US Classic Senior Session 2

[blake]

I would die and go to heaven if she had an Ebee moment at trials. I find her infinitely more watchable than McCallum/Chiles.

 

[irichluck21]

Yes, Gallardo has a patented silver tongue for sure. Coach Gallardo, “the All Around Olympic coach”. :roll_eyes:

 

[rue_des_plantes]

We haven’t received clarification or further comment, but Konnor McClain’s club has been changed on USAG’s website from Revolution to WOGA.

 

[RedBirdie]

Very interesting.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

So close to the Olympics, there’s got to have been something significant inspired this?

 

[rlayt]

It makes you wonder.

 

[RedBirdie]

At Classics, the look on her face after each fall looked very much like someone who knew she was going to get screamed at back in the gym.

 

[ucrgirl]

That is interesting. I’m now thinking that she is not really in the running for the Olympic team. I can’t imagine an athlete changing gyms right before nationals if things were going well.

I hope WOGA is good for her.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

The OP on Twitter believes Konnor is training with Valeri and Skye is with Yevgeny:

 

[Jack]

I completely missed the memo that Valeri and Yevgeny were coaching at WOGA again.

 

[blake]

WOGA wouldn’t have been my first choice for compassionate coaching. I’d have thought WCC would be a better fit gymnastics wise, but with all their elites, she wouldn’t get the 1-on-1 coaching that she’s probably looking for.

Interesting that Valeri is supposedly coming out of retirement for Konnor. As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t coached an elite since Ohashi, and he’s been working in Brazil as NTC, not as a personal coach, correct?

 

[RedBirdie]

Marchenko was coaching Skye and Sloane in 2019, IIRC. Is he still coaching Skye? I wasn’t paying attention to who was on the floor with her at Classics.

Valeri…oy. Not the coach I’d be sending my kid to under any circumstances, let alone one that appears to be struggling. A very curious move. I wonder if no one else would take her, given how close it is to nationals. For Konnor’s sake, I hope it’s not true that Valeri is going to coach her.

 

[rue_des_plantes]

Yes, Yevgeny was on the floor with Skye at Classics.

I’m imagining this is the biggest Hail Mary of the quad and/or Konnor’s effectively out of the running for Tokyo unless there was some emergency at her home gym or something. The timeline is just absurd.

 

[Sasha]

Yikes, that doesn’t bode well at all. Poor kid.

I remember Konnor’s mom saying after the announcement of the Games being delayed that Konnor was still shooting for 2024 rather than 2021. I wonder if the rearranged timeline had any bearing on her current situation.

ETA: according to Reddit it was her coach that said that, not her mom. That’s not what I remember but my memory could be wrong.

 

[Doug1233]

I watched a livestream with Suni and Konnor the night before Classics. Konnor said multiple times that 2024 was her goal. She didn’t seem convinced at all that she would be ready for 2021.

 

[Doug1233]

Forum. Can we take a poll?

Downgrade to Rudi? Yes or no.

 

[blake]

Not a judge, but downgrading that feels excessively punitive. To me, it’s clearly an underrotated 2/1. I would deduct the shit out of it, but I don’t see how you could call that a rudi unless you’re using FIGs’ busybody rules.

 

[Milkshakedonut]

Apparently Susan Brown ( Konnors longtime coach) and Konnors mother Lori have been best friends since childhood. Either Susan agreed that Konnor needs to find another coach who can take her further or the coach and mom had a falling out over expectations about Going for Tokyo. I don’t think at all that Susan Brown from WV is moving to Texas to train Konnor there. Konnor definitely is training with Valeri. I don’t think Konnors personality will mesh well at all with Valeri. She seems too fragile

 

[RedBirdie]

More importantly, Susan owns Revolution Gymnastics. There’s no way she’s abandoning her gym to go work for someone else at WOGA.

I am so intrigued about everything involved in this move. Why now? Why WOGA? Why Valeri?

 

[Sasha]

Ah okay. Probably for the best. My initial thought was that maybe there was a disagreement between Konnor/her family and her coaching staff with respect with whether she should aim for Tokyo. But I haven’t seen any evidence that this is the case.