Team USA moving forward

[Puffin]

I think they should make qualifying for nationals harder and perhaps only qualify 12-15 gymnasts. Having sat through nationals there were just too many 50-52AAers and that was with pretty soft judging - USA needs higher standards

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

Hmm. It’s not really a resurgence. Even at European level, they are not challenging for a team medal, they have no AAers and only voinea is a medal threat.

It’s a relative resurgence, and they finished 4th at Euros last year with a few falls!

 

[Aeris]

It’s difficult for them to do anything like that until the judges judge properly so they can back their decisions

Nah, they have the ability to pick the teams they want and they need to use that power. Like this year, if Roberson was someone whose coach they told "change these things or we probably won't take her" and the coach didn't listen, they easily could have justified leaving her off the team.

They also can have international competition as a selection criteria...and they are the ones who also get to pick who is allowed to compete internationally. Which provides further opportunity to tell coaches they better listen or else their athlete won't get assignments.

 

[makam]

They usually win junior comps, become senior, have an okay year or two and then peace out to college. Enticing ncaa athletes to come back might be the future of the program.

The US isn't the only country with a high rate of failure in converting junior results into senior results. And since the push to peak them at 16 and toss them by 18 has waned, they aren't superstars at 16 and have the option to try a different kind of gymnastics experience in college, and often as campus "royalty", so why run yourself to the ground and risk losing that basically guaranteed opportunity.

It is a sport riding on the backs of children, hoping they stay healthy and skilled into young adulthood. You can't have the same expectations about performance and results as you would with an adult oriented sport or business. Now, when you get adult gymnasts back, you can work with them on expectations and whatnot that you can't with a child (or even the coach of a child).

 

[Passion]

How easy would this be if Women's NCAA just used FIG scoring.

 

[KristyJ]

I think they should make qualifying for nationals harder and perhaps only qualify 12-15 gymnasts. Having sat through nationals there were just too many 50-52AAers and that was with pretty soft judging - USA needs higher standards

Nevermind that 50 is basically all it took to make world AA finals (which shows that the problem is not US only)

 

[BB12]

How easy would this be if Women's NCAA just used FIG scoring.

It would be the end of NCAA.

 

[RedBirdie]

Nevermind that 50 is basically all it took to make world AA finals (which shows that the problem is not US only)

For real. It's harder for a US senior WAG to qualify to US nationals than it is to qualify for world AA finals (although US domestic scoring is.... suspect)

 

[Beamer]

I'm saddened by what has happened to Leanne Wong's tumbling difficulty on FX.

At one point or another, IIRC she used to compete all of these skills:
triple full
whip immediate triple full
3.5 twist
2.5 twist + front layout full
double layout
piked Arabian double front

And yet none of them are in her current routine. Instead, we have a whip half + front full.

At the 2021 Worlds when she medaled on FX, she competed:
double double
whip immediate triple full
2.5 twist + front layout full
double pike

Now her set is:
double double
whip half, front layout full
double pike

I get that she can probably no longer do the 3.5 twist that she could do in 2019 with her body then, but doing a 3.5 isn't worth it anyway because of landing deductions unless you punch front out of it.

But the rest of her skills, she's done all of them with her adult body. Yet they've vanished from her set. We've seen her tumbling difficulty go down almost every year since 2021 it seems.

This is where training elite full-time would be beneficial IMO. And I don't know if the Florida coaches are the best for that. Not that Al and Armine are the solution either. If she wants to finally make an Olympic team on her third go around, I would train elite full-time with someone like Liang Chow, Sarah Korngold, Brian Carey, or maybe WCC.

 

[RedBirdie]

Chow? He hasn't done anything in over a decade and he's never worked with an adult elite except for that short stint Douglas had during her first comeback.

 

[Beamer]

Chow? He hasn't done anything in over a decade and he's never worked with an adult elite except for that short stint Douglas had during her first comeback.

It definitely doesn't have to be Chow. It could be any of the other coaches I mentioned, or someone else entirely.

My point is that her tumbling difficulty has significantly diminished and there are better coaching options out there to someone who is amenable to such change.

But that's a fair point about Shawn and pre-2012 Gabby being young when he coached them.

 

[KristyJ]

Does Amy Boorman still live in Florida?

 

[Passion]

Is Wong continuing with gymnastics at all after this year? Prior to US Classic she was saying this year was her last run at elite.

