Gymnastics News #21 - Tumbling on to Tokyo

[hirshey girl]

http://www.flogymnastics.com/articl...retirement-from-elite-gymnastics#.WXJvoNT3afA
Norah Flatley retires from elite gymnastics. According to the article, she will compete this upcoming season as a level 10 then head to UCLA for college.

 

[becca]

*** Olympian Simone Biles responds to troll over Instagram post :
http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Simone-Biles-vacation-Instagram-troll-response-11276216.php

Unbelievable. She wasn't even doing nothing she was doing Dancing With the Stars.

But she gets to have a break and enjoy being (isn't she still) a teenager! Oh she just turned 20. Good for Simone to take some time to enjoy her success.

 

[dramagrrl]

Anyone who's been bemoaning U.S. women's dominance over the past few years and hoping they wouldn't be quite so dominant this quad might be in for some luck. I watched the U.S. Classic yesterday and if these girls were most of the U.S. top prospects this year, it's a really weak field, IMO. I don't like Ragan Smith's gymnastics AT ALL, but most of the other girls at this event made her look like Simone Biles in comparison. Riley McCusker is coming back from several injuries and also seems to be proving to be a headcase in competition. The other girls, including the AA winner, just don't have the real international elite look and polish to their gymnastics, IMO, with perhaps the exception of Morgan Hurd, who is very polished, but may not have the difficulty yet to challenge the top international players.

The bright spot of the competition for me was Emma Malabuyo, who won the junior competition. To me, she was better than all the senior girls, and the only thing I disliked about her gymnastics was the fact that she is from Zmeskal's gym, so her choreo is crowded with a lot of the annoying extraneous hand flippy gestures that Kim seems to love and has already ruined Ragan with. Luckily, they haven't saddled Emma with the same type of grossly over-cutesy choreography.

 

[Erin]

Most of the top US gymnasts were in attendance at US Classic but I wouldn't really take that as an indicator of much because most of them weren't competing all-around, and many were coming back from injuries. Here is what I would consider exhibits A, B, and C on why US Classic doesn't mean that much, Simone's performances in 2013:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=28vDRvMp1Ec
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wdI5iKvG1hs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tkMmoNnnhaE

Vault was supposed to be her last event and she withdrew from that or I'm guessing that could have been Exhibit D. Anyway, three weeks later she won her first US National title and two months later she won her first world title, but I don't think a lot of people would have predicted it after watching that performance.

Back to this year's Classic, I was very impressed with Ragan Smith and the upgrades she showed on both bars and beam. The scores she got seemed a bit generous, not surprising for a domestic meet, but she looks very comfortable with all her skills and I think she has put her name back on the list as one of the favorites for world all-around gold, which I'm not sure I would have said before this meet. The other potential bright spot in the seniors was Trinity Thomas, who only competed bars and beam, finishing third on both, when neither is her best event. I'm keeping an eye on what she can do in the all-around next month. I was a little disappointed with Hurd, as I was hoping to see more consistency from her - she fell off beam twice in her World Cup event so I was really hoping to see a stronger beam routine here. Jury is still out on Riley McCusker...after the disastrous American Cup, she recovered nicely by winning Jesolo, with one of the highest all-around scores of the year so far (I think the only senior who has scored higher is Liu Tingting). She wasn't great here, but it sounds like podium training was much worse and she has just got back to training full routines. I think Nationals will be a better indicator for her. And Victoria Nguyen was injured and didn't compete at all. And then with Ashton Locklear not competing bars, that's still a lot of big question marks until Nationals.

The one question mark that did get answered was getting to see Jade Carey, who has a good chance at a worlds spot because she is the only contender who has two vaults (Jordan Chiles, who has an Amanar, should really be training a second vault). She was exciting to watch, but to me she is not the shoo-in for world gold on vault that people were predicting beforehand. She still seems like the leading contender for the Worlds spot, especially since she also had the top floor score. But I could see her being a one and done at Worlds.

As for whether the US dominance will end...we will see...this does seem to be a weaker year for seniors but the juniors coming up seem to be never ending. Malabuyo's floor, Kenlin's beam, Perea's bars (that scored 14.5 having to count an A-skill dismount), Annie Beard's beam and floor from the afternoon session, etc. I'm not necessarily seeing the rest of the world come back with incredible depth either.

 

[OnyxRose81]

I'm shocked that people are shocked that the seniors are a bit weak this year. That was evident to me about two years ago. The juniors have always just looked stronger.

 

[bardtoob]

Jordan, Gabby, Kyla, Aly, Simone, and Laurie smoothly kept the gymnastics world on lockdown for the US.

