Before I start my completely un-professional review of this competition am I the only one that thinks the US sending it’s A team to this Jesolo meet is completely ridiculous? Is there really a need to put Simone Biles up against Canada and Italy’s B team ? Does it some how make Marta feel special because she can beat up on the less fortunate by 17 points? I am sorry it just irks me. Simone should have stayed home from this meet. So should have Kyla actually because the last thing the US needs is either of these gymnasts getting injured for a meet that means jack shit to anyone else in the world but Marta. Aly and Gabrielle needed to prove themselves. Bailie Key needed a first competition as a senior especially after she tanked 2 camps in a row and the Juniors are juniors so let them compete as much as possible but there was not a single reason in the world to send Simone to this meet.
Okay so back to the actual competition.
Senior Results
The Results speak for themselves. AA winner Simone Biles is super human and she out classed every single competitor on every single event at this meet. She had the best 4 routines on all 4 events in the Team/AA competition. She really doesn’t make sense. I know she is power on power but she just doesn’t miss. SUPER HUMAN!
Bailie Key has a pretty good Senior debut finishing 2nd. Kind of interesting she finished second in the AA but didn’t make a single event finals. (she was added in to bars finals when Simone was pulled)She is going to have to clean up some bars and beam if she wants a shot at competing with Supergirl Simone but she has a year to do it so we will see what happens. She’s growing on me:) I missed her vault but was impressed with her floor. She is turning into quite the dancer now that Kim Zmeskal has stopped trying to remind the world that she was a former AA champion by giving everyone a crapon copy of her ugly ass floor routine (and yes I meant to write crapon instead of carbon)
Aly Raisman, what a comeback. She finished 3rd in the AA after Kyla’s crash (more on that later) but was very impressive overall. She needs to work on her flexibility again like she did in 2012 but she’s got most of the skills to compete with every but Simone already. Overall I felt Aly was underscored the entire meet. Not on her vault because her form is just tragic on that event but her bars were great for her (nearly a leg separation) and on beam her leaps were lacking but not nearly as bad as the judges made it seem. They seemed to ignore the connection issues with certain other gymnasts but not with Aly. Aly’s tumbling is back but I don’t really like the floor music. Will be very interesting to see what she brings next year.
Kyla Ross finished 10th after her usual routines until…. Her DTY really flies off that vaulting table. It was huge and IMO underscored compared to what everyone else showed for similar scores. She hit her upgrades on bars and hit beam and then came floor. I don’t know if anyone else noticed but there was a lot of bouncy landings going on in that corner of the floor and it claimed Kyla as it’s biggest victim. After her Arabian double front she went flying attempting to throw her stag leap. It looked like she was close to hitting her head too. Glad she was okay. It could have been a lot worse.
Maggie Nichols looked pretty good overall too. I felt she was nit picked to death by the judges compared to others. She’s lost some weight and it has really helped her lines but she does some weird thing with her knee’s especially on beam. I don’t know.
Okay so what you all have been waiting for my impression of Gabrielle. I thought she looked pretty good especially considering how messy she was in podium training. Her DTY wasn’t bad. She had to downgrade the bar routine from what she showed in Podium because she wasn’t hitting it but she was fairly deducted so I had no problem with her score. Same on floor (5.5 start value) but on beam even though she hit I found her routine lacking anything of quality but the one big skill. Her missed connections were credited but that issue belongs with the dumbass judges who refuse to do their job but only for gymnasts they like. Overall she needs a lot more difficulty if she wants a chance to compete for a medal in the AA and to compete with Simone she needs a lot more than that. It was a good start. She stayed on all 4 events which is something to be proud of.
I have not seen the Event Finals yet.
So what did you think???
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Event Finals
Junior Results
Team
All Around
Event Finals