Gymcastic. Thoughts?

[Doug1233]

Spencer’s blog on the US Team being named:

Rank order.

The US women’s program has named the world championships team: Kayla DiCello, eMjae Frazier, Leanne Wong, and Konnor McClain, with Olivia Greaves and Ciena Alipio missing out. Those four team members also happened to be the top four in the all-around standings at yesterday’s competition. Would you look at that. We don’t yet know what happened with today’s routines or whether they were used in any way to make a decision, but you know, the Forster Era and all-around standings.

It is so tired, old and frustrating.

He then goes on to say that he would have picked the same team but he thinks HE would have done it because he’s amazing at picking teams but TOM only picked those same gymnasts because hes obsessed with AA rank order and thats what he went with.

BUT HOW DOES HE KNOW WHAT TOM WAS THINKING?? In the absence of any statement of any kind about how and why he picked these 4 athletes.

They’re just trying to froth up the gymternet with these stupid ideas for clicks. I used to respect Spencer but Jessica has really gotten into him.

 

[Passion]

It is so tired, old and frustrating.

He then goes on to say that he would have picked the same team but he thinks HE would have done it because he’s amazing at picking teams but TOM only picked those same gymnasts because hes obsessed with AA rank order and thats what he went with.

BUT HOW DOES HE KNOW WHAT TOM WAS THINKING?? In the absence of any statement of any kind about how and why he picked these 4 athletes.

They’re just trying to froth up the gymternet with these stupid ideas for clicks. I used to respect Spencer but Jessica has really gotten into him.

I want to click like on this more than once.

 

[irichluck21]

It is too bad that Spencer and Jessica are so close.
He is extremely informative and his blog is always wonderful.

However, Jessica rubs off on him too much and too often he goes this conspiracy route.

It was a coincidence that the top 4 got named, but there were only 6 ladies. Alipio was out after placing 6th night one and having no event finals worthy routines. Greaves was also a mess and maybe should have focused on UB/BB only. Her UB set was not the best and DiCello beat her there.
McClain had a 2 fall disaster beam but take away just one fall and she would have WON BEAM WITH A FALL. The selection committee also looked at start values and a 6.2 is nothing to sneeze at.

The only argument could be Greaves instead of Frazier for UB, but after Frazier finished 2nd she kind of earned the spot. Also, Frazier is messy but depending on judging, she could sneak into floor finals if Wong or DiCello have errors there.

 

[Doug1233]

Alipio was out after placing 6th night one and having no event finals worthy routines.

Gymnaverse had her winning beam. But it seems like USAG only used a Tokyo pen for Ciena and Kayla.

 

[irichluck21]

Gymnaverse had her winning beam. But it seems like USAG only used a Tokyo pen for Ciena and Kayla.

But again per our conversation the mount was cut off so we don’t know if there was a major error there. However, she doesn’t do a candle mount like I thought, so maybe they just scored her lower than us. Maybe she had a balance check in her mount sequence? Here is her US Classic with the mount sequence. Either way I don’t think Alipio would make beam finals at Worlds.

 

[Doug1233]

I wonder why the video cut.

 

[QuietColours]

I don’t like the trend of blaming every time Spencer has a reaction people don’t like on Jessica. Yes, they’re close and influence each other (and I’m sure it goes both ways and there are feedback loops between them), but he is perfectly capable of having a grudge, bias, personal dislike, or blind spot on his own as well. It’s unfair and unreasonable to everyone to act as though he would be the perfect gymnastics commentator without her influence. Everyone has biases and blind spots and reacts on them sometimes.

 

[irichluck21]

I don’t like the trend of blaming every time Spencer has a reaction people don’t like on Jessica. Yes, they’re close and influence each other (and I’m sure it goes both ways and there are feedback loops between them), but he is perfectly capable of having a grudge, bias, personal dislike, or blind spot on his own as well. It’s unfair and unreasonable to everyone to act as though he would be the perfect gymnastics commentator without her influence. Everyone has biases and blind spots and reacts on them sometimes.

Generally on his own he hasn’t had similar opinions/ been into conspiracy theories and is for the most part level headed and can understand logic.
Lately he has gotten worse though and pretty much parrots what Jessica says.
It would be different if it wasn’t just regurgitating exactly what Jessica says.

He used to call her out on stuff that she exaggerated or was flat out wrong. That has stopped happening though.

 

[Doug1233]

Yes that’s fair.

 

[Doug1233]

He used to call her out on stuff that she exaggerated or was flat out wrong. That has stopped happening though.

This is also fair.

 

[Doug1233]

Jessica literally spent 30 seconds of her podcast today talking about how in the AA, Melnikova missed the front salto connection out of her Front Full third pass…

 

[RAFIKI]

I was watching the video and the others looked confused, surprised and like they were debating the merit of correcting her. Shame they didn’t.

 

[Doug1233]

I was watching the video and the others looked confused, surprised and like they were debating the merit of correcting her. Shame they didn’t.

This basically sums up every single Gymcastic podcast.

 

[Doug1233]

Jessica talking about a gymnast: so X, let’s talk about him because he didn’t win anything today

Spencer: he won the silver medal

Jessica: omg I’m so sorry yes he did!!

 

[Doug1233]

I feel like Kensley (and to a lesser extent, Spencer) are losing their patience with Jessica’s constant errors and incorrect talking points. They just seemingly look at each other like "yeah … we know….

Jessica tried to convince them both that Elsa Guerts was “in the same league” as Andrade on vault. When Kensley and Spencer obviously pushed back, Jessica was a little snarky back at Kensley like “I was right up close next to the vault and you were 50 feet away in the stands”.

I would totally be losing my patience with her.

 

[ucrgirl]

I’ve started to wonder if Jessica’s persona is that she loves gym so much that it doesn’t even matter if she’s right about what she says . . . like she could pay more attention but her role on the podcast is to act the role of the enthusiast.

Or they are tired and that is the “somethings off” I’m picking up. (Or I’m tired and making things up.)

 

[Doug1233]

That might well be true, for sure. I guess I would argue and say that being enthusiastic, and not being hopelessly wrong on facts, aren’t mutually exclusive.

 

[ucrgirl]

That might well be true, for sure. I guess I would argue and say that being enthusiastic, and not being hopelessly wrong on facts, aren’t mutually exclusive.

That would be a better podcast. I haven’t found a gymnastics podcast to my taste yet. A good sports podcast is a blend of enthusiasm/optimism and knowledge/reasonableness. For skating I love TSL, for Padres baseball (sob) I listen to Padres Hot Tub. (After the All-Star break it got hard to argue that this was the Padres year so they talk about what it will take for next year to be a good year.)

 

[Sasha]

I’ve found lately that covering meets really doesn’t bring out the best in Jessica at all. I’ve never watched the podcast, but listening to it during the Olympics it definitely sounded like Spencer and Kensley were over her constant conspiracy theories. Maybe they should stick to interviews…

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I can honestly say I don’t miss listening to Gymcastic at all. I sometimes still wish I had a gymnastics one, but I really enjoy the two non-gymnastics podcasts I listen to.