Gabby Douglas Comeback Thread (New goal: LA 2028)

[rlayt]

I think they corrected the story to say she’s rying to make a third team. When it first came out they called her a three time Olympian.

It’s nice to have the interest of major media.

 

[RichardL]

She is looking amazing. I am obsessed with the fact that this has just happened. I've been a gymnastics fan for 28 years and I've never seen anything like this. But also there is no way this is coming anywhere near the Paris team as things currently stand.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Definitely some Valeri strikes again in those skill choices! I mean, why the Gogean? The bars combinations are bloody exciting though.

I'm not convinced, on this evidence, that there's enough time left for Gabby to be a factor for Paris. Even with that history of peaking. However, I trust that qualifying to Nationals on multiple events at her first competition in 8 years has fully settled the question of whether this is a genuine and legitimate comeback.

And... it looks like we actually are going to get our three Olympic champions in one competition!

 

[MaryClare]

And... it looks like we actually are going to get our three Olympic champions in one competition

Has anyone like, mentioned this to Core??!

 

[Jerkin]

That first UB combo looked incredible in warm ups. The separate pieces are all there on bars. She needs to work her ass off to make sure the full routine is right in three weeks.

Unless it improves by Classic, I think she might need to consider removing the double pike off beam. It was already borderline in 2016.

 

[wishfulgoddess]

She's definitely got the skills. She just needs to put them together. I got the impression that she hasn't done many full routines. She had first competition back jitters, too, but it is early in the season and a lot of others are still a bit rusty as well. I don't know about Olympic team chances, but she's a fighter and I'm not counting her out. Awesome to see her back!

 

[RichardL]

She's definitely got the skills. She just needs to put them together. I got the impression that she hasn't done many full routines. She had first competition back jitters, too, but it is early in the season and a lot of others are still a bit rusty as well. I don't know about Olympic team chances, but she's a fighter and I'm not counting her out. Awesome to see her back!

Worlds are usually in October, but the Olympics are in July. The season is now. That said, I think she looked great and I can't wait to see more.

 

[Doug1233]

Definitely some Valeri strikes again in those skill choices! I mean, why the Gogean? The bars combinations are bloody exciting though.

I'm not convinced, on this evidence, that there's enough time left for Gabby to be a factor for Paris. Even with that history of peaking. However, I trust that qualifying to Nationals on multiple events at her first competition in 8 years has fully settled the question of whether this is a genuine and legitimate comeback.

And... it looks like we actually are going to get our three Olympic champions in one competition!

The dance element choices on floor just blow my mind.

Switch Full - ok, I can live with that
Switch Ring - great
Memmel - I don't think I've ever seen her hit this
Gogean - As above
Ferrari - It was controlled, and hard to see it from the camera angle, but this can't be a net score positive.

So, 4 C+ acro skills, and 5 C+ dance elements. When will they learn?

The error on the first pass was a fluke. She just came out of it way too early. I'm not particularly worried.

The Full In - the take-off looks scrappy and that landing looks really far away from being under control.

Also - where is the Double Arabian? I'd have had that a million times ahead of the full in. The training videos of the DLO looked ok.

Given that she got an 11 for this routine, I don't see this being reliably upgraded and competed in the next two months. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Gabby's bars looks like Nastia 2012 all over again. A great TF routine on paper, but in reality, she's gotta be able to reliably put this together time after time. And even then, it could easily be a Brenna Dowell in Glasgow type of situation.

Gabby's 9.0 DTY needs to be getting in the 9.4/9.5 range before I'll be impressed. I'm skeptical of these Amanar/Cheng rumors.

Suni looks miles ahead. And as much as it would break the internet, I can't see them risking Suni and Gaby on the same team.

 

[rlayt]

Trials are two months from now and Gabby faces a lot of work. I can see where the doubt comes in. But it’s exciting to have three Olympic champions vying for the team.

 

[RichardL]

Douglas has three more UB routines until Trials. I agree that a miss on any one of them makes her an unlikely choice. Suni Lee has the same amount of routines too, though, and the same number of misses this season, and she hasn't yet done a beam dismount or a tumbling pass. Not sure I see Lee as "miles ahead" of basically anyone in the top tier at this point.

 

[Passion]

 

[MaryClare]

We are so, so, so close to it actually happening

 

[crdubb17]

Gabby's bars looks like Nastia 2012 all over again. A great TF routine on paper, but in reality, she's gotta be able to reliably put this together time after time. And even then, it could easily be a Brenna Dowell in Glasgow type of situation.

Gabby's 9.0 DTY needs to be getting in the 9.4/9.5 range before I'll be impressed. I'm skeptical of these Amanar/Cheng rumors.

Suni looks miles ahead. And as much as it would break the internet, I can't see them risking Suni and Gaby on the same team.

I don’t think you can compare Gabby to Nastia on bars. Nastia physically couldn’t have completed the routine she was attempting. Gabby seemed more like she just off.

Who’s breaking into the 9.4’s on vault with a DTY? Maybe Shilese? But I get what you’re saying, someone with a DTY needs something with a high E to counter the Cheng girls. I agree with you on floor and beam: I have no clue what they’re doing, and I’m wondering if the front full combo is because she doesn’t have the ADF anymore. The ADF+stag was kind of critical to her D score, but without it my ideal for her would go: front full through to full in, 1.5 through to double tuck, double pike. Switch ring, switch full, Strug. 5.4? Not really competitive, but still keeps her in the conversation if she has a great bars and great vault with solid beam.

