British WAG (and MAG!) talk

[Doug1233]

 

[Angelika]

I just love their cheeky grins!

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I agree. And I suspect even if you take CWG away, with the Gadirovas having grown and not able to contribute as much or reliably as previously, that still probably wouldn’t have been enough to pass Italy. Realistically that would need at least one Gadirova to be in Tokyo form.

Anyway the time for sensible long term worlds prep has been and gone, so we can only hope the athletes get a rest and the selection process isn’t too onerous.

 

[MaryClare]

The problem is no depth. But I do wonder if things would have been different if it hadn’t been a home CWG. They might have sent a proper B team and have had no athletes doing both

 

[Gymfan93]

I’m not sure there is even that much of a B Team, not if you take away the Welsh and Scottish athletes who make up most of it. There is definitely a severe lack of depth in BG.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Possibly. The other option would’ve been to send the Gadirovas plus 3 x B team to Euros. Perhaps Archer, Maracha and Kennedy for the sake of argument as they got the highest home nation AA finishes aside from England last week. It’s not like GB were ever going to finish below 13th place, even assuming the Scottish and Welsh gymnasts would be relatively knackered though perhaps a bit less so than Ondine and Alice.

As things stand, they do seem to have got away with the tactic of relying heavily on Kinsella, Achampong and to a lesser extent GMF without really giving any consideration to where they could be rested. Nobody’s hurt, they dominated CWG and have had a pretty good showing at Euros, losing only to an Italian team GB might not have been able to get past in any circumstances. But the proof in the pudding will be worlds.

It’s difficult though, because Ondine in particular is a third year senior who’d barely done anything until now. It was evidently physically too much for her, but I do completely see why someone in her position would be keen to do both.

 

[MaryClare]

I do think that Shannon Archer should have been selected for euros. GB, supposedly the 2nd/3rd ranked team in Europe having no one attempt 2 vaults but leaving someone with. DTY/FTT at home seems madness.

GB are in a bit of a mess right now. They have put too many eggs in a Gadirova basket. And going by the junior results, there are not the calibre of younger prospects they used to have. When was the last time GB didn’t medal at junior euros? 2010?

 

[RedBirdie]

Jess Gadirova does 2 vaults. She finished 5th.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Think you may be mixing up England not contesting the vault title at CWG with GB at Euros MC?

But yeah, the junior results are a bit concerning. I haven’t paid enough attention to know what happened and whether there’s an explanation, but not medalling even with Russia absent isn’t great. Combined with the senior lack of depth it’s a worry.

Now things may still work out pretty well for BG this year anyway. England have just dominated CWG, the seniors had a decent Euros and depending on the extent of Asia D’Amato’s injury and what improvement the Gadirovas can make, GB may still be on the podium at worlds. It wouldn’t be a massive shock if they got team bronze and other individual medals. But as you say, there are a lot of eggs being placed in not many baskets and there doesn’t seem to be much desire to try and protect valuable assets.

 

[MaryClare]

Oh yes I was getting confused with CWGs!

 

[MaryClare]

I’m not sure that beating a Canada B team and an Australia that aside from Godwin were mediocre is a particularly good result.

There’s definitely something going on with the junior scene in GB. The clubs you’d normally expect to have top juniors don’t seem to have them.

 

[Bob]

who would you expect? I think we were particularly hit by covid in the UK in that gyms were closed for a very long time, much longer than other countries.

 

[MaryClare]

Yes, I’m pretty sure that in the UK, junior athletes were not allowed to resume/continue training the same time as seniors.

That there are reasons does not make it not a concern

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Well you can only beat what’s there. England only needed to win, and did. It’s just that the victory doesn’t tell us anything much. I think possibly the most telling thing to emerge from that team competition is how little contribution was made outside the core members.

Re the juniors, I did wonder about covid too Bob. Could the juniors now be the cohort who weren’t able to fall within the England lockdown elite exemptions in 2020 and 2021 so have gaps in their training? I’m not sure how elite training for that age group looked elsewhere in Europe at the time though.

 

[Gymfan93]

In the first lockdown (March 2020) nobody was training, IIRC. At some point, the senior national team (ie those in contention for Tokyo) was allowed to resume (I remember some bullshit about Francis not being permitted into the gym then as she didn’t represent GB internationally, but Jamaica). Then of course there were other lockdowns and tier 4 restrictions and so on and so on.

 

[Doug1233]

Jess Gadirova does 2 vaults. She finished 5th.

And would have been second but for a very borderline decision on downgrading her Layout Pod.

 

[J175]

I think Covid has had an impact to some extent across the board. Junior scores seem to be well down from a few years ago - the winning Italian team score would only have been seventh in 2018 for example. None of their juniors would walk on to the senior team either.

If we consider “post-Covid” seniors, those who became eligible for senior competition in 2021 or 2022, there were only 4 (of 40 athletes total) in the team final. 2 of the top 19 AA finishers. I haven’t worked it out for previous championships, but those numbers feel very low.

I’m all for gymnasts having longer senior careers and not pushing kids so hard, so these patterns could be a good thing, but I have a feeling a lot of it is Covid at the moment. It could be very important in the next few years how federations manage these kids who’ve had so much disruption if they aren’t setting the world alight at 16.

 

[RedBirdie]

I agree that there’s a lack of depth, but the timing of CWG and Euros was just terrible. I can’t think of too many countries that would be able to put up 15 of their gymnasts for a multi-day competition, and then turn around and send their top 5 for another multi-day event a week later without having to make sacrifices somewhere. Losing Becky Downie to injury only compounded things.

The insanity of holding separate selection events for CWG and Euros, however, isn’t defensible.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It’s also significant that so many of the second tier are Welsh or Scottish, more than usual I think. Looking at the top 12 from the British Championships in March, the top 6 are all English but then of the next 6 there are 3 Welsh, 2 Scottish and only 1 English.

https://www.british-gymnastics.org/results/10440/Womens_Senior_All_Around.pdf

You have to go down to 13th AA, Tomera Hendricks, to get to the highest AA finisher who didn’t do CWG and isn’t a Gadirova. I haven’t checked, but I think usually in a CWG year the top unused English WAG is much higher than that. The spread this year is wider than usual. If eg Maracha, Archer and Stickler were all English, this would probably be a different discussion. Maybe with Cardiff looking stronger it could be a sign of things to come.

 

[JoseM]

I agree with you. More eggs should have been put in the Kinsella basket.

José M.