2021 Winter Cup Senior Women

[irichluck21]

Elfie was replaced by Nastia. Nastia was extremely popular after Beijing and NBC wanted someone who the American audience could relate to, as opposed to “Canada’s best female gymnast” or however they marketed her before Ellie Black started winning medals. Nastia made perfect sense since she was a multi World and olympic medalist and a former Olympic AA champion. She was also chosen because she is younger and could identify with the gymnasts having been an American gymnasts herself and having been through the Marta system. Her first meet was in 2013, literally one year after she last competed. She commentated about athletes she literally competed with. It helped that Nastia commentated at the 2009-2012 Nastia Liukin Cups so NBC already got to see how she would be in front of the camera.

She is still commentating for NBC for other sports (curling and skiing) and she commentates for horse events, the Commonwealth Games, as well as is color commentary along side Kyle Shewfelt for gymnastics coverage in Canada.

 

[irichluck21]

John Roethelisberger could replace him easily.

I also think if Sam Mikulak wants to commentate he could also have that job in the immediate future.

Problem is Tim Dagget is an “Olympic gold medalist” and the US men don’t have too many of those. They also likely keep him because of his “Timism’s”

 

[Sasha]

So basically Nastia and Ellie made her redundant? Fantastic.

I don’t love Nastia’s “brand” but her commentary is enjoyably inoffensive.

 

[esta]

I’d say Bart Conner, but him and KJC have a wonderful thing going on with ESPN/NCAA commentary. I do love and miss Bart and Kathy commenting elite, though.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

There was great amusement in 06 when Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs won her worlds medal that NBC were going to have to think of another description for Elfie.

 

[emmade]

I understand that the commentary is for a commercial audience, but I really wish they had gym fan commentary that was more technical and honest. But hey, at the moment we have to be happy with any coverage or videos that emerge!

 

[makam]

They definitely could sprinkle in more than “that turn is named after Terin Humphrey” or “Carly Patterson did that dismount” or endless Simone comparisons. But that would require them to do some homework and plan to say “Gymnast X is doing a Yurchenko double twist for a vault, watch her in the air to see if she can keep her body straight and laid out or if she has to pike at the hips to land.” or if Gymnast Y is known for helicopter legs say “she’s been working on keeping her legs tight and untwisted, let’s see if she has made some improvements” or whatever and then be actually honest about how it turned out. Be peppy with some “great effort but she still has some work to do before she can challenge the top vaulters”. Nastia could even bring in how she struggled with vault and mention (if she knows) what kept her from being able to upgrade so she had to really focus on form to get the most points possible. They could make it more technical than it is now without becoming incomprehensible.

ETA: My quote of emmade was automatically removed but I guess because it was the entire previous post, unchanged. So if you want it to keep in the quoted stuff, you have to either make it a partial quote only or change a character or something (which makes it not a quote, but…needs must).

 

[Jack]

I know people trash Johnny and Tara, but they give a lot of technical insight that I appreciate.

 

[irichluck21]

It was really nice we had them for 2019 Pan Am Games!

 

[Passion]

The Olympic Channel will be airing a replay of the Senior Women’s session of the Winter Cup tonight from 9:30pm-11:30pm EST.

Nastia Liukin Cup replay will follow that from 11:30pm-2:00am.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Anyone else still filled with joy at some of the beam acro series work, three days later? I can’t stop watching McClain and Chiles!

 

[MLSWAG]

In college, I’ve noticed a very few gymnasts (from Cal and UNH) keeping masks on in routines. Any of that going on here? Sense not from what little I’ve seen on NBC, but it’s an interesting question.

 

[Jack]

I was kind of shocked when Laurie did just a single LOSO… crazy to think that was the de riguer flight series just 6-7 years ago.

 

[YurchenkoLoop]

I like Johnny but Tara seems utterly clueless to me. In 2016 she called Medvedeva the best jumper in terms of technique.

 

[makam]

I haven’t watched much Figure Skating since it mostly disappeared behind a paywall but Johnny was definitely superior to Tara in information imparting (and more honest. The audience doesn’t need continuous rainbow and sunshine, tell us what the error is and why it happened!). Unfortunately, since they apparently come as a set, you can’t get rid of Tara without also getting rid of Johnny. I also have liked Tanith White in both FS and Gymnastics commentating – she seems to really do her homework and care about putting out a good product rather than just showing up and reading whatever script they would write for someone like Al.

 

[anon42999389]

Odessa here. OMG I have missed this!

 

[irichluck21]

We have missed you!!! Welcome back!

 

[irichluck21]

Hi everyone.
I combined the two threads and closed the other one.

I hope that is ok with everyone but I was confused going back and forth, so hopefully this will make it easier to follow discussion!

 

[Passion]

I would appreciate the message “Please: in the future, before starting a thread, search to make sure one just like it isn’t already posted.” being removed from the closed thread.

The thread that was closed was created two full weeks before this thread existed. I can not search the future.

 

[blueghost]

@irichluck21 @Passion

I have run a server command that reordered this post based on the timestamps in the actual posts. Not sure how well it actually reads… but it did put the original post to the top. Let me know what you think about this?