US WAG Olympic trials Night 2 (LIVE DISCUSSION)

[cats]

I thought having Shannon announce the team was nice. She’s in her last days as the US gymnast with the most Olympic medals, and it’s great that they had an athlete do this instead of an executive or an anonymous big-voice announcer.

Cynically it’s probably more to avoid having anyone “important” in USAG giving the announcement since it was inescapably controversial but whatever.

 

[Passion]

The 2008 MAG team announced the Men’s team. They took turns saying names.

 

[Doug1233]

Any update on Emily Lee?

 

[JaJa]

But that is not what she said. She said it was another reason.

to clarify she said that being a voice for the victims was a 2d reason after just having more to achieve in gymnastics. (paraphrasing)

 

[JaJa]

exactly. Whatever the primary motive, it was still just nice having Shannon do the announcement.

 

[Doug1233]

So let me get this straight:

Wong would have been 4th AA at Trials if you simply repeat her Day 2 beam routine on Day 1.

She would have beaten Grace and Myk in both the AA and in VT/FX.

That would have been it. No denying.

Crazy that her selection came down to a beam routine.

 

[Doug1233]

Also - let’s be real - this team SHOULD have been Leanne and Riley.

We were a Leanne beam routine and a Riley bar routine from seeing that happen.

 

[JaJa]

Who knows what their actual criteria was. Tom had likely cut off some of his oxygen supply to his brain wearing that mask so tightly around his chin.

I any event I am personally happy with the Team they chose.

 

[JDB]

Shannon Miller announced the title for Jade Carey’s spot as, “The additional nominative quota place earned through the individual event World Cup series, pending FIG confirmation.” It has a nice ring to it. If I were her I would put that on my social media.

 

[cats]

McCallum’s selection was 100% down to beam, and significantly down to those two really strong beams she had at Nationals. It’s the only reason she was the top AA athlete out of the four vying for that spot. Skinner was #1 on vault and bars, Grace was #1 on beam by a mile, and Leanne was #1 on floor and the combined floor and vault rank across Nationals and Trials.

I’m not mad about having an extra beamer on the team. You never know when someone is going to have a random issue with some skill like Suni did with her layout series in Stuttgart, so it’s nice to have a backup, and that person definitely could not be MyKayla or Leanne. But it is weird that she made it on a VT/FX spot given that she really only hit one floor during all of this. Can she Douglas her way past it and show a good low 14 in Tokyo? Probably! But I do feel for Leanne who was the overall #2 on floor throughout the process and also earned the highest non-Simone floor score.

 

[gymgirl2018]

All I can say is if Tom is keeping this job they better get him some damn good media training.

 

[Big_rock_show]

I feel like this guy has to be one of us

 

[Doug1233]

Tom completely fucked up the press conference.

He basically said - “we said we were going to use the numbers, but the numbers showed Skinner and Wong, but because the margins were so small I felt it was fairer to go by Trials AA rank”.

Soooo… you didn’t use the numbers at all Tom. And you just gave all the Skinner Stans a bunch of ammo to start crying sKiNnEr wuZ rObBeD!!!111!!!

The only person who has a claim to feel robbed is Leanne Wong. The irony of her missing out on the Olympics because of a biffed beam routine, on a team with probably the best BB line up in the history of Team USA, and despite having the best VT/FX scores across all of Nationals and Trials, completely escapes the Skinner Stans.

 

[gymgirl2018]

Tom fucks up every press conference.

 

[tsarinajen]

Agreed. His script should have read, “Though Skinner adds potentially more, we felt it was best to add Grace as she provides more as an AA. She can go up on any event in the event someone develops an issue or a routine isn’t as well received as we thought it should be.”

It will also be very important that Grace outscores Skinner in the prelims.

 

[Hatsumomo]

IMHO, Skinner is doing good that she even got the +1. She wasn’t top 3 on vault or floor which are ostensibly her best events. Even the numbers have Leanne Wong ahead of her. And Skinner is useless on beam and bars, so she could never be a pinch hitter.

 

[Jack]

None of us would cheer for Skinner like that

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

He could’ve also just said this is the top 4 AAers, which we felt was essential in a 4-3-3 format and with Sunisa’s ankle needing to be protected. That would’ve been convincing enough for most of the general public. I honestly thought if he did end up with the top 4 he’d go for that as an explanation.

However I’d argue a bigger lowlight was Tom saying the FIG was unresponsive in trying to figure out what Jade needed to do. That’s an absolute embarrassment. Why on earth would they feel the need to involve the FIG? It’s an internal US matter. Of course they were unresponsive. That’s probably the most polite thing they could do in the circumstances. Imagine having to reply to that!

Trying to make sense of all this now, having found out the outcome before watching the competition. I previously thought Skinner was either the 4th or nothing, and while I saw McCallum’s spot coming, I did not see this. Is it correct that if one of the competing four gets injured until the 24 hours pre prelims deadline, one of the individuals would have to be subbed in before an alternate can be used?

 

[Seyonne]

Agree. I would have thought all hopefuls would have made sure to get the shot.

 

[Doug1233]

Yes I think the +1 can be used in TF if they are subbed in X hours before prelims. I’m not sure what X is though.