Recent content by david

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...

I wish Sabrina Mar had been healthy enough to make it onto the 88 team. Nice to know she’s had such a full life post gymnastics.

Yes, and, the poor showing was more about injuries than anything else. Dawes, Borden, Chow, Powell were all out with injuries. Miller and Thompson were competing with injuries. More than anything else that meet indicated that USA would need its A team to vie for the gold in Atlanta and that's...

Yes, she would have been first AA without the beam fall. And, if she had also stood up her vault, she would be way out front in the AA standings.

Wong is really good at qualifying into worlds - she's made it onto the team all but her first try in 2019. But, she struggles to deliver at worlds. Same in NCAA - her performances throughout the year were often very good and at nationals she was inconsistent.

it does seem most likely that its between hang and blakely for the final spot. Sullivan has an outside shot but more likely that she'll get an alternate spot. Whoever gets named, my best guess is that they're not going to assign whose doing what events/the AA until after podium training. There...