Jess14

It’s things like the no one touch warmups that really show how empty the FIG’s reasoning was in undervaluing Simone’s double double beam dismount. They really want people to believe that they care so much about the gymnasts’ safety when they don’t allow the gymnasts to touch the apparatus before doing routines? They want people to believe that they care about gymnasts’ safety when they went to the open-ended code in the first place? Pul-lease! Both of these things are far more dangerous than pretending like a lot of gymnasts are about to start willy nilly throwing double doubles off beam because it’s rated highly.

They really need to bring the one touch warmups back on event finals. So many athletes looked off today, and I can’t help but think that the lack of a touch warmup is part of it. While I don’t love Jade’s floor routine and would typically prefer the floor title to go to someone with better choreography, I’m really rooting for her to win after today. I felt awful for her. Speaking of choreography, it is way overdue for the US to spend some real time and effort on improving floor choreography and dance. Way overdue.

I actually get the sense that some people are annoyed that she didn’t fall all over the place and cost the team a medal. I think there are some people who badly wanted to see her get knocked down a few pegs, and they’re annoyed that she has the air awareness “excuse,” and that they can’t just call her a choker or failure. Therefore, they just pretend like they don’t get it, even though the twisties has been explained by numerous people in detail at this point. Nothing will make a difference to them.

Suni did it!!!!

Wow…2 out of bounds for Andrade. Suni may pull it out.

Looks like Suni missed her double L turn, but otherwise, great floor routine for her. Not sure it will be enough for gold, but excellent day for her.

The beam scoring has been bizarre all Olympics. I don't know the composition of Andrade's typical beam well enough to know if she missed connections, but her score definitely seems low.

Suni is really showing that she has nerves of skill. She saved both her bars and beam routine. Could have easily been a disaster on both rotations for her, but she pulled both out without major issue.

I definitely think Simone’s history plays a role into it. Outside of people who just love to criticize (and especially criticize black, female athletes who refuse to just shut up and do thrift sport), it’s way more believable that she truly did have a real mental block that would’ve made competing dangerous than to believe that she didn’t. You don’t compete injured and with kidney stones, and stick around for 5 more years, and introduce new skills when you don’t need to just to “give up” during team finals at the Olympics. That doesn’t happen. I also think that the fact that Simone is likeable and generally has such a bright persona etc plays a role. If Svetlana Khorkina had done the same, a lot of people would’ve said she was just being a diva. People are more likely to give people who they like or relate to a break than otherwise. It’s not right, but it’s reality.

Live streams of the events are new though. They’ve had those the last few Olympics at least (I remember watching the 2012 finals on my phone at work bc it occurred midday in the US). NBC still managed to show way more routines in the past in prime time.

I loathe the gymnastics coverage this year. I don’t ever remember seeing so few gymnastics routines in the past. I remember rewatching the 2000 women’s team and AA finals not too long ago on YouTube. The Americans were not in contention for medals at all, but NBC still showed a ton of routines from the other teams and gymnasts. They actually told the story of the competition. The coverage this Olympics has been dreadful

Believe me, I get the preference for AAers, but is there any basis for the notion that gymnasts are too tired to compete their individual events if they carry a higher load in team finals? Just looking at the US team, Carly Patterson did fine in AA/BB finals, Simone did fine in all of her event finals and AA in 2016, Nastia and Shawn performed very well in their later events. Gabby did well in the AA. While she stumbled in her other events, I think it’s speculative to assume she would’ve hit her EF routines if Maroney had been forced to do floor on one leg in TF or had they subbed in an alternate, especially since Gabby had never been the most consistent gymnast on the national team. Don’t get me wrong, I like to see gymnasts share the load in TFs too, but I just think mandates create more issues than they solve. Coaches are rarely going to take a gymnast who can only contribute one event in TFs unless that gymnast is truly world class and their score on that event is too high to leave off or unless the remaining teammates are simply better on the other 3 events and maximize the scores. In that case, they’re not going to put up a gymnast who can’t score as high just to share the load.

