Puffin:
Personally I think it is more about Tom not really thinking in strategic terms, it’s the easy decision to go by AA standings (and he doesn’t seem to like making big decisions that he might get criticized for :roll_eyes: ) …
See I disagree. I think there was high degree of critical thinking occurring but not all of it is politically correct to say. Bottom line is that the final team spot came down to McCallum, Wong, and Skinner.
Using Skinner in prelims is risky because of her built in deductions and the fact that it seems like she could peel off the bars and fall off the beam at any time. She is a hot mess on everything but vault. Tom could reasonably assume that the international judges, which she hasn’t seen in 5+ years, could hammer her much more than the domestic judges. Given this, I classify her as a one event gymnast.
That matters because if you have an athlete go down you don’t want to only have a one event gymnast to turn to. There are numerous examples of athletes getting injured/sick at or just prior to competition (Postell, Pezeck, Memmel, Asac, Maroney, to name a few). Tom, of course, can’t say all of this publically.
I think for all these reasons, Skinner is out for the four person team. A reasonable case can be for McCallum or Wong, so he picked the highest finisher.
As far as between Riley and Skinner for the +1, I think it came down to who is more likely to win a medal on their speciality. I think Skinner showed amazing vaults and made her case convincingly, especially after Riley fell. To hell with the two per country rule. Skinner is more likely to medal. I always thought it was incredibly risky for Riley to just focus on bars. Maybe that was all she could do, but she had to be more spectacular every meet and she wasn’t.
