Post qualifications WAG musings

[Doug1233]

Chiles has gotta be in bits today. What a high she has been on these last few months.

I also always kinda knew that her domestic scores wouldn’t hold up internationally. Her dance elements on beam and floor are not it.

It’s clear that the memo from the judges is that they aren’t playing with the 0.3 body shape deduction.

Chiles was getting some wild domestic scoring too. Like 9.7s for her DTY.

 

[Doug1233]

Do we have videos of Skinner and Jade on beam? They’re the only ones I could judge live because of ads

 

[onodian]

I saw jade bb on the Spanish feed, which i could access from Germany. Pm me if you can’t find it, I’m not on a computer now

 

[Doug1233]

Ok so apparently Jade is now getting online hate from Skinner fans accusing her of “taking the back way” onto the team and making EFs ahead of her.

 

[KristyJ]

Finally watched the fifth subdivision because I couldn’t pull the all-nighter that watching it live would’ve required. I probably have more thoughts than are reasonable in a post and I’m sleepy so I guess I will randomly pick a few–

1. I hate this competition format with national competitors who aren’t team members. It helps the countries with less depth, but hurts the best teams, and isn’t the team competition supposed to be about who has the best team? It also creates an unnecessary mental strain of an extra burden to qualification for gymnasts in that they have to beat the world and their own team to have a chance at any finals when being on their team would’ve meant a likely team finals. I am convinced that strain hurt Gerasimova, and probably team USA morale after Mykayla was (understandably) in tears. Five or six person teams would fix this. Both Russia and the USA would’ve picked up tenths with a five person team.
2. While we are at letting scores count where they should, I am also sick of the two-per rule. Would it really be so hard to open the AA back up to 36 like it used to be, and maybe make event finals 12 instead of 8? And then allow three per country so that the best of the athletes who are there can actually compete?
3. I don’t blame all of the messiness yesterday on Tom, though I do think he has some areas where he’s let down the team. (I blame the issues on a combo of FIG, USAG, and unavoidable world stuff).
   That said, there are some specific areas where insight and strong decision-making could’ve directly helped USAG gymnasts this year-
   • Routine composition guidance. Much has already been said about this in regards to difficulty vs. execution, things like the GAGE routines, and gymnasts who said what they needed to do was unclear. But there are some glaring things that just should’ve been fixed a half a year ago or more. The one that comes most to mind, because I thought it every week when watching YouTube but decided it would be rude to comment, is Mykayla’s turn combo on beam. We know getting connections credited is difficult, let alone on skills where you’re probably getting a deduction with them done solo. Why did noone drill form on the turns, tell her that extra arm movements during a pause might lose the connection, and teach her to end her first turn in the right spot to initiate the second, or nix the combo? With just a little coaching that could’ve been fixed. Another example is Wong’s beam in general, though that turned out to be moot.
   • Pacing. Am I the only one who feels most of the US gymnasts minus Jade peaked at Trials?
   • Lack of clarity on team selection, which may have added tension last night that didn’t need to be there. Either pick the team on highest score, or state ahead of time what other criteria (steadiness, consistency) are needed, and then use your stated criteria.
   • Lead-up training-- Did the US have a Japanese floor/springboard/bars/equipment at their camps all year? If not, they should have. I think the equipment change may have been an issue.
   • Judging-- Gymnasts can’t fix deductions they don’t know are there.

Many more thoughts but that’s a wall of text so I’ll leave it at that.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Okay, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but probably because they’re limiting these post competition podcasts to 30ish minutes.

 

[rlayt]

Okay, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but probably because they’re limiting these post competition podcasts to 30ish minutes.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to listen. I used to like them but the “Skinner wuz robbed” narrative put me off and I have skipped them since.

 

[Hatsumomo]

That’s a great way for Skinner to end up ostracized by the rest of the team.

 

[Doug1233]

Okay, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but probably because they’re limiting these post competition podcasts to 30ish minutes.

I’m 15 minutes in.

They’re all screaming about how Tom fucked up by not picking the highest scoring team.

THEN they acknowledge that because Jordan had a bad day they might want to use Grace on more events in TF because her E scores were higher and were more aligned to domestic scoring, whereas the scores for Jordan and Skinner didn’t hold up internationally.

Like - YOU CANT FUCKING HAVE BOTH! I swear Gymcastic literally just gets into any hysteria hype of the day on the gymternet. No nuance or logical thinking.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Routine composition guidance. Much has already been said about this in regards to difficulty vs. execution, things like the GAGE routines, and gymnasts who said what they needed to do was unclear. But there are some glaring things that just should’ve been fixed a half a year ago or more. The one that comes most to mind, because I thought it every week when watching YouTube but decided it would be rude to comment, is Mykayla’s turn combo on beam. We know getting connections credited is difficult, let alone on skills where you’re probably getting a deduction with them done solo. Why did noone drill form on the turns, tell her that extra arm movements during a pause might lose the connection, and teach her to end her first turn in the right spot to initiate the second, or nix the combo? With just a little coaching that could’ve been fixed. Another example is Wong’s beam in general, though that turned out to be moot.

