Post qualifications WAG musings

[kimbee]

I was just thinking that it seemed like Raisman was Martha’s golden child.

 

[rlayt]

Kim Z. and Kerri were golden too. Not a word from them.

 

[Jack]

We can’t take 2004 and 2008 into account because there was a completely unnecessary extra selection camp that really ruined things. It was obviously the right call to get rid of it and name the team at trials.

Both the London and Rio teams were much stronger at the games than they were at the Trials. Remember how much better the London team looked on vault when they showed up? Kocian absolutely peaked on UB in Rio.

This isn’t a defense of Martha, but the competition schedule is not the issue here. Even this team looked incredible and much stronger in podium training.

 

[RedBirdie]

I always found it interesting, for all her outspokenness, Raisman was always careful to not malign Martha, no matter what her teammates said about the woman.

Which made it rather interesting when Lynn Raisman went after Paul Ruggeri for saying he admired Marta. I may have missed it, but Aly has never really discussed Marta honestly. IIRC, in her book she glossed over Marta’s role in the systemic abuse.

 

[choclatechip45]

Aly has never been that critical of Martha even in the gymcastic interview she did she sort of went off topic when asked about Martha. It’s not surprising since Aly and Gabby were Martha’s favorites.

 

[MRR]

Lori’s Diaries:

 

[JusticeMom]

I think a lot of this is growing pains. After 96 it took the US a little while to find its footing. Now, that footing seemed to be misplaced… but there is no question that USA gymnastics is trying to find its way right now. There seems to be a general lack of leadership all around. Too bad the gymnasts are collateral damage of that. I expect things to change post Olympics regardless of whether USA wins.

 

[Sanzhirovka]

I don’t think it is true. The problem is not that dominance is due to overtraining, injuries and abuse, it’s that a programme can dominate despite being rife with overtraining, injuries and abuse.

But as long as people think that dominance is predicated on those things, they won’t actually address the underlying issues.

EDIT: Not sure why the forum thinks I was replying to rich. I was replying to Jaja’s reply to rich.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Yes, because the individual qualification didn’t give the US any medal opportunity they wouldn’t have got any other way, covid notwithstanding. Jade qualifying how she did simply meant they forfeited the opportunity to get a non-nominative continental place. The US were the only programme in a position where they could be virtually certain of qualifying two non-nominative spots, and even Tom wanted that rather than a situation that reduced the amount of control USAG had. So of course Marta would’ve.

It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider how Marta would’ve felt about this loss of control if it were going to give the US something extra, though. Like if it were possible to qualify three +1s, one from each route.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

As for Lori, bizarre to post that hours before the team final. Initially I wondered for a moment if she knows something we don’t about what’s happening behind the scenes, and is trying to get excuses in now/frame the narrative as something other than Tom fucked up, in advance. But actually, I don’t think either of them are that strategic.

 

[MaryClare]

This is the point I was making earlier. There isn’t a way of doing it without an abusive environment, all that varies is how the abuse manifests from one gymnastics superpower to the next. It’s never discussed on the gymternet was goes on under the current leadership in the Russian team, indeed it is laughed about. Sure, there are individual examples of where a gymnast has reached top international level with a nice coach and without being in an abusive environment at their home gym. But you can’t run top national programmes like that.

 

[MaryClare]

I really, really don’t understand their obsession with rank order. And if that was how they were going to select the team, why didn’t Tom come out and say so before trials, which would have been, you know, actually transparent. My guess? He chickened out, but because it so happened that the 1-4 finishers were a viable team, he went with it to avoid having to justify his decisions.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Oh she absolutely was. Aly got multiple chances at AA even after messing up her opportunities and you know Marta hates that sort of thing.

 

[kimbee]

And even now, Aly must feel oddly indebted to Martha for giving her all of those chances. She finally ended up with an AA silver.

 

[MRR]

Hard to say. I think Tom was afraid of a completely unworkable lineup, or a bizarre Trials result where Lee finishes out of the top 4 but has the top scoring bar routine. Ironically for Skinner, we only have to look at 2016 to see how lopsided she makes a Biles/Hernandez/Raisman lineup. It’s also curious that Nationals was in the criteria but not mentioned once in the committee report, with the selection exclusively based off Trials. I wondered months ago if the top 4 at Trials weren’t to Tom’s liking, whether he would consider a top 4 combined Nationals + Trials.

It’s one thing to go purely off rank order for a 4-person, AA centric format, but quite another to emphasize AA rank over EF prospects for the +1. That’s what apparently happened with Skinner, who had a simultaneously robust yet redundant bid for VT EF. It could be said the other +1 options didn’t establish themselves at Trials: McCusker fell with no other events to show; Eaker’s late surge couldn’t overcome GAGE, Stuttgart, or Biles/Lee, and Wong was a tough sell against the U.S. depth on floor. It could even be said that Carey’s Trials condition necessitated another vaulter. But Skinner having a second vault at all seemed to be just the cherry on top, in Forster’s eyes.

None of this is how I would’ve looked at it—McCusker was my pick to the bitter end—but a reasonable justification for Skinner was there. Instead she was named for finishing 5th so “integrity of the process” could be maintained, with said process never communicated coherently or transparently.

 

[Doug1233]

I really, really don’t understand their obsession with rank order. And if that was how they were going to select the team, why didn’t Tom come out and say so before trials, which would have been, you know, actually transparent. My guess? He chickened out, but because it so happened that the 1-4 finishers were a viable team, he went with it to avoid having to justify his decisions

This is the point though - why do you think it was chosen based on rank order?

I know Tom said all the bullshit about “integrity of the process” etc etc. But maybe those 4 gymnasts just were the best team, taking into account the need for contingency (which reared it’s ugly head today).

It’s not necessarily an “obsession with rank order”.

 

[cats]

It is impossible to know why that team was selected, and in any case as it turned out we all deeply underestimated the actual capabilities of ROC so if there was a real strategy, it was based on rotten info.

I’m so excited for the AA. Biles will follow Andrade on vault (maybe we get a Cheng-off!), and Melnikova will close that rotation with the Cheng-DTY decision. Derwael, Urazova, Melnikova, and Lee go one after the other on bars. Lee’s prelims vault plus other three would take her past Andrade and within a couple tenths of Biles, and she has a couple of tenths to gain back with a lights out beam. Melnikova’s best routines so far would put her in first even if she sticks with the DTY.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It’s interesting that Lori called it that, though.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Initially I wondered for a moment if she knows something we don’t about what’s happening behind the scenes, and is trying to get excuses in now/frame the narrative as something other than Tom fucked up, in advance. But actually, I don’t think either of them are that strategic.

Discuss. 10 characters.

 

[Sasha]

I suspect that what happened today didn’t come entirely out of left field to the team. To choose to withdraw for your own and your team’s wellbeing in such a fraught moment would take extraordinary presence of mind, I think, and I suspect that Simone and her “team” (coaches, etc.) may have discussed some scenarios in advance.