Beam is a mess. From where I was the first ring looked like it had potential, but the switch ring is a no. She also desperately needs the standing full back. I was really hoping she’d have the switch leap mount into the switch half so that she could have a regular switch leap to count.

I hate that WOGA just dropped the ball with her skill selection in this code. I don’t feel like Hezley and Madray have compositions that are this bad for their skillset. I don’t like them for her. And didn’t they turn her down when she was trying for Rio.

 

[RedBirdie]

I don’t think you can compare Gabby to Nastia on bars. Nastia physically couldn’t have completed the routine she was attempting. Gabby seemed more like she just off.

Gabby didn't hit a single routine in warm up or touch, either. I don't think she was "off" in competition yesterday. I think she flat out cannot make it through that entire routine successfully.

 

[Aeris]

I wonder what happened to the switch leap mount she was training, it looked great. This is likely the best she can do right now (5.7 D):

Switch mount
Switch leap + Switch 1/2 + Back tuck
Bhs + LOSO
Front tuck
Front aerial + split + straddle
Bhs + Bhs + Double Tuck

On floor with a basic 2-pass routine she's looking at 5.1 D, could be 5.3 if she does Double Layout as her 2nd pass or 5.5 if she's able to manage the Front full to Full-In as the 1st pass, but that is probably too unrealistic at this point. 5.3 D with as clean of execution as possible should be the main goal.

But none of this really matters for team selection if she doesn't have the high-scoring UB routine. Even with just a basic jaeger, she should've been training the routine construction I talked about earlier. In her current routine the Stalder 1/1 is a problem and her historically bent angle on the giant swing before the Double Layout is creating an unnecessary deduction, just to do an unconnected D dismount that will also be judged more punitively than what she was used to in the past.

If no other dismount is going to be possible then she should either start the routine with Inbar 1/2 (was said to have it in training) and take out the Stalder 1/1, or at least move the Stalder 1/1 to the low bar, where it won't be any hindrance to hitting the Downie + Pak combo. Or honestly just do a regular Stalder; it's not worth getting a .3 angle deduction on the 1/1 if that's how it keeps turning out. She could still pull high 14's on UB with her current skills if she cleans up. That alone won't make her a shoo-in though, she'll need to materialize a decent Cheng to lock her spot if she's only offering a few tenths more than Simone on UB. Hopefully in these next 2 months they are going to focus hard on routines that really matter. Getting her BB and FX as respectable as possible is nice, but that's not where she makes the team.

 

[crdubb17]

Gabby didn't hit a single routine in warm up or touch, either. I don't think she was "off" in competition yesterday. I think she flat out cannot make it through that entire routine successfully.

Oh you saw her warmups? I can’t speak to that. I just saw the touch and she wasn’t going for a routine. On bars she just did her el grip series to jaegar and then a stalder full and hopped off. It looked nothing like Nastia where you were worried she was going to injure herself and pray she just do a fly away dismount. Now, maybe connecting the stalder full+downie+pak? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s an endurance thing.

 

[lovegymnasts]

Oh you saw her warmups? I can’t speak to that. I just saw the touch and she wasn’t going for a routine. On bars she just did her el grip series to jaegar and then a stalder full and hopped off. It looked nothing like Nastia where you were worried she was going to injure herself and pray she just do a fly away dismount. Now, maybe connecting the stalder full+downie+pak? I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s an endurance thing.

It was reported

 

[Laura722]

https://olympics.com/en/news/gabby-douglas-makes-competitive-return-at-american-classic

During the warm-up for the competition, Douglas looked solid on the uneven bars, as well.

She performed her difficult opening pirouetting and release sequence cleanly, before executing a stalder full pirouette and a stalder to piked Tkatchev (Downie) to Pak combination. She finished the routine up with a stalder Shaposhnikova half and a double layout dismount.

The tumbling passes that gave her trouble in the opening rotation also looked easy in the pre-meet warm-up.

 

[RedBirdie]

Yes, going by what people who were there reported. Combine that with the fact the Gabby was not planning on competing bars at Winter Cup, and I stand by my assertion that she can't get through her bars routine as currently constructed. Which, frankly, is concerning. She doesn't have time. Bars is likely her path to even being in the conversation for Paris--but based on what we've seen, she's not currently viable on bars.

Beyond bars, I'm still shaking my head over the just bad routine construction and skill selection on beam and floor. Just how much is she losing on dance skills that will get downgraded, no credit, and/or significant deductions?

 

[crdubb17]

Yes, going by what people who were there reported. Combine that with the fact the Gabby was not planning on competing bars at Winter Cup, and I stand by my assertion that she can't get through her bars routine as currently constructed. Which, frankly, is concerning. She doesn't have time. Bars is likely her path to even being in the conversation for Paris--but based on what we've seen, she's not currently viable on bars.

Beyond bars, I'm still shaking my head over the just bad routine construction and skill selection on beam and floor. Just how much is she losing on dance skills that will get downgraded, no credit, and/or significant deductions?

Are you saying she can’t get through it because of endurance or because it’s just too difficult a routine for her to connect the skills cleanly?