Was Sydney 4 up, 3 count or 5 up, 4 count? I can’t remember. Regardless, I agree with the 4 up, 3 count. Thats a good format. I don’t think there should an apparatus minimum per gymnast, however. I also don’t think every member should have to compete at all. I think specialists are fine - it would’ve been a travesty if McKayla Maroney’s vault wasn’t at the Olympics due to an arbitrary rule. And on the other hand, if a team legitimately has 4 amazing AA gymnasts, like Russia in 2000, why shouldn’t they be able to just use those 4 and sit the other 2? I feel like beyond setting the format for finals, the FIG should have no say in how teams or lineups are constructed.

The team is going back to being 5 members in 2024. That’s still too small, but it’s better than 4.

I do agree that her team perhaps should’ve recognized that there was an issue and intervened. However, in terms of pulling out before Tokyo, I feel like that’s a “hindsight is 20/20” type of thing. If Simone thought that this (mental block in team finals) was a very real possibility, I’m sure she would’ve have pulled out sooner. While she certainly wanted to repeat in the AA, in terms of her legacy, she didn’t have anything prove coming into the games, and as we see with McKayla Maroney and Laurie Hernandez still having commercials, she would still be making money from endorsements if she didn’t compete. So, while I also suspect that these issues have been going on for a while, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that she wasn’t confident that she could make it through the games without a major issue. Similarly, I don’t necessarily think an athlete who snaps their achilles during team finals should’ve pulled out earlier, even though that athlete was probably dealing with achilles pain for a while too. He/she just probably didn’t think it would snap at that moment.

That’s certainly possible, but if I had to guess, I would think that the issues have been going on for a while. Although I thought that Simone would be her usual amazing self on the competition floor at the Olympics, I actually think that she looked a bit off at trials too. Also, her teammates seemed to imply that she had been having issues in the training gym. I think that’s why they didn’t seem as shocked as they otherwise might have when she pulled out of her final events. I think the pressure just built and built and built, and then the covid year and families not being allowed in Tokyo probably exacerbated it. I also think the lack of a real training gym may impede her ability to compete again at the games. If she’s unsure of herself, she really needs to be able to throw some vaults and floor passes into a pit, not just a soft mat. I assume they don’t have access to that in the regular Olympic training gym(s).

This is true, but only if a gymnast from the same country actually qualified and didn’t make the finals because of the 2-per country rule. So, Jade Carey and McKayla Skinner will/would compete AA and vault if Simone ends up withdrawing from everything. However, an American would not replace her in the bars, beam, or floor finals because none of the other US gymnasts (other than the ones who are already qualified) were Top 8 on those events during qualifying.

Yes, that does seem to be the main issue. In the past, they would show some gymnastics and then go to swimming, back to gymnastics, etc. They didn’t try to pack everything into one segment. I wonder if they decided differently this year due to the swimming schedule or for another reason.

Can we ban wolf turns? I think that has to be one of the ugliest skills in gymnastics, and everyone is doing them now.

The “lost in the air” comment definitely was disingenuous, but even in real time, I thought Simone’s warmup amanar looked very off, and her teammates also realized it because they asked her if she was ok. So, I don’t think that it’s totally far-fetched that Tim and Nastia would also pick up on the fact that something was wrong. Although, I don’t think he used the “lost” language in real time.

Yeah, that’s exactly of what I mean. While Jade and McKayla had strong vaults, the actual 4-person team had the weakest vaulting difficulty of a US team since 2004; yet, they were talked about like they couldn’t lose. Now, part of it is that the COP has brought the vault SVs back down to earth, so there’s not as big of a difference between the amanar and DTY, as there was back when the US was the basically the “United States of Amanar” with Gabby, Maroney, Wieber, Raisman, Ross (a few times), Price, etc. all throwing them. But vault is just one example. In general, outside of Simone and Suni on bars, the team didn’t seem as strong as the past 2 teams (which were optimized for 3 up, 3 count) and a lot of that was due to team construction.

