been lower, I would still trust her on beam in TF more than some other options who have been scoring higher. (Though I would also be perfectly happy with three of Biles/Raisman/Douglas/Baumann on beam, which is part of the problem for her.)
But a team with Kyla wouldn’t be the team with the highest scoring potential at this point. If you’re bringing Kyla for bars, why not bring Kocian or Locklear instead? If you’re bringing her for bars and beam, why not bring Gowey, who had an under-the-radar pretty awesome day yesterday, getting top five on both her events and stepping up that bars difficulty?
I’m still not sure how she managed to get a 6.6 D score for that routine since I have it as a 6.5 and she didn’t stick (maybe just because Gowey?), but she’s back on my radar for now because I’m obsessed with her. But also because that bars routine can score quite well, and she’s more usable on beam than Kocian or Locklear. Though bars is the real factor, so she would need to be able to score right with those other two, not a couple tenths below, to be considered. Watch that space. Also decisive will be whether Locklear can get all her skills back by Worlds. This is a downgraded routine that still got a 15.400. If she’s able to get her D score back, it’s hard to say no to the insane cleanliness of this bars work.
Or, you could combine two people to do the job and bring Kocian for bars and Baumann for beam. (If you feel you need another beamer, which I don’t really think the team does.) Or both Kocian and Locklear for bars again. That would put Bailie Key under pressure. Several weeks ago, she was in the same boat as Nichols, and I do think that if everything goes to plan, they have pretty similar scoring potential in the AA. The difference is Nichols’ Amanar, which is essential right now, leaving Key much lower in the pecking order.
In that pre-summer presumptive team, you would have Key doing bars in TF, but maybe only bars now that Nichols is scoring equivalently on floor. Key on floor is not the MUST routine it seemed like it would be. So that puts her almost in the same boat as Kyla. If she’s only there in TF to do bars, why not use Kocian/Locklear? Kocian/Locklear/Douglas is the best option for the US on bars, and with Biles, Raisman, and Nichols nailing the power events right now, that’s a legitimate team that didn’t seem as realistic pre-Classic.
If yesterday’s competition were the women’s team final at Worlds, here’s how a few different combinations of teams would have scored (using the team’s three highest scores on each event). Yes, I know it’s silly to use one day of competition to make sweeping conclusions about teams and scoring potential, especially because so many people fell and got unusable scores. That’s not the point. It’s just a fun exercise to clarify how much people are actually adding.
(Why Kyla really could have helped her argument with a normal Kyla beam set last night. It would have brought this team total way up instead of being a point behind other options.)
That Baumann beam score would add a lot in this scenario, but it’s mostly because Raisman had a fall and Douglas had a wobbler. Her routine wouldn’t normally add that much to the team compared to other options. And actually, if you take that last scenario and put Locklear in for Douglas, you get to a 182.650 total, though Biles, Raisman, Nichols, Kocian, Locklear, Baumann is not going to be the team. That more highlights the problem of using one day of competition to make judgments more than anything else and that some of the big names who aren’t in that group have some work to do tomorrow to get back into it.
