2020 Women's Artistic Team Final (Tuesday, July 27, 2021)

[ArnoldRimmer]

I see GB have been forced to relinquish the beam execution champions of the planet crown.

 

[irichluck21]

Also helped that USA diving has been doing extremely well. They have two synchro silvers an the individual competition has not yet begun.

 

[gymskatefan]

Apologies if this had already been posted, but I thought it was nice how supportive the team parents have been this time also:


Jordan’s parents, problematic as they are, were also on TV to defend Simone.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Gina taking the opportunity to get on the telly does not come as a huge shock.

 

[Doug1233]

now the biggest question is what vaults gymnasts like Simone and Angelina will do

Prescient!

 

[Doug1233]

So interesting that several of us didn’t clock Simone was down a twist on first watch. It goes to show how much we see what we expect to see.

There was no sign of this in warmups. Her last vault was an Amanar and it looked fine.

Her warmup was a 1.5 too!

Love going over old threads haha

This moment literally changed gymnastics.

 

[Doug1233]

And even then, if Simone had been injured before the start, they would have subbed in Jade and not Myk, no matter what Myk fans think. And they likely wouldn’t have done either because I think the replaced athlete gets wiped from the competition and doesn’t get a medal.

So, when was the cut off for Simone to have withdrawn?

And of course they would have used Jade instead of Myk. Although given Tom’s Myk-stanning, you can never be too sure!!

 

[Sasha]

I mean, my brain wasn’t able to compute that Simone would/would have to downgrade, and clearly I wasn’t the only one!

 

[JaJa]

I think that goes for pretty much all of us.

 

[Puffin]

Wasn’t there a case at a major Championships some years ago where a MAG gymnast (Romanian I think) almost won vt gold with a 1½ as the judges failed to notice - they were expecting to see a 2½ and thats what they saw and awarded. It took a while for the result to be corrected, several other competitors had gone. I guess FIG phones must have blown up

 

[Doug1233]

Yes I remember that!

And the inability of judges to recognise twists has now become an official reason for why they’ve removed twisting CV passes on floor!

 

[Concorde]

Morgan Hamm was also initially incorrectly credited with performing a 1 1/2 twisting Kasamatsu when he only did a 1/2 in the 2003 World Championships men’s team final.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The interesting thing is I didn’t actually clock that the ‘Amanar’ she competed was a 1.5 until it was pointed out either. Thought never even occurred. It shows how sometimes we just see what we expect to see. Also I got absolutely everything other than GB snagging bronze wrong that day, it was magical.

And yes, this thread is an incredible read after the fact. I’ve looked at it myself a few times since! The changing of the guard in real time.

 

[rlayt]

Being able to read old threads was really great on the old board.

 

[tempest]

Morgan Hamm was also initially incorrectly credited with performing a 1 1/2 twisting Kasamatsu when he only did a 1/2 in the 2003 World Championships men’s team final.

and the US coaches were the ones who told them lol

 

[MRR]

I picked up on the 1.5 immediately and would rank the vault among the most shocking moments in the history of the sport, not even referring to the withdrawal.

If there were a poll prior to the Games of Simone’s most reliable skill, the Amanar would probably win. To my count she competed over 40 in her career—never a miss—and the only question was whether she would stick, take a tiny hop, or a bounding 0.3 step. In warm-ups she would go straight from a layout timer to a 2.5. Landing poorly, much less balking in the air was unthinkable.

In comparison, she’s landed her bars and beam dismounts short at camp, same with her full-in and Silivas at domestic Championships. Not twisties related errors, of course, but shows how even her “easy” skills were fallible from time to time. The Amanar never was, and had just gone 9.6E in prelims on an otherwise erratic day.

Mathematically the gold wasn’t impossible but far out of reach: Simone would’ve needed close to career best scores on the remaining three events. More to the point, if Simone had balked on her most bankable skill, the last thing she needed was to test her luck on less experienced or consistent skills on any of the apparatus.

The heartbreaking aspect of Tom’s interview is that while the twisties were manifesting in her full-in on floor and off beam, she was still capable of her triple double, double double off beam, and apparently excellent Amanars in the back gym right up to the moment the team marched out. There was no way to know what was to come, and Cecile said she had never seen Simone do a 1.5.

ETA: Remembered this excerpt from a New Yorker article in 2016:

During her tumbling runs, Biles says, the only thing she sees is the colors of the ceiling and the floor, whizzing past in revolving blurs. When she vaults, she sees nothing at all. Some élite gymnasts count to themselves while flying through the air, to keep track of where they are, but Boorman says that Biles has no need for such calculation. She never gets lost.

Simone Biles Is the Best Gymnast in the World

At the Olympics this summer, she may become the most decorated American the sport has ever seen.

www.newyorker.com

 

[RAFIKI]

The heartbreaking aspect of Tom’s interview is that while the twisties were manifesting in her full-in on floor and off beam, she was still capable of her triple double, double double off beam

This blows my mind, shows how weird the twisties can be.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

If there were a poll prior to the Games of Simone’s most reliable skill, the Amanar would probably win. To my count she competed over 40 in her career—never a miss—and the only question was whether she would stick, take a tiny hop, or a bounding 0.3 step. In warm-ups she would go straight from a layout timer to a 2.5. Landing poorly, much less balking in the air was unthinkable.

Definitely!

Quite a few of us suggested after prelims that playing safe with the Amanar for TFs would be a good choice, since it was such a bankable skill for Simone and she would really never go below about 9.5 on it. I remember advocating for that, pointing out that the 15.4 she got would’ve closed nearly 50% of the gap with Russia in qualifying and the response generally being approval. It was much more shocking than any of the errors with the other skills: as well as those you correctly list, she’d had issues with bouncing the Cheng landing and inconsistency on floor long before Tokyo. Some of the individual skill problems in prelims weren’t surprising in themselves.

 

[Doug1233]

the twisties were manifesting in her full-in on floor and off beam

What was the plan for these skills in TF?

 

[MRR]

Double double off beam and front 1/1 to DLO on floor