Maybe if she medals in the All-Around it will entice her to continue. Or maybe she'll see it as a good note to bow out on. She'll still be at Florida next year either way doing grad school and student coaching.

 

[Passion]

Does Amy Boorman still live in Florida?

She's in Germany through 2028.

 

[Ms Motts]

.To say nothing of the incredibly stiff movement and presentation they have on floor and beam. There's no fluidity. They hit the choreography, often very sharp with their chests shoved out and eyes staring straight ahead, but there is no elegance, no sense of this gymnasts knows how to move with grace and purpose, and certainly not the slightest hit of artistry.

I see lots of little DP gymnasts in my Insta feed, and have often thought this. Clearly the DP works, because the USA is still very dominant at the international level (if not as completely as they would like). But the music for compulsories is so bad that it doesn't facilitate artistry or fluidity. It sounds like orchestras tuning up, with convenient rhythmic blurps that the gymnasts can snap their bodies crisply to. So these little gymnasts look incredibly sharp - beautiful body tension and marking the beat well - but no fluidity and not really any genuine opportunity to work towards it.

. But also, other teams are also still relying on geriatric talent as well. Melnikova was in Rio, as was Andrade. Black was in London! Everyone on the Chinese team was eligible for the last Olympics, and Deng Yalan is basically a grandmother.

Who are the new seniors who are grabbing the torch heading into LA internationally? Perotti? I think this is more of a global issue than a US issue in a lot of ways. The US could be seen as just a microcosm of a bigger trend.

This could be the wrong way to look at it. Melnikova just qualified AA in first place despite a problematic beam and indifferent floor. She's in three finals and is clearly still close to her peak. Instead of worrying why 15 year old Caroline Moreau isn't ready to take on 25 year old Melnikova, we should be wondering how good Moreau (or even Blakey) will look when she's 25. In which case pacing and planning for the future is the key rather than presuming that the pipeline is problematic. It has just....shifted. And if you were a new senior, would you want to be peaking right now, with the Olympics years away? Competition experience, gradual artistry upskilling, careful attention to skill selection. Basically, the development program needs to continue through senior elite until gymnasts naturally hit their peak rather than being forced to because they've hit an arbitrary age.

 

[KristyJ]

I see lots of little DP gymnasts in my Insta feed, and have often thought this. Clearly the DP works, because the USA is still very dominant at the international level (if not as completely as they would like). But the music for compulsories is so bad that it doesn't facilitate artistry or fluidity. It sounds like orchestras tuning up, with convenient rhythmic blurps that the gymnasts can snap their bodies crisply to. So these little gymnasts look incredibly sharp - beautiful body tension and marking the beat well - but no fluidity and not really any genuine opportunity to work towards it.

Things that we probably couldn't get people to do, but I wish that coaches had to take ballet courses as part of their education, so they could learn to feel and see the difference in fluidity. I had to unlearn so many bad habits that I carried to dance from gymnastics that I just couldn't see until I had it pointed out to me, including being overly sharp and pose-y, but I'd been taught to move that sharp way in gymnastics. I think coaches need to have the understanding of the movement to pass it along.

 

[Denn]

@Ms Motts You make some strong points, I feel.

 

[OnoNoKomachi]

How easy would this be if Women's NCAA just used FIG scoring.

That will never happen. The fanbase doesn't want it. In fact, there would probably be riots.
They also compete shorter and mostly easier routines than elite. It isn't just the scoring.
I wonder what some of these routines would score under FIG - probably not great (although the execution tends to be better).

These things go in cycles. The US was not going to be unbeatable forever.

 

[Caledi]

But the music for compulsories is so bad that it doesn't facilitate artistry or fluidity. It sounds like orchestras tuning up, with convenient rhythmic blurps that the gymnasts can snap their bodies crisply to. So these little gymnasts look incredibly sharp - beautiful body tension and marking the beat well - but no fluidity and not really any genuine opportunity to work towards it.

Fun fact about USAG compulsory routines. I don't know if this is still the case, but at least ~15 years ago when I was more involved, they choreographed the routine first and then "composed" music to match. That's why the music sounds so awful.

 

[KristyJ]

Fun fact about USAG compulsory routines. I don't know if this is still the case, but at least ~15 years ago when I was more involved, they choreographed the routine first and then "composed" music to match. That's why the music sounds so awful.

I did not know this, but it explains so much.