It will be interesting, now that some have retired and others are on sabbatical from competition, to see who will emerge during the void and to see if they will have staying power.

 

[dramagrrl]

People always bring up Simone's early results, but she also placed second in the AA at the American Cup in 2013. Also, even if no one was thinking of her as the next big thing, the U.S. was rather better off in that post-Olympic year, because Kyla Ross was still competing as a strong all-arounder, Katelyn Ohashi obviously had huge talent (even though her senior elite career didn't end up amounting to much), and there were others who seemed more promising in the pipelines. The thing with the weakness of the current field of U.S. women to me isn't just that it's a weak field - it always is in a post-Olympic rebuilding year - but the fact that none of the seniors look like they have the natural ability or talent to do much more than they displayed at this competition. Might be just my opinion, but that's the way I see things right now.

I do agree that the world field is also pretty weak right now, though - an international field in which Ragan Smith could win the world AA title is pretty sad.

 

[Erin]

I do agree that the world field is also pretty weak right now, though - an international field in which Ragan Smith could win the world AA title is pretty sad.

I would have said the same thing in 2009 about a field where Bridget Sloan could win the world AA title, much as I ended up loving Sloan in NCAA. The next year brought us Aliya Mustafina. A lot can change in a year. (For that matter I might have said that about the 2013 version of Simone who I wasn't totally sold on, even after she won the world title. She didn't really become the legendary gymnast she is now until 2014 if you ask me.)

This year is about the thinnest the US has looked at the senior level since 2009. But there are so many juniors in the pipeline who will be age eligible next year and the year after and so on. I just don't see other countries having that same level of depth (although it would be nice if more countries did have that depth).

 

[Erin]

And for anyone complaining about the all-around field at Worlds this year, it just got a bit weaker...European AA champ Ellie Downie announced she is out of Worlds after having ankle surgery. She's never been the most consistent gymnast but after a great performance at Euros, I thought she was finally coming into her own this year and she was on my short list of contenders in Montreal.

 

[Braulio]

OMG I didn't know about Downey's injury! poor girl

 

[bardtoob]

European champ AA Ellie Downie announced she is out of Worlds after having ankle surgery.

 

[FiveRinger]

Does anyone know if Giulia Steingruber retired? I know her sister died around Europeans and I was so sorry for her. I haven't heard anything else. I wasn't a fan initially but now I really enjoy her and would love to see her win.

 

[ilovepaydays]

Video - Gabby Douglas gave a tour of Nike's NYC office on the Today Show.

Surprised that she still has an active Nike deal - I figured it would have ended at the end of 2016. Said "We'll see - I'm enjoying my time off right now," when asked about 2020.

 

[Coco]

She's been enjoying a somewhat higher profile lately, doing lots of corporate events.

 

[ilovepaydays]

Jake Dalton has officially retired from competitive gymnastics. Inside Gymnastics article.

 

[rhapsody]

Does anyone know if Giulia Steingruber retired? I know her sister died around Europeans and I was so sorry for her. I haven't heard anything else. I wasn't a fan initially but now I really enjoy her and would love to see her win.

She hasn't retired. Last I've heard, she's expecting to return to competition next year.

 

[bardtoob]

1996 European Gymnastics Champs Women's Team & AA (British Broadcast)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oxhq__JcsA

1996 European Gymnastics Champs Women's EF (British Broadcast) with Bogi Interview at the end! And yes, her reason for competing is purely to be defiant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-a_aOhv7iw

ETA: WOW! Only that FX from Lilia could have taken the European AA Title from Bogi!

 

[danafan]

Wow CBC is live streaming all the gymnastics from the World Univeristy Games.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/gymnastics/broadcast

Quite a nice field too.

http://www.intlgymnast.com/index.ph...-for-university-games&catid=2:news&Itemid=166

 

[danafan]

Not surprising but Chris Brooks announced his retirement too.

https://usagym.org/pages/post.html?PostID=20663&prog=

His run to the Olympic team was very emotional for me for some reason. I'll miss watching him compete.

 

[Erin]

USA Gymnastics livstreamed podium training yesterday and then put up a few videos of select routines. I know people weren't excited after Classic, but I'm still happy to see any gymnastics.

Ragan Smith has further upgraded her beam routine from US Classic, adding back in the Patterson dismount that she took out midway through last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAmVpneOZPY

I know her gymnastics isn't everyone's style, but I'm very impressed with all of the upgrades she has added in on bars and beam and with how solid she is looking on both events.

