For starters, congratulations to Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin for earning their spots to Beijing. Like we all didn’t see that one coming hehe. But there were numerous surprises to me and here they go…
1. Jana Bieger. First off, Tim Daggett was talking about how the Olympic Team needs at least one female coach. Huh? I DID NOT know about this rule! How crazy is it that someone can get on the team based off the sex of their coach??? Hmmm, notice Jana’s bar scores were a bit higher here for Trials. But honestly, Jana was one of the bigger surprises to me. Before yesterday I had written her off completely. Now it appears as if she can get that final spot. I do really like her. I know she hasn’t got the best form but I still like her.
2. Chellsie Memmel rocks the house AGAIN. She actually beat Nastia’s AA score which was a huge accomplishment for her. Most importantly though, I think she has solidified her spot as the 3rd beam worker for the US, and at this point I would put her in the 3rd floor spot as well. I love how she sticks her landings these days! Bars dismount stuck two days in a row and beam stuck (and just a tiny hop the first day.) I mean, it’s not even that Chellsie finally made her comeback, but in some ways I think she is better than ever.
3. WHO IS GOING TO GET THE 6TH OLYMPIC SPOT? All of the front runners had huge errors. Both Bridget Sloan and Shayla Worley did a poor job today. Bridget’s full-in on floor scared the hell outta me. Is this what could put Jana on the team? Honestly, after Nationals I thought Sloan. Now I am not sure at all. Can hardly speculate.
4. I felt bad for Nastia. She looked sad a couple of times. But I still think she will be totally prepared by Beijing. I mean, she can FALL off bars in prelims and still qualify to finals. Also, I think she was scored completely fair minus floor. She got credit for that double turn again which she didn’t complete. Interesting note on over scoring: Last year before World’s Liukin and Johnson both took the double turns out of their floor routines (I can’t remember if this was BEFORE prelims though) because they weren’t getting the turn all the way round. So judges, please don’t give Shawn and Nastia credit for skills that are incomplete! I know both girls/coaches are smart enough to know if the skill is incomplete, but I still think it takes away from how important these skills are to overall scores when it comes to training. Maybe I am wrong.
5. Shawn was her usual awesome self. I love that kid.
6. Samantha Peszek is totally spot number 5 for Beijing. I really can’t see that not happening. Filling the vault gap is more important than the floor gap because I think we have that spot covered between Memmel or Liukin. And Sam shows the strongest DTY in the field.
7. Ouch Ivana Hong. You’re the alternate. You, Mattie Larson, and I think one of Bieger, Worley, or Sloan.
8. When NBC said that they might announce a third spot, I was so hoping for that! It would have been cool to see Alicia Sacramone get her moment. Her fluff piece totally made me cry yesterday.
So who is going to be in that last spot? Here is how I would shape up the team for Beijing:
Prelims-
VT- Johnson, Sacramone, Peszek, Liukin, Memmel
UB- Liukin, Memmel, ??????, Johnson, Pezsek
BB- Johnson, Liukin, Memmel, Sacramone, Peszek and or ?????
FX- Johnson, Sacramone, Memmel, Pezsek, Liukin
Team Finals:
VT- Johnson, Sacramone, Peszek
UB- Liukin, Memmel, ??????
BB- Johnson, Liukin, Memmel
FX- Johnson, Sacramone, Memmel
We shall see what happens. I will listen out for the rumors on how Shayla, Bridget, Ivana, and Jana are doing at camp. By the way, NBC already has videos up of tonight.
Next stop Beijing!
17 Comments
June 22, 2008 at 10:29 pm
[...] Gymnastics and stuff – Olympic Trials Conclude With Lots of Surprises [...]
June 22, 2008 at 10:40 pm
In the FIG rule book, it does state that one of the two coaching staff must be a female.
June 22, 2008 at 10:42 pm
John-
Thanks for the info!!!
What the HELL is Tim Daggett talking about then???
June 22, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Marta could serve that role. They won’t pick a team member for the coach.lol
June 22, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Or Liwen, Shawn’s other coach, who is usually outta the spotlight but who Chow says does just as much with Shawn.
June 22, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Chellsie also has a female coach
June 22, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Jana’s sloppy form drives me nuts, but I can’t help but pull for her to get the number 6 spot. Her consistency should seal it, I think. Bridget, Shayla and Ivana seem emotionally and/or physically lacking at this point, although they are all much prettier bar workers than Jana.
June 22, 2008 at 11:15 pm
From FIG’s Article 2 – Regulation for coaches:
2.1.1 Qualifying Competition and Team Final Competition for:
* complete teams – 1 female and 1 male coach or 2 female coaches; if only 1 coach, then the coach may be male.
I believe for the USAG, each gymnast brings along 1 (primary) coach to the Olympics (I believe any second coach may come along, but at personal expense and unofficial capacity). In 2004, both Fong and Barutyan were on the floor because they have 2 gymnasts on the floor (McCool and Humphrey).
