Recent content by david

Relative to Carly, I wonder if Utah not making a bigger change in leadership when they let go of Farden is coming back to bite her and them. She was in the room for everything that happened with Tom and then retained some athletes for various coaching/support roles that were vocal in their...

I'm not sure about this but I thought the semi final with the number 1 ranked team (Oklahoma) was placed in the evening at nationals and its why they compete on the final day of regionals as well.

Who knows but maybe she likes them and also doesn’t think they are the best fit to achieve her goals. Even if CGA is an interim step to another gym, maybe it’s closer to what she’s looking for.

Another interesting observation that Spenser made in his week 11 rankings post is that Utahs ‘away’ meets in west valley city Utah were supposed to be counted as home meets because of the new rule around venues that are a certain distance or less from your home arena would count as home meets...

I agree that they have the potential to make it back to nationals and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they don't make it. They haven't had a season I can recall where they've made mistakes most weeks like they have this season. Not just the devastating errors from earlier in the season but at...

Strazheva had a fairly straight forward path to 4th place in the AA final but even if she had scored 10s on beam and floor in team optionals, she would have been behind Bogi going into the AA final and would have needed a 39.775 in the AA final to beat her. Not impossible, but very unlikely...

Selena doesn’t get much distance and has soft knees. The distance is noticeable compared to the rest of the lineup.

Maybe train with Shilese. Her coach seems sane and knows how to work the COP

Personally, I would love to see Chiles compete elite this year. But if her primary goal is LA 28, I would wait until 2027 to start competing elite to save her body. Its a lot to go from a full NCAA season competing AA likely every week to then train up elite routines and compete through October...

Janiga also had a DTY. I don't remember if she hit her vaults and for what scores at the final camp but if she was replacing Mohini, in theory, she could have stepped in for her on vault and floor. She also got two 9.6s on beam at nationals and a 9.575 on beam day 2 of trials, so she could have...

Or, its 2016 all over again when the current top 6 teams competed against each other at the Super Six

One part of this equation that needs to change is NCAA coaches picking the judges for their home meets. Getting rid of that conflict of interest would release at least some pressure on judges to be generous in their scoring of the home teams that give judges opportunities to do what they care...

I agree and that's been frustrating. I've also been skeptical of UCLA's past claims largely because of who they were relying on to deliver those 10.0 vaults - often athletes that had done 10.0 vaults at some point but it wasn't a real strength or a small number of athletes to get to the 6. The...

UCLA has ten potential 10.0 vaults this season. Hoffman, Callahan, and McGowan are all recovering from lower leg injuries and its unlikely they'll be ready for vault in January but they're all in contention to step in as the season progresses. Tiana is coming back from an ankle injury and...

I agree that if UCLA ends up exclusively relying on their freshman to fill in the blanks from last year's graduates, they could struggle. I think they're going to need help from folks in other classes to fill some of those holes. What I've seen from preseason videos that's looking encouraging is...