MyKayla Skinner Olympic participation

[onodian]

So it’s down to a mud fight for you two then. My money’s on AR

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Lmao I dunno if this is mudfight territory! Although heaven knows I’ve managed days of entertainment and recriminations from less before, and each of us will need to warm up before reaching peak annoying during the Olympics. It’s vital that we aren’t going from 0 to massively overreacting in response to a perceived slur on Ou Yushan’s beam. Protect yourselves.

 

[mnesiptolema]

There is no disproportionate response to a slight on Ou Youshan’s beam.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Inspirational.

 

[Doug1233]

Fair enough. We can agree to disagree.

How abow dah, @onodian ?

But what is your view on the actual team decision? Like - who would you have picked if you were on the selection committee with a Cat 1 next to you and a spreadsheet of numbers from Cat 4s.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

If I’m parachuted in right at the point of selection and with no ability to impact any of the process, I’d have Grace for the team and give a less stupid explanation than Tom did. Impossible to say about Skinner as the plus one without knowing more about the nature of Jade’s injury really. But I’d be open to having her if it looked like Jade couldn’t be relied on to deliver vault silver.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

I agree with questioning the “highest scoring team” methodology and weight, especially if the presumption is Lee FX and Chiles BB, so I’d love to see what happens with 4-4-3 and 4-4-4. Maybe I’ll simulate those with USAG and WWGym scores this weekend; we already have a comrade working on 4-3-3.

However, I’m not sure Tom could have reasonably named any 2 of Wong, DiCello, and McCusker over both Skinner and McCallum based on Trials numbers. 1 for 1, maaaybe, but I’m still skeptical, and sacking both is indefensible to me, at least PR-wise. Now, “x could/could not have done y” is murky wording, subject to lots of qualifiers and hedging about culture, optics, Olympic format, things we don’t know, etc.

In the end, though, they went with the safest, most efficient choice. You can’t have 2 built-in alternate +1s for 4-4/3-3 where neither does AA at Trials or even really performs well there, and I don’t think Marta would have done anything differently. I’d name McCusker to be aggressive on bars and roll the dice on Carey at least being able to arse a Lopez/Nabstafina by late July.

I do not believe McCusker meets Marta’s criteria for a specialist worth doing any favors for, though, nor do I think Marta would have the patience for McCusker that Tom had.

 

[MRR]

Ask and you shall receive. The following is a breakdown of the WWGYM panel’s scores applied to 4-3-3, with a comparison of different gymnasts in spot #4 accompanying Biles/Lee/Chiles.

Team result based on highest score achieved at Trials:
1.) Skinner 176.36
2.) Eaker 176.342
3.) McCallum 176.284
4.) DiCello 176.217
5.) Wong 176.15

Team result based on highest average score at Trials:
1.) Wong 173.65
2.) Skinner 173.5835
3.) DiCello 173.425
4.) Eaker 173.4085
5.) McCallum 173.3085

Team result based on best 3 of 4 scores across Nationals + Trials:
1.) Wong 174.8417
2.) Skinner 174.8143
3.) McCallum 174.6587
4.) DiCello 174.6583
5.) Eaker 174.5363

Team result based on average scores from Nationals + Trials:
1.) Skinner 173.2523
2.) Wong 173.227
3.) McCallum 173.0835
4.) DiCello 173.0563
5.) Eaker 172.9003

The WWGYM panel scored Skinner’s Amanar higher than her Cheng on night 2 of Nationals and night 2 of Trials. Using her highest scoring vault each time:

Best score from Trials: 176.459 (rank 1)
Average score from Trials: 173.8 (rank 1)
Best 3 of 4: 174.964 (rank 1)
Average of 4: 173.398 (rank 1)

McCallum ranks 5th on the WWGYM Trials scores (average). She doesn’t contribute a top 3 score anywhere but vault, where Skinner outscores her even with the Cheng night 2. However, she is far and away the best backup of the five, with her average scores coming within 0.05 of Chiles (BB) and Lee (FX) and treading above water on bars. In comparison, Skinner averaged a low 13 on UB/FX and a high 12 on BB.

