Something I find interesting is that Russia winning Gold was not on anyone’s radar. Even after prelims the consensus was that USA would easily pull ahead.
I dunno about easily, but it’s true most people still thought the US were more likely than not to win even after losing prelims. As one of those people, I think there were two main reasons for that. One, we didn’t think Russia were likely to repeat that level of hit performance in TFs. Which tbf wasn’t wrong. And secondly, we expected better of Simone. She could still have had a not particularly impressive day for her and have done enough to beat the ROC prelims total.
It’s definitely true that the gymternet as a collective underestimated Russia and overestimated the US though. It’s interesting, because it’s not like the seeds weren’t there, but putting them all together is something else. One thing to identify that Jordan’s dance elements are mostly asking for 0.3s, which we as a board would pretty much all have understood going into Tokyo, quite another to envisage a gymnast in a US leotard actually getting smacked with the full force of them.
For me, possibly the most significant factor in ROC success is the way their hit routines were
hit. Bringing in the big numbers every time, not giving away soft tenths.
Looking at the last TF they were competitive on paper, 2012, they really had a problem with that. Obviously they collapsed on floor, but before that, after three events, Russia were 9 for 9. On paper, they should’ve been pretty much head to head with the US at that point, even slightly ahead. But they 1.3 behind, just from little things. A staggered landing here, a missed connection there. They all stayed on beam, and you couldn’t say those weren’t hit routines, but they still lost not far off a point to the US there. Whereas we didn’t see that in Tokyo. The only hit but not that hit set they had in TFs was Urazova on floor.
That bodes very well. It’s impressive in a way that going 10 for 12 in TFs is not.