What will the later 2021 & 2022 field look like?

[QuietColours]

It does, but there were also only three scores where a junior broke 53 across two days of Championships (Katelyn Jong both days and Joscelyn Roberson on Day 2), and only four more that broke 52 (Madray Johnson and Kaliya Lincoln both days). There are a lot of D scores in 4s, and not just on vault–I’m not advocating huge leaps in difficulty at the expense of execution (as that has thoroughly not been working). But D scores of 5.3 instead of 4.8 will probably be important.

But it was also the Championships of the COVID year, where all the focus was on the athletes attending Olympic Trials, where none of the juniors had been able to do much at all in the way of warm-up competitions, and I have seen none of the routines. All I can do is look at the results sheet and speculate; consistent and clean will be the most important thing.

 

[irichluck21]

It does, but there were also only three scores where a junior broke 53 across two days of Championships (Katelyn Jong both days and Joscelyn Roberson on Day 2), and only four more that broke 52 (Madray Johnson and Kaliya Lincoln both days). There are a lot of D scores in 4s, and not just on vault–I’m not advocating huge leaps in difficulty at the expense of execution (as that has thoroughly not been working). But D scores of 5.3 instead of 4.8 will probably be important.

I think you are also forgetting that these juniors will be turning senior in a brand new COP.

So it make zero sense to put combinations or skills into junior routines that will not be use as seniors.

For example, you cannot repeat wolf turns in the next COP on BB and FX so putting them in a junior routine doesn’t make sense. It appears that the juniors were indeed focusing on execution over difficulty as they scored exceptionally well at the June Junior Pan Am Championships and we shall see how they do at the Junior Pan Am Games at the end of November. YES, 2 completely separate meets.

As it is juniors have separate rules from the seniors. As juniors, you can repeat the vault family. DiCello won 2019 Worlds with a DTY and a FTY, so because you can repeat the family, very few juniors have vaults from two different vault families.

 

[QuietColours]

think you are also forgetting that these juniors will be turning senior in a brand new COP.

So it make zero sense to put combinations or skills into junior routines that will not be use as seniors.

I definitely agree with you. I wasn’t thinking explicitly about all of these (such as the wolf turns), but it’s also part of what I mean when I say I haven’t actually seen any of the routines–with them all behind Flo’s paywall, I have no idea if the routines were because they left out combinations that won’t work in the new code, or if they were just low difficulty in general. It’s also why I feel so blind going into the next quad.

 

[Doug1233]

100%. The girl with pretty leaps and turns, a FTY, and 1980s tumbling, came 4th in the World floor final and 4th in the World AA final with a fall.

If it hasn’t sunk in by now, it never will.

 

[tempest]

100%. The girl with pretty leaps and turns, a FTY, and 1980s tumbling, came 4th in the World floor final and 4th in the World AA final with a fall.

If it hasn’t sunk in by now, it never will.

That really does make me sad but I can’t blame her for all the reasons Doug has laid out. in the 93-96 code a front full(a skill I used to be able to do) was the same as a full in(a skill I couldn’t do) yet people still dismounted with a full in. However we did get Kui YuanYuan as an FX champ though

 

[Puffin]

I think that there are good opportunities for a US vault specialist given that the US did not even contest this medal at worlds

However with Tom’s AA obsession I’m not sure that there is anyone to do the strategic thinking to look at the future weaknesses of the team . probably Jade’s rise from rookie level 10 to team as a vt specialist could not have happened under Tom as it did under Valeri

 

[Doug1233]

with Tom’s AA obsession

I feel like this was because of the team size reduction to 4. Of course AA becomes more important. You would have been just as mad with Tom if he picked a bunch of specialists, Simone pulled out and USA came 5th.

Going back to 5 will, I think, allow 2/3 event, Sacramone/Raisman types to re-emerge.

However, given the FIGs lean towards clean execution and low difficulty, I feel that strong vaulters with (perhaps less strong) form, don’t make as much sense as they did in 2012-2016.

 

[Puffin]

I don’t disagree with the theory of this - however I was really surprised that the US could not even field a person with 2 vaults so that even with it being a low stakes, individual worlds the US gave up on one of the medals, had noone good enough on UB and ended up with a couple of bronze medals in EF.

 

[Doug1233]

Sure. But it seemed you blamed that on “Tom’s obsession with the AA”?

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I think the point is that there’s nothing stopping an NTC looking specifically for vaulting talent in Level 10 for worlds as well as using an AAer focused Olympic team. An eye on both the present and the future. Ideally Tom would be doing both. Maybe he did try and there just wasn’t anyone.

Fwiw I think once we have 5 again, we may start to a resurgence in teams sending athletes just for vault, pretty much because of the clean execution low difficulty trend that’s happening on other events. Russia already have, and I could see them doing more. Not sure Paseka’s back is going to hold up, but with Listunova and Urazova looking like the future of the Russian programme that leaves a reliable Amanar shaped gap and I can certainly see why she thinks she could fill it. The holy trinity plus two vaults might well be their optimum formation. And a big vault is China’s most obvious weakness too.

 

[Puffin]

Well it seems to me at the moment there seems to be no mechanism that would allow specialists to come through - even the selection for this individual Worlds came from an AA trial with only 6 competitors attempting to make the team. Does the US currently have zero specialists that could have potentially reached VT or UB finals or do the gymnasts/coaches believe that there was little chance of a specialist being selected because of Tom’s obsession with AA rankings?