Full spreadsheet here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...f4jPFscKysZbxKenKjBEWLrSo/edit#gid=1872011659

 

[MRR]

USAG scores

Team result based on highest score at Trials:
1.) Skinner 177.662
2.) Wong 177.396
3.) McCallum 177.395
4.) Eaker 177.329
5.) DiCello 177.262

Team result based on highest average score at Trials:
1.) Skinner 175.08
2.) Eaker 174.8305
3.) Wong 174.789
4.) McCallum 174.73
5.) DiCello 174.647

Team result based on best 3 of 4 scores across Nationals + Trials:
1.) Skinner 176.3313
2.) Wong 176.2427
3.) DiCello 176.1203
4.) Eaker 175.976
5.) McCallum 175.8757

Team result based on average scores from Nationals + Trials:
1.) Skinner 175.0275
2.) Wong 174.9653
3.) DiCello 174.811
4.) McCallum 174.5775
5.) Eaker 174.561

 

[Doug1233]

Interesting!!

But really, Tom’s explanation make sense. Quibbling over 2 tenths doesn’t make sense if ur choosing between an AAer and a 1 eventer. It’s like taking Gabby over Locklear.

 

[irichluck21]

If they plan to rest Lee on FX, McCallum is the better choice between her and Skinner.

Wong would have been nice there too and as god as McCallum on vault but she was to much of a question of whether she would get a 14 or an 11.

There is also the possibility of using McCallum on UB and BB in team finals instead of Chiles and maybe even Biles. The team is going to win by a huge amount, so it would be good to rest Biles on brs and beam in team finals.

 

[Doug1233]

Well exactly. Grace gives you options. Skinner does not. And Wong gives you anxiety.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

Day 1 beam, the routine that will live in infamy. Wtf, Al and Armine. Why is Wong losing to Eaker and Skinner at both of the major selections in her career? Why did they change her acro series to pick up one tenth? The answer is GAGE, of course, but it’s still nonsensical. So many people were walking into Trials hoping she would just end all the debate by finally putting together an entire meet.

It is so unfortunate, because she is obviously way talented and capable of learning so many skills, but the mismanagement is real. Get into this wolf 1/1 from day 2. And, no, she’s not supposed to land facing left. She’s supposed to finish the skill facing right.

 

[Doug1233]

Yeah the wolf full and the switch ring … Al, cmon. You ruined her shot at the Olympics. She’s a better gymnast than both Skinner and Grace. It’s such a shame.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Honestly, there’s no reason at all why Wong and Eaker shouldn’t both have made Tokyo. The 4th spot and the plus one were there for the taking. They both have the talent, they do beautiful work, nobody else made either spot her own. All it needed was coaching that isn’t so stupid it would look like deliberate sabotage if we didn’t now have decades of examples of Al Fongness.

 

[onodian]

Y’all just can’t handle the BEAUTY of al’s composition skillz

 

[rlayt]

We were all saying it when they were juniors. Such a shame.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

I thought that, too. The judges weren’t taking the piss any less at Trials than they were at Stuttgart camp, sans bars, and it wasn’t just beam that tanked Eaker’s AA this year. She’s down about 5-7 tenths on bars and ~3 tenths on floor at Trials compared to Worlds/camp, after “upgrading” the latter.

Her FX should have been entirely Stuttgart camp-based: keep everything from that routine, nix the ring 1/2, try whip + triple, and if it doesn’t work, take your 14.000 and be happy. Beam, take out the ring leap and switch ring and extra skills that add nothing. Why can she not learn side jump combos if the Fongs are so obsessed with connecting her switch side and switch 1/2, and giving Wong side jumps? Why was Eaker doing two Korbuts in separate combinations?

Meanwhile, Wong’s never matched her 2019 Scam score, and her UB/BB were worse than 2019 as well. Wong’s floor should have been or worked up to Silivas, tucked double Arabian + stag jump, 2.5 + whatever, double whatever. They needed to stop with the 3.5 and Dos Santos pretty much right away. The Cheng obviously wasn’t happening, and it was pretty clear by slowing down the recent Amanar videos that she was going to be short there, too.

It would have been nice if they just worked on bars and beam that she and Eaker could do in their sleep.

 

[Doug1233]

So you agree with the team. And you disagree with Tom’s process and communication.

Same. That’s all I was ever saying.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

No, I think that’s the optimum team available if I am picking at that point in a flawed selection process. Which isn’t the same thing. Because we don’t know who’d have done what and prepared how if they had known what was expected of them or what difference an NTC the athletes knew was competent might make, it’s guesswork how far this is the actual ‘best’ or not. This is what means criticism of Tom’s choices is legitimate, your disagreement with this part having sparked this subdiscussion.