16 thoughts on “2017’s Best Scores: April Update”

1. Incredibly helpful, thanks – particularly as we’re all getting familiar with the new CoP and trying to recalibrate our understandings of what a good score is.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   • Thank you! People always complain when I put something like this up because it’s “not fair that Americans have high scores from [insert competition here]” and I’m like calm down, it’s really not that serious?! And most people like to see the scores arranged in some kind of order to see how everything’s looking in a given year. Like, now we know the best bar workers are all around 6.1-6.2 in D and aiming for like a 14.5+ total score if they want to medal at worlds. It’s a good way to approximate things like that to get a better idea of what’s “good” and what’s not so good. I’m glad you think so too!

     LikeLike

     Reply

2. Is it possible that next year’s team of the USA solely consists of first-year seniors and one other? I don’t see a way around O’Keefe, Malabuyo and Perea.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   • Most likely, yeah! But a couple of this year’s new seniors do have promise so we