Gymcastic. Thoughts?

[irichluck21]

It would just be me opining on which MAG I have crushes on.

Let’s do it!!!

 

[onodian]

Trust and believe that you don’t want to know which ones he likes… baaaaaaad taste.

 

[irichluck21]

 

[OnoNoKomachi]

It has been around since 2012. It was the first of it’s kind. It didn’t get really big until around 2016

 

[arabiandoublefront]

So I tried listening to Gymcastic for the first time since the Olympics and I couldn’t make it past the first “grown ass women”. I’m definitely done. I’m taking recommendations for other gymnastics podcasts, though.

 

[rlayt]

I feel the same. It used to be good when they did real by interviews. It has gotten light on facts snd heavy on squealing.

 

[Doug1233]

I literally wish it was just a Spencer podcast. I can listen to his own monologues before Jessica starts dragging him into her nonsense.

Although I do think he’s a bit behind the curve sometimes. Like, he did that great graph demonstrating the E score drop for USA compared to ROC. But then completely left it up in the air, with “maaaaybe the US hasn’t caught on to something that the judges are nitpicking” and going down a rabbit hole talking about “the Russians have better rhythm”. I guess we cannot know for sure but it seems the absolute consensus on here is that body shape was the big new “judging thing” for Tokyo (there’s always a “new thing” before every major meet - most notably in Montreal beam) and I was surprised that Spencer didn’t take a punt on that. It’s the one thing that Russia outclass the Americans on, so it would make perfect sense.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Yeah, Spencer is okay. It’s Jessica that I can’t deal with anymore.

 

[RedBirdie]

I do think the judges were being stricter on body shape, but the more I think about it, the more I think the big score decline was because:

1. Chiles and Skinner replaced Hurd and McCusker. We can’t know for sure because Chiles and Skinner didn’t compete at worlds this quad, but dance element are not their strong suit. And Skinner was getting hammered, even for hit routines, domestically. When healthy, Hurd and McCusker outscore Chiles and Skinner.
2. Simone. She finally got bit by her landings.

 

[MaryClare]

Spencer can be a little hyperactive but I think that’s probably the brief he is given. I find him extremely knowledgeable and would love to see him on a more serious podcast

 

[MaryClare]

Yes Simone got hit with her landings, but really the problem was her landings deteriorated all quad

 

[RedBirdie]

Pretty much everything about her gymnastics deteriorated all quad except the difficulty.

 

[dweiss324]

Lol Simone didn’t "finally get hit for landings’… Because she wasn’t competing for the majority of the competition…

She’s bouncy AF, but give the girl a break. Like …(???) this is literally the weirdest time to complain about that

 

[makam]

I’d personally rather her overpower and have bounce instead of undercooking and injuring herself. Obviously a perfectly stuck landing is ideal, but if that isn’t possible, give me bounce!

 

[RedBirdie]

I have no idea what you’re trying to say. No shit, she only did one floor routine in Tokyo. One that saw major landing deductions on two passes, and at minimum a moderate deduction on a third. She was playing with fire all quad, bouncing out of the landings and being less and less in control each year.

Not having control over her landings cost her on floor in Tokyo. An increased emphasis on body shape deductions was not solely responsible for her e score in the 7s.

 

[dweiss324]

I’m literally saying you’re weirdly and obsessively bringing up an irrelevant non-issue because you often harp on her for landings but in this conversation it isn’t pertinent to the discussion.

She didn’t compete floor in Tf, AA, or EF. And you said not having control of her landings cost her in Tokyo…

No it didn’t.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I think the deterioration is the key point.

The landings in prelims obviously were much worse than we usually see, when taken as a whole. Simone bounding out of the floor area is hardly uncommon, and it’s not the first time vault hasn’t been ideal either. The beam dismount was something quite new, though. In retrospect you can see the difficulties with air sense starting to kick in.

I don’t know that anything could have been done to prevent that part, but it is clear that they were choosing to pursue skill choices that Simone couldn’t routinely control, and there’s a risk inherent to that. We talked about her possibly losing the floor title on a bouncy day here. I think the wwgym panel had her in 2nd on one of the domestic floor titles she won, earlier this year? And reputation bonus only goes so far when you’re racking up the neutral deductions.

 

[RAFIKI]

Hmmm, I haven’t rewatched this quint recently but I think she improved her beam consistency in 2019 (especially at worlds) and her bars execution in 2018.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

The beam consistency definitely improved after Simone redesigned her routine following 2018 worlds, but it was down to removing the problem elements in the interior of the exercise. Landing was never her issue on beam.

 

[RedBirdie]

I’m literally saying you’re weirdly and obsessively bringing up an irrelevant non-issue because you often harp on her for landings but in this conversation it isn’t pertinent to the discussion.

She didn’t compete floor in Tf, AA, or EF. And you said not having control of her landings cost her in Tokyo…

No it didn’t.

I think its quite pertinent to the discussion: why did the US see the average floor e score drop so significantly? Simone’s uncontrolled landings were, imo, part of what drove the drop in the average score.

And it did cost her. I’m not sure how a score in the 7s, only the 4th best e score of US gymnasts in qualifying, and not being the top qualifier to finals, can be interpreted any other way. In 2018 and 2019 her execution scores were much higher, with better (but still not great) landings. She was untouchable. But this year that wasn’t the case. I said all through the lead-up to Tokyo that the decision to throw big difficulty at the expense of consistent landings could make things very interesting.