Gymnastics News #23: Defying Gravity

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Hedwig said:
for some reasons all the come-back only for the Olympics don't sit well with me. I know - if they make it to the team it is mostly because they are better than others and they earn the spot but this focus on the Olympics and that only is a bit sad.
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An article in the Washington Post:

 
Whoa, Douglas is training at WOGA? That should be interesting in terms of how her skills will progress.
 
Hedwig said:
yes, that I get.

but Gabby? after two Olympics? She gives me a vibe that is just sad.
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This same kind of comment (beyond Douglas) is posted time after time in figure skating, too, but then you have people scrutinizing skaters who can’t easily move into a new life once they hang up the skates.

If they are willing to work hard to get back to the level making them competitive enough to make the team, then why not? Olympic sports certainly don’t get easier with age.
 
If gymnastics is a real sport, or figure skating for that matter, then the most capable of competing at the highest level should go to the most competitive highest level competitions.

Some people think it is more like a high school graduate trying to be Senior Prom Queen where the Senior Prom is the Olympics.
 
Rob said:
but a team with 3 AA OGMs (Suni, Simone, Gabby) would be historic wouldn't it?
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Even 2 would be historic. I don't think a world or olympic team has ever had two past* Olympic AA champions on it. I believe the last time we even had two past Olympic AA champions actively competing in the same year was 1981 (Comaneci and Davydova, who competed at University Games and World Championships respectively, but not against each other and obviously they were not teammates).

*I say past meaning two gymnasts who were Olympic AA champions prior to the competition, so not a situation like 2016 (Douglas and Biles) or 202(1) (Biles and Lee).

The way I see it, gymnasts are competing longer and longer, peaking much later and this is very good for the sport in general. Douglas is almost the same age as Ellie Black for example who is still doing good gymnastics and achieving historic results. Yes it's a lot harder to make the US team than the Canadian team but still. If Douglas still wants to do gymnastics and her body is allowing her to do it, I'm happy for her. I can't assume what her motivation is but I hope and choose to believe she's doing it because it makes her happy.
 
I am not sure how to feel about Gabby's come back. I get the sad vibe as well, but let's remember that she basically retired right before the Larry Nassar story came out. Her retirement was the season after he was fired and she would have been one of the gymnasts interviewed in 2015, I believe.

She has also had to listen to no end of BS from people who feel she was unfairly placed on the team over Maggie Nichols or Mykayla Skinner.


None of her teammates have ever defended her selection even though it made mathematical and strategic sense.

That has to hurt a lot.

I mean, there was a freaking Netflix documentary about it.

Some of those teammates, however, were quick to congratulate her on social media for her come back.
 
Coco said:
I am not sure how to feel about Gabby's come back. I get the sad vibe as well, but let's remember that she basically retired right before the Larry Nassar story came out. Her retirement was the season after he was fired and she would have been one of the gymnasts interviewed in 2015, I believe.

She has also had to listen to no end of BS from people who feel she was unfairly placed on the team over Maggie Nichols or Mykayla Skinner.


None of her teammates have ever defended her selection even though it made mathematical and strategic sense.

That has to hurt a lot.

I mean, there was a freaking Netflix documentary about it.

Some of those teammates, however, were quick to congratulate her on social media for her come back.
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Facts!
 
tony said:
This same kind of comment (beyond Douglas) is posted time after time in figure skating, too, but then you have people scrutinizing skaters who can’t easily move into a new life once they hang up the skates.

If they are willing to work hard to get back to the level making them competitive enough to make the team, then why not? Olympic sports certainly don’t get easier with age.
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yes, and I am one who mostly defended these people.

I don't know why Gabby's comeback gives me this sad vibe. I think it is because it seemed like she already did not belong on the last team and was the odd one out while the rest seemed to get along so great.
And her comments about Lassar and basically first not supporting the other women was hard to take - but then people who are abused react in a lot of different ways.
So maybe it is more me than her.
 
Coco said:
None of her teammates have ever defended her selection even though it made mathematical and strategic sense.

That has to hurt a lot.

I mean, there was a freaking Netflix documentary about it.

Some of those teammates, however, were quick to congratulate her on social media for her come back.
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If I was her teammate back then, I might have felt unsure about her selection since she was essentially being taken for bars and Douglas missed her bar routines at nationals and Olympic Trials.