It seems incredible that a programme as strong as the US could not manage more than 2 bronze medals across 4 EFs. Even the focus on AA could not get a gold in a depleted field, against exhausted Melnikova.

 

[blake]

I wonder, with the advent of the NIL and athletes ability to earn money off their likeness, whether we’ll see more athletes decide to head to NCAA instead of pushing for an olympic run like DiCello. I’ll also be interested to see how much energy Tom invests into the Paris-eligible juniors versus the leftover seniors (Siegfeldt, German, Miller, Barros, Greaves, Frazier, etc.) who are likely to matriculate next year. There are valid arguments for either option, assuming Tom is not competent enough to multitask lol. With the pool of OG hopefuls less clear than I can remember in past post-OG years, I think the NTC would be wise not to rule any athlete out at this moment.

It seems incredible that a programme as strong as the US could not manage more than 2 bronze medals across 4 EFs

Was thinking to myself last night, this must be the first time US MAG, and not WAG, came home with a gold medal from a world/olympic comp, no?

 

[Doug1233]

because of Tom’s obsession with AA rankings

You keep saying this. Not sure if you’re trolling or not.

Tom was right to focus on AA rankings in the Olympic year with a 4 person team and a 3-up 3-count format. In fact, to not be “obsessed with the AA” would have been the height of stupidity.

Why isn’t it an individual coaches responsibility, if they have a non-AA gymnast who is not in contention for the Olympics but is good enough to make a world final, to push their gymnast towards selection for individual worlds based on their 1 or 2 event capabilities?

I’m pretty sure if there was a gymnast floating about in the USA with a DTY and a Lopez, and that coach had made their gymnast known to Tom, that Tom would have considered them for selection.

It’s much more likely that there simply wasn’t any. Gymnasts aren’t magic-ed out of the dust. Team USA had so many vaulters this year that one was 2perd from an Olympic final. In fact, many gymternet Twitter keyboard warriors were criticising Tom for picking TOO MANY vaulters, just 2 months ago! Tom can’t be held responsible for all 3 of them wanting to do the Olympics and 0 of them wanting to do Worlds.

It seems some parts of the gymternet, if I may, have their own “obsession” with blaming Tom and USAG for every single thing that happens in the sport of gymnastics in the entire nation. Im not saying they’re blameless; but let’s blame them for things within their control and responsibility. Like Tom’s fucking awful responses at press conferences.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Yeah, I’m starting to wonder if we will start to see younger teams again, like in 2012. Everyone on that team was born between 1994 and 1996. Aly was the oldest at 18.

 

[Concorde]

Was thinking to myself last night, this must be the first time US MAG, and not WAG, came home with a gold medal from a world/olympic comp, no?

This also happened in 1979 and 2001.

 

[Puffin]

I’m really not trolling.

I just know that I have been on various boards discussing Tom’s affinity for AA-centric team selection for years now. (I remember discussing it in relation to his first Junior worlds some years ago)

I am just surprised at the lack of depth in the US programme and that no non-AAers were even at the trial for an individual worlds. Is it?

• that there just was not a single gymnast available capable of making an EF - which is what you concluded - which may be the case
• or is there an issue that gymnasts/coaches did not feel it was worth going to trials to show 1 or 2 events because either explicitly or implicitly by their actions the selection group is going to choose the top 4 AAers anyway?

My personal opinion is that there may be a bit of both in this.

When you look at the team of 4 selected from the AA trial who scored between 52.0 and 55.35 at trial it was clear that there would be few EFs and I am surprised that the US didn’t take a chance by giving one spot to a non AA gymnast. But perhaps you are right and there aren’t any

 

[Jack]

But really, does any nation have any depth at the moment? The fact that the US put up two Olympic alternates to win silver and bronze in the AA speaks to their enormous AA depth this year. It’s clear that Russia has maybe 1-2 one event gymnasts who will most likely redundant with the Big 3, and literally no one else. China hasn’t exactly bathed itself in glory recently.

At the end of the day, while Russia absolutely is stronger, they will have a rough go of it if any of the big 3 go down with Dengue Fever or whatever the trendy virus is these days at Round Lake.

 

[cats]

I could use a couple years off virus-related drama.

 

[Rich]

I wonder how the US will do now that tom’s decade is here. I hope we can keep it up

 

[YurchenkoLoop]

Russia doesn’t have many prominent new seniors for 2022, but they have LOADS of potential for 2023 and 2024 in Diana Kustova (2007), Leila Vasilieva (2007?), Elizaveta Us (2007?), Anna Kalmykova (2008), Ekaterina Andreeva (2008), Sabina Kaigulova (2007?), Liudmila Roshchina(?)

Check out Elizaveta Us training a triple back!





Liudmila Roshchina’s free walkover + front tuck a la Livchikova



All the girls getting their Komova IIs, plus Roshchina training a Galante



RUS has a lot of depth and we can only hope Mustafina and co. manage them well. I’m very unfamiliar with other nations’ juniors–a little familiar with USA–but Russia looks like they’ll be a power in Paris with these girls plus the Big 3.

Let's Meet the Juniors - Russia Edition Women’s Gymn

As we enter the new quad, it would be cool to start a series highlighting the upcoming juniors from around the world who may be in Paris in 2024. I am by no means meaning to take the lead on this, but I can give a go at starting us out with Russia. Please, others who are more informed, share too. The Russian juniors had Spartakiad this summer and also Championships. Championships results: Master of Sport (older junior competition) AA – 1) Diana Kustova 2) Leila Vasilieva 3) Elizaveta Us 4) L…