I think that there absolutely would be a different reaction if Lebron or Brady pulled themselves out of a championship game citing mental health, but that’s a bad thing, IMO, not a reason to treat Simone like crap. Dangerous aspects of gymnastics aside, mental health is a real thing, and people need to stop acting like it’s only ok for someone to take themselves out when they’re physically injured. That goes for male athletes too. And I doubt we’re about to see a rash of top athletes pulling out of major events. While pressure is something every athlete has to conquer, this was obviously beyond that. Simone has pulled it together and excelled under pressure for years. Clearly, something was seriously, seriously wrong, or she would’ve continued. We have to respect that. Yes! Frankly, I thought this was obvious before they got to Tokyo. I used to consume elite gymnastics, but the Nassar scandal turned me off, and I’ve grown to enjoy collegiate gymnastics more. So, I’m not as familiar with this group, and I thought I was just missing something with the COP, etc, when I watched trials and thought that the team seemed strong, but not out of this world spectacular, like the media made it seem. The 2012 and 2016 teams were both stronger (I mean, the 2012 team had an amanar that they did not even need to use in team finals!), IMO. This team seemed almost entirely reliant on Simone and Suni’s bars. This isn’t a criticism of them. They were still great and a silver is nothing to be ashamed of, but the media never should’ve pretended like they were untouchable. Some of the attacks on the Chinese team were absolutely racist. However, the age accusations did not arise bc of their appearances. I remember following gym boards back then, and there was talk (way before the Olympics rolled around and the media got wind of the story) about paperwork showing that their birth years were recorded differently than the birth year that they used when they became useful to the team, and people very familiar Chinese system and team who basically said that they would “age” them if needed. This was particularly obvious with He Kexin, who came on to the scene very late. Personally, I think He Kexin’s bar set belonged at the Olympics. Her 2008 bar set is one of the greatest gymnastics routines in history, but it’s still cheating. Plenty of gymnasts have missed out and haven’t been the same once the Olympics that they were eligible for rolled around (Rebecca Bross is a good example of someone who just missed the cut in 2008, but was too injured by the time 2012 rolled around). Hell, He Kexin, while still great, did not swing bars the same in 2012 as in 2008. Interesting that people like Bridget Sloan’s commentary. She commentates collegiate gymnastics, and I’ve always thought the consensus was that she’s awful lol.

If you can afford a $4 million dollar condo, it seems to me that you can afford to go buy your own Tiffany safe. That request seemed a bit ridiculous, but the request to re-paint did not. The vast majority of buyers will not want those vivid designs or wallpaper in their house. It seemed like they should’ve seen that request coming (if they did not). I also thought it was funny that Tyler was so unhappy by that lowball offer when he lowballed Fredrik’s condo by a much bigger amount. Regardless, I do like how Tyler deals with his clients. It sucks for Ryan to lose out on that building, but does he really want to rent? I thought a few years ago, he was asked to rent out a building and wasn’t super happy. Maybe I’m misremembering though. Fredrik was a bit less over the top in this episode, which was a relief. In non- episode news, I saw on Instagram that he and Derek are moving again, and I’m curious as to where. I’m not sure if they owned or rented their house in LA, but it’s rather spectacular from the photos (and the rent is like $65k, so it better be!). I still like Kirsten and generally enjoy her segments.

Oh goodness. That may be what happened, and if so, I find this whole thing to be rather silly. They’re picking a dance team, not discussing top secret, classified government intel. Not to mention that they literally bring tv cameras into their team interactions and deliberations. If this was actually about privacy, they wouldn’t do that in the first place. It’s just about controlling the narrative.

My favorite is Season 7. I base my favorites on how much I liked the rookie class, and that is my favorite rookie class. I do agree that it went on pretty long however. Season 8 or the one where Meredith made it are my least favorites. Season 8 had way too much Morgan and Kaitlin, and that group of rookies is generally unremarkable to me. Similarly, I find the rookie group who made it with Meredith to be rather blah