Johnson – male coach
Liukin – male coach
Memmel – male coach
Sacramone – male coach
Peszek – male coach
If Bieger goes to Beijing, then her mom will serve as an assistant coach on the floor — in the same capacity as Barutyan during the World 2007 team final (that’s why they chose her instead of Fong).
June 22, 2008 at 11:21 pm
If you look at the 2007 worlds, the team head coach was Chow with Barutyan as the assistant coach (instead of Liukin), and Barutyan was on the floor during the team final even though her gymnast (Hong) was not slated to compete on any event.
June 22, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Jana is only consistent on UB. Her other events looked horrible especially floor.
June 22, 2008 at 11:22 pm
i feel bad for nastia…it was like she was not herself
June 22, 2008 at 11:26 pm
TCO-
I LOVE people commenting and speaking with each other about gymnastics! The only thing I don’t want on here is just blatant rudeness, name calling, etc. If you disagree, of course please say! That is what discussion and debate is all about! There have been a couple of people who don’t word their disagreements nicely, but whatever. I am a laid back person and just don’t want profanity or stuff on here. I try to keep my dislikes out of my posts though it does leak out sometimes. I like your comments, by all means keep them coming!
John- OOPS! I thought your first comment said that the FIG said coaches DON’T have to be of both genders!
Emily- You hit the nail on the head. I completely agree.
June 22, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Amy-
yeah. I felt bad too. But you know, I think it is better to be making mistakes now instead of Beijing. Carly messed up her signature event at the 04′ Trials and she did spectacularly during Athens.
June 23, 2008 at 12:29 am
audgator, I agree! I think this is even better she HATES second place and it will only make her work that much harder. To me it looked like she was trying to hard and over thinking things and thats were the problems were coming from!
June 23, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Here is the PH performance of all the guys in the “selection group”, ranked from the highest average performance to the lowest:
Name AVG STDEV range r less r more
Hamm, P. 14.90 0.55 1.35 -0.55 0.80
Artemev 14.79 0.66 1.45 -0.59 0.86
Tomita 14.79 0.60 1.40 -0.84 0.56
Alvarez 14.60 0.20 0.45 -0.20 0.25
Hamm, M. 14.43 0.33 0.75 -0.27 0.48
McNeil 14.35 0.82 1.95 -0.90 1.05
Bhavsar 14.10 0.48 1.00 -0.70 0.30
Durante 14.10 0.66 1.50 -0.55 0.95
Tan 14.06 0.52 1.15 -0.66 0.34
Hagerty 14.00 0.38 0.80 -0.50 0.30
Horton 13.71 0.27 0.65 -0.31 0.34
Sender 13.41 0.28 0.65 -0.31 0.34
Townsend 12.98 0.51 1.05 -0.57 0.48
AVG STDEV range r less r more
Group AVG 14.17 0.48 1.09 -0.54 0.54
1. First note, how close Sasha is to Paul Hamm in average PH performance! Even with misses! (Guess what, Paul misses too!)
2. Also how Tomita and Alvarez are also reasonable here. By the same math arguments as shown for Sasha, either of these two would be an improvement over Spring as well for the entire team performance. Sasha is still the best, by a very slight amount over Tomita, because of his PB (fills in 3rd if Spring gone), even though both look same on PH.
3. Next look at the standard deviation column. Look how BIG the numbers are. The average standard deviation for any performer is about 5 tenths. That means a sixth of the time, he will be 5 tenths below his average and a sixth of the time, 0.5 above. PH is the MOST variable event, just in general. (if you want, I can calculate it, but trust me…I’ve been wading trhough these numbers a lot.
4. Range is maybe an easier metric to understand. This is just the spread from worst to best performance, out of the 4 performances for each of the competitors. Note, that the average range for the grouping is over 1 full point. This means take a gymnast, have him do 4 PH routines, and you should expect a full point difference from best to worst (iow a fall!)
5. Note how the BEST gymnasts have very large ranges and standard devations. Sure, Sasha is on the more inconsistent side (0.66 STDEV and 1.45 range). But Paul Hamm is almost the same: 0.55 STDEV and 1.35 range). Does anyone think that we should not have Paul Hamm compete because of the very real possibility he falls?
6. Range less and range more is not so important. But to explain: I’m showing the downside and upside from worst and best recent PH result. Note again, how similar the “risk” is from Paul Hamm OR from Sasha.
June 24, 2008 at 3:05 am
re: Nastia
Reports from trials say that she actually had the flu all week and was exhausted. Which I can believe because she was completely not herself and I doubt it was the pressure since: #1 she’s a gamer, and #2 she had to have known that she was getting an automatic berth.
June 26, 2008 at 1:38 am
i was kinda dissapointed with nastia because i was in the arena during bar warm ups and she did her routine perfectly and i saw her stick her dismount