She also has a new floor routine. I'm less impressed with it. I liked her Addams Family routine last year but felt like she had outgrown it this year and I was ready to see her do something a little more mature. Unfortunately, this routine doesn't really fit the bill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKkPQ_e5gls

The Texas Dreams floor routines frustrate me because it's obvious that they pay attention to the choreography aspect, as most of the routines are musical with detailed choreography and many of the gymasts really perform their routines (Ragan is one of them), but then so many of the routines are also so cutesy and cloying and reminiscent of the bad Geza Pozar-style routines. One of the juniors, Annie Beard, is another perfect example of all of these contradictions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-trOUI90ag

Anyway, off of my soapbox - in other podium training thoughts...Riley McCusker looks a lot better than at US Classic although I thought she was still struggling with bars and she only did the full twisting Yurchenko on vault. She confirmed in an interview that she's sticking with the FTY on vault (which is good because that full did not look like it was ready to be a double) and also doing a downgraded beam. I thought Trinity Thomas looked good across all events. Her DTY looked so easy I thought it was a full and had to go back and check multiple times and make sure it was really a double. Ashton Locklear did train bars and says she's competing but also said she's not doing full difficulty yet as she's still rehabbing her shoulder. I thought Morgan Hurd looked a bit inconsistent on her back full on beam. She really needs to hit all 8 events here to erase some of her inconsistency from earlier in the year. I didn't watch much of Victoria Nguyen or Polina Schennikova. Only watched Jade Carey a bit on vault and she was hitting her vaults but they looked messy to me. The only Amanar I saw had a step out of bounds. I'd still send her to Worlds, but I'm not as convinced she is a contender for gold as others seem to be.

 

[her grace]

USAG has a nice article about Jake Dalton's retirement. It highlights his consistency for the team.

“I really just wanted to be someone that my team could count on,” he said. “Something I’ll always hold close is that I don’t think I ever fell in a routine that counted for the team. That was something that I was pretty proud of.”

I'll miss Dalton. Not only was he a consummate team player, he also had the best line and form of the American male gymnasts.

 

[bardtoob]

Ragan Smith looks very solid per the US Nationals Podium training videos. Her 70s dance moves at the end of the beam before the series of split jumps, which I think are supposed to be connected, are funny Bravo to her for upgrading to a Patterson Dismount because she will need it if Hernandez, Raisman and Biles return.

It is interesting to note that the level of difficulty being performed at US Nationals, in general, feels very pre-Raisman. It makes me appreciate that we have been able to see such high level gymnastics recently.

 

[Erin]

USAG has a nice article about Jake Dalton's retirement. It highlights his consistency for the team.

Wow to that quote you posted. I don't think I realized that he had never fallen in team final. Given team USA's penchant for inconsistency, that's pretty remarkable - no wonder he was such a valuable team member. I agree about his line and form too.

 

[FiveRinger]

@Erin, I totally agree with the entire choreography comment. The Americans, with the exception of a few in the last decade, are weak dancers. I would think that this is the time for gymnasts to experiment with different types of dance and choreography in order to improve style, or at the very least, find one and develop it. It's sad that it has been reduced to tumbling and wolf turns, which, I wouldn't care if I never saw again on floor, beam, or anywhere else. Somebody please devalue them ASAP.

One thing that skating has above gymnastics is the practice of sharing choreographers and coaches. I love that. We see it some in gymnastics, but not near enough. I remember Shannon Miller talking about having spent time in Russia with their team and how much she learned. We should be doing more of that. The Americans win meets, but our team is not the one that I like to watch the most and that's sad.

 

[VGThuy]

The U.S. has become 1994-2004 Romanians with more difficulty but even more robotic dancing.

 

[bardtoob]

The U.S. has become 1994-2004 Romanians with more difficulty but even more robotic dancing.

That stands to reason.

 

[Fridge_Break]

Anyone who complains about Rusty at US skating events needs to go to a US gymnastics event and endure John Macready for about 30 seconds, and then realize that Rusty ain't so bad.

 

[Rob]

I'm getting the Day 1 men now but the commentary sound isn't working- I can hear arena noise only. Not bad, no Trautwig.

 

[SpeedySucks]

I'm getting the Day 1 men now but the commentary sound isn't working- I can hear arena noise only. Not bad, no Trautwig.

And then when it did start working, Trautwig said he was working with Tim Daggett and Elfi Shleg, er, Nastia Liukin. I'm sure Nastia was thrilled.

 

[Erin]

And then when it did start working, Trautwig said he was working with Tim Daggett and Elfi Shleg, er, Nastia Liukin. I'm sure Nastia was thrilled.

I must have fast forwarded past that point. God, Al is phoning it in even more than ever. I'm not sure why NBC insists on keeping him in this position. Viewers hate him, he clearly hates it too.