That’s something people have been saying for 15 years, after they sent Sacramone to 2006 Worlds missing an EGR. It’s like they don’t understand the true purpose of domestic competitions.

Not to keep giving Marta credit, but IIRC, she would get the foreign equipment being used so the girls wouldn’t have just podium training to get used to it.

 

[QuietColours]

Not to keep giving Marta credit, but IIRC, she would get the foreign equipment being used so the girls wouldn’t have just podium training to get used to it.

WCC has it; Lee has the bars at least; and don’t they have it at the national training center? USAG is never going to pay for every contender’s gym to have all the Olympic equipment, and it’s no one’s fault they couldn’t have the usual camps this past year.

 

[Doug1233]

They do make an interesting point about Nush. Who just became an Olympian (finally!) without an ACL in one of her knees.

She got a 9.033 execution score on bars. She did a kip cast, two toe ons and hopped off.

But surely the failure to dismount and hopping off the bar is a fall? -1.0P?

ETA what was to stop her just prancing around on the floor for 90 seconds to her music? Maybe a turn on her good leg?! A back spin to finish!

 

[RedBirdie]

The one that comes most to mind, because I thought it every week when watching YouTube but decided it would be rude to comment, is Mykayla’s turn combo on beam. We know getting connections credited is difficult, let alone on skills where you’re probably getting a deduction with them done solo. Why did noone drill form on the turns, tell her that extra arm movements during a pause might lose the connection, and teach her to end her first turn in the right spot to initiate the second, or nix the combo? With just a little coaching that could’ve been fixed.

But that’s basic stuff MyKayla’s coaches should know. They shouldn’t need the national team staff to tell them stuff that anyone with a basic knowledge of the sport knows. The fact that they’ve never once shown the slightest inclination to work on basics or address the fundamental issues of Skinner’s gymnastics while incessantly pishing more and more difficulty leads me to believe they wouldn’t have been particularly receptive to any suggestions from Tom, Tatiana, or anyone else

 

[Big_rock_show]

Thoughts:

LIKES: Seeing 6 girls from the US do AA.

DISLIKES: The 2-per-country rule. Since there are all these extra specialists, it seems dumb to have them basically competing against the team of the country they’re representing. These gymnasts train their entire lives for this, so it still makes me uneasy that a potential bronze-medal-earner is left out of the competition for the sake of diversity. Bump AA back to 36 competitors and go to a 12-person EF, please!

 

[Sanzhirovka]

So, the US needs more international assignments, a crew of brevet judges who consistently travel with them to international meets who also travel to clubs with natl team members to advise them on routine construction and more camps with more mock meets held at them on equipment that will be used in the coming major meet (worlds/ Olympic Games).

Basically, what Russia does.

 

[Sanzhirovka]

And who precisely are MyKayla’s coaches?

 

[Hatsumomo]

Lisa Spini.

 

[JaJa]

So, the US needs more international assignments, a crew of brevet judges who consistently travel with them to international meets who also travel to clubs with natl team members to advise them on routine construction and more camps with more mock meets held at them on equipment that will be used in the coming major meet (worlds/ Olympic Games).

Basically, what Russia does.

Good suggestions.

 

[Puffin]

KristyJ:

The one that comes most to mind, because I thought it every week when watching YouTube but decided it would be rude to comment, is Mykayla’s turn combo on beam. We know getting connections credited is difficult, let alone on skills where you’re probably getting a deduction with them done solo. Why did noone drill form on the turns, tell her that extra arm movements during a pause might lose the connection, and teach her to end her first turn in the right spot to initiate the second, or nix the combo? With just a little coaching that could’ve been fixed.

But that’s basic stuff MyKayla’s coaches should know. They shouldn’t need the national team staff to tell them stuff that anyone with a basic knowledge of the sport knows. The fact that they’ve never once shown the slightest inclination to work on basics or address the fundamental issues of Skinner’s gymnastics while incessantly pishing more and more difficulty leads me to believe they wouldn’t have been particularly receptive to any suggestions from Tom, Tatiana, or anyone else

They were originally planning for her to do that horrible illusion turn as part of that combo so I would assume that there are strong levels of delusion regarding what scores well internationally

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Have we all seen this?

US women’s gymnastics: Rough start for Biles, team at Tokyo Olympics - Sports Illustrated

Tom offered the following insight: “I just want to re-emphasize, if anybody out there complained [that] USA Gymnastics only thought about medals, that was not the point."

I don’t even know what that means.

The great difficulty the US have is that their domestic scores are so unreliable, but they’re now in a climate where the expectation is that these form the basis of team selection. Marta could get away with speaking to Perskaia on the quiet and making decisions on that basis. Tom probably can’t, and that’s no bad thing, but it does mean that US internal scores are a more pressing problem than they used to be. And it’s not like they were never an issue during Marta’s tenure. That’s one of the biggest take aways here, and I think still would be even if the US end up winning the team title comfortably.