Post qualifications WAG musings

[cats]

They would have been excoriated for finding meaningless comps to leave the country for during the pandemic. That just wasn’t an option.

I think for one, this was just prelims, and it’s not a meltdown until something is actually on the line. It’s also not really a hit for Russia until they do this again in finals.

For another, nobody expected Russia to do as well as they did. I don’t think that’s really anyone’s “fault” since Russia never hits, but it is possibly a side effect of not having many internationals to watch. Maybe.

Not having good judges available for verifications kind of makes a huge part of USAG’s whole system moot.

But that’s all in the past. I think the most interesting coaching question comes now - how can Russia use this result as a boost instead of a crushing pressure? How can USA pick the right lineups and come back strong?

 

[Gymfan93]

The way USAG has been going they may just bung the 3 who scores best in quals on each event.
Which isn’t terrible, but is terrible strategy.

 

[Doug1233]

Now I’m Seeing Reddit complain about GCC getting an 8.0E and saying it’s because of racism

 

[RedBirdie]

The way USAG has been going they may just bung the 3 who scores best in quals on each event.
Which isn’t terrible, but is terrible strategy.

Which was actually how Marta usually did it. The one time she let the coaches lobby her into putting up a gymnast who wasn’t top three was Maggie Larson…

And 2015, because oh boy was that bars line-up a shitshow in prelims. (Actually, a lot of decisions about 2015 were questionable and the gymnasts bailed Marta out)

 

[cftmoonlight79]

Will Jade do the triple double layout in event finals? I think she goes up first…I hope she does to get it named after her.

 

[Jack]

Where are you seeing all these Reddit hot takes? The sub seemed pretty ok for the 5 minutes I logged to today.

 

[Seyonne]

I would love that, but it’s risky with a medal on the line. OTOH she may feel free to give it a go if she medals the day before on vault as expected.

 

[Seyonne]

Doing that would have Simone and Grace do AA in finals with Suni on bars and beam and Jordan on vault and floor. That’s exactly how I would do it

 

[irichluck21]

Carey is up 2nd. I think if she wants silver she should forgo the Carey completely as I don’t think Ferrari will be as flawless as she was in qualifications.

However, I still think she can win silver with the Carey even with a minor error or out of bounds due to the increased start value. Also with Biles consistently having landing errors or stepping OOB. The gold could be in reach.

 

[Doug1233]

Mostly in the comments not the threads themselves

 

[Doug1233]

Yeah there’s no way Jade is gonna do the Carey with a medal on the line and being up 2nd.

 

[JusticeMom]

I also think that this is a problem that goes well beyond USAG and into FIG territory. There is no consistency with judging at all.

Bingo. And also necessary to point out that USAG got it correct with some athletes’ routines.This probably has much to do with different levels of confirmation bias from the judges. For those that aren’t familiar, in psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to errors.

Also, the inflated scoring shouldn’t be that relevant for choosing the team as long as it was proportional and consistent across gymnasts. But it wasn’t this time around. Other quadrenniums have been more.

 

[Concorde]

Second, there are ways to quietly get around “domestic jugin sucks and we need an alternative”, for example by attending more internatonal meets and having camps with the US’s own FIG brevet judges.

Historically, U.S. judges with FIG brevet ratings have been used at U.S. Nationals, U.S. Olympic trials, the more significant qualification meets (e.g. U.S. Classic), and camps. In fact, in 2004 Jackie Fie was judging at the final selection camp.

Currently, the US has 22 FIG brevets as follows, so in theory there should be a sufficiently large pool to cover the typical 4 per apparatus panels.

1 - Category 1 (Tatiana Perskaya)
5 - Category 2 (most notably Sylvia Brestyan, Cheryl Hamilton, and Pat Panichas who was a judge in Beijing)
5 - Category 3 (most notably Kittia Carpenter, and Chellsie Memmel)
11 - Category 4 (most notably Jana Bieger, Liz Crandall, Anna Li, and Ashley Priess)

What I see as two major issues with judging in the US are:

1. The US should return to having separate D and E panels instead of having the judges evaluate both difficulty and execution. While this is allowed under FIG rules, I do not believe this approach is best for providing gymnasts with a thorough evaluation and partly explains looser scoring and potential issues being missed.
2. With the US gymnasts not competing at the World Cups, the US brevets have fewer opportunities to judge internationally and gain first hand experience of judging trends.

 

[Doug1233]

What was the difference between RUS and USA if you remove the FIRST gymnast up, instead of the lowest scoring.

Would give a better idea of TF score.

 

[tsarinajen]

Doug, that theory can’t work for Russia though. Lilia won’t go near bars and beat and she was the fourth up on both.

 

[irichluck21]

Well based on line ups you would remove
McCallum on all but vault
Akhaimova on UB and BB and Listunova on VT and Urasova on FX

So Russia stays the exact same, while USA drops significantly due to Lee FX and Chiles UB and BB counting

So USA was in the position they were at due to McCallum being there to back up Chiles.

 

[irichluck21]

Also to argue Skinner instead of McCallum in team situation.

VT Skinner +.4
UB McCallum +.434
BB Skinner +.167
FX Skinner +.1

So Skinner’s scores instead of McCallum gives US a whopping .233 back to the team total. Literal tenths and they are still in 2nd place.
This is also Skinner hitting 4 for 4 with McCallum counting and OOB and a missed CR on BB.

I want to see how McCallum performs in team finals on BB and FX. Skinner was literally maxed out on BB with 13.233 and 13.566 on FX. McCallum made mistakes.

McCallum could likely do all 4 events in team finals. Skinner doing all 4 events in team finals?
It is literally why McCallum was selected instead of Skinner due to being back up. Hope she comes through in team finals.

 

[RedBirdie]

And Skinner had the advantage of going up last or second to last one every event, while McCallum was first everywhere but vault, where she was second.

 

[irichluck21]

It comes down to beam really.

Skinner VT and McCallum UB cancel each other out.
FX is a wash because without the OOB they would have tied. Without the bounce back McCallum would have beaten her on FX, as the averages previously showed.

McCallum was consistent all year on beam, one missed CR and it drops her significantly. I suspect if Grace competes beam in team finals and hits that the score will be 13.9-14.1

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I really wish the bow trend would go away for the US.