It’s nice to hear her teammates are supporting her now, however.
 
Theatregirl1122 said:
I don’t know that I’ve seen a lot of athletes defend any specific selection.
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That's a fair point. It's just that I've never seen a specific selection be so openly criticized to the point that Gabby's selection was to where defending a teammate would be warranted.

her grace said:
If I was her teammate back then, I might have felt unsure about her selection since she was essentially being taken for bars and Douglas missed her bar routines at nationals and Olympic Trials.

It’s nice to hear her teammates are supporting her now, however.
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I see your point. For me, Gabby's selection still made the most sense given what Team Russia's strengths were, the team finals format, and the gulf between the top 3 UB scorers (Douglas being one of those scores), Douglas' potential UB score, and the rest of the gymnasts' UB scoring potential. Also, Douglas could fit in on every other apparatus and provide a very competitive score in case something happened to one of the top 3 scorers on the other apparatuses, which we saw happen in various competitions, including the 2020 Olympics.

I don't think it would have been unfair if another gymnast was selected instead, but I also think Douglas' selection wasn't unreasonable either. What kind of gets me the most is that there was a strong sense that there was a noticeable rift between Douglas and most of the other gymnasts in contention and maybe even between her and some of her other teammates that seemed like ostracizing. Then Douglas looking like she wasn't enjoying her second Olympics (a far cry from how she gelled with the team during 2015 Worlds) just added fuel to that fire. Then that Netflix documentary pushing the narrative that Douglas' selection was completely unfair and a result of machinations of USAG was pretty bold and kind of verified that some sort of rift happened for some people.
 
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her grace said:
If I was her teammate back then, I might have felt unsure about her selection since she was essentially being taken for bars and Douglas missed her bar routines at nationals and Olympic Trials.

It’s nice to hear her teammates are supporting her now, however.
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She hit UB both nights of Trials, unless you are referring to the extra stalder between her endo 1/2 to shaposh 1/2. I wouldn't call that a miss.

In the five routines (Classics, both nights of Nationals and Trials), she had one score below 15, and that sub 15 routine didn't have a fall. If you take Ashton Locklear's and Rachel Gowey's bars scores out of the mix Gabby was a close 2nd (Classics), 4th at Nationals and 2nd at Trials.

So she clearly belonged on the team for bars, imo.
 
Not to beat a dead horse but...

I think the selection for the 2016 Olympics was a lot more clear cut than people made it out to be. They took the top 3 all arounders, who were excellent on vault, beam, and floor. That left them with a clear weakness on bars, however a) they needed a 4th person to go on vault, beam, and floor in qualifications and b) in a 5-4-3 format, they didn't want to take gymnasts who couldn't be used on other events in an emergency.

If you just cared about bars, you would have taken Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear. Madison was a capable all arounder who finished 8th in the all around and was a reasonable competitor on beam and floor. Her main weakness was on vault, which was a strength for the rest of the team. She was also the reigning bars world champion. Taking her was a bit of a no brainer.

Again, if you need someone to really bring something on bars, your remaining choices were Gabby or Ashton, but Ashton was not usable on any other event. She only competed beam and bars at trials and finished second to last on beam.

This was the first year of 5-4-3, and I'm sure that the US were not willing to risk a one event gymnast in that format, so Ashton is out. Gabby was the only remaining bar worker who was actually better than Simone and Laurie. Additionally, looking at a team of Laurie, Simone, Aly, and Madison, aside from needing a 3rd top bar score, you'd want a 4th good vault score, which is Madison's weakness. Gabby scored over 15 on both of her vaults at trials as well. Honestly, I think she was the only reasonable choice.

MyKayla Skinner, Ragan Smith, and Maggie Nichols could not have improved the U.S.'s biggest weakness, which was bars.
  • MyKayla could have improved the U.S. vault score, but the U.S. already won vault by over a point by taking 3 of our top 4 vaulters.
  • Ragan and Maggie could have been the 4th gymnast on beam, but they were not scoring much higher than Madison and lower than Lori, Aly, and Simone, so they just didn't add anything. And the U.S. won beam and the teams closest to them weren't even Russia.
  • Same thing on floor. Maggie, Ragan, and MyKayla were scoring below Aly, Simone, and Laurie. They were slightly above Madison, but only by about 0.1.
There was definitely no reason to take Ragan or Maggie, because they would not have been used in team finals at all if the rest of the team was Laurie, Madison, Simone, and Aly.

Athlete A presents Maggie as having been robbed, but unfortunately, I don't think there was any real reason to take her or Ragan. Even for alternate status, Ragan and MyKayla beat Maggie in the all around.

Ashton, as I've mentioned, was the only one who could have added on bars, but that is the only event that she would do in quals or finals. I don't think that was a risk the U.S. was willing to take for an increase of about 0.6 over Gabby or even 0.8 over Simone. If you look at how things actually went, Ashton probably had the biggest argument for being included over Gabby, because Gabby did only do bars in finals, but, as we saw in 2008 and 2020, an injury could easily have changed that. That being said, Gabby's Olympic score was 15.766 (qualified 3rd for finals), a massive improvement over her trials score, which would likely have made it so that Ashton actually did not increase the score at all.

The only other person who would have gone in team finals was MyKayla Skinner. MyKayla would have given us 0.3 over Laurie on vault, and could have gone on beam and floor and scored about the same as Gabby in qualifications. However, we would have had to use Laurie on bars in team finals. Based on trials, that would have cost us about 0.3, which would have wiped out the advantage of having MyKayla on vault. Laurie never competed bars at the Olympics, but based on how well Gabby did on bars, the actual cost would have been more like 0.8.

Not only that, but Gabby was a much more experienced competitor than any of the other 3. If it's a wash between someone who had the poise to become a double Olympic gold medalist last time and had won a world all around silver just the year before and someone who had never faced Olympic pressure before, tie has to go to the person who has shown they can handle it.

Hindsight is 20/20, but Gabby finished 3rd in the AA in qualifications. Having seen the Olympics, it's impossible to argue against choosing her. It was a tighter decision at the time, but honestly, I think not a very difficult decision in the end. And certainly, my guess is that the final discussion was Gabby vs. Ashton (and maybe MyKayla) and that Maggie Nichols and Ragan Smith really weren't in the conversation.
 
apnews.com

Suspect in Larry Nassar stabbing said ex-doctor made lewd remark watching Wimbledon, AP source says

A prisoner suspected of stabbing Larry Nassar at a federal penitentiary in Florida said the disgraced former sports doctor provoked the attack by making a lewd comment while they were watching a Wimbledon tennis match.
apnews.com apnews.com
Did anyone notice this? Allegedly, the inmate charged with stabbing Nassar did so because Nassar made a lewd comment about wanting to see girls play at Wimbledon. Ugh.
 
Rob said:
apnews.com

Suspect in Larry Nassar stabbing said ex-doctor made lewd remark watching Wimbledon, AP source says

A prisoner suspected of stabbing Larry Nassar at a federal penitentiary in Florida said the disgraced former sports doctor provoked the attack by making a lewd comment while they were watching a Wimbledon tennis match.
apnews.com apnews.com
Did anyone notice this? Allegedly, the inmate charged with stabbing Nassar did so because Nassar made a lewd comment about wanting to see girls play at Wimbledon. Ugh.
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I get that this is news, crime news, but this creep does not deserve to be mentioned alongside athletes or women or anyone in this sport. That's my two cents.
 
Randomly came across a live feed for US Classic podium training- Simone has definitely been training for a while, she didn't look rusty at all, but different skill selections and easing off the twisting. Bars dismount with a full in, beam she now starts with a switch leap-switch half-back pike mount and full in dismount. Floor she warmed up full twisting double layout, Biles I, double layout and what looked like front full step out to double-double but the light was bad so not sure on that. Vault she did three Yurchenko double pikes, one slightly under, one way overrotated and the third also overrotated but she managed to stand it up. New FX music is an instrumental of Unicorn which was Israel's Eurovision entry this year. But still edited to end with her "oooh" trademark. Still better than a lot of the FX she's had in the past. Looking forward to tomorrows competition.
 
floskate said:
New FX music is an instrumental of Unicorn which was Israel's Eurovision entry this year. But still edited to end with her "oooh" trademark.
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Ugggggh. I was really, really hoping that would be gone forever. It is so "cringe", as the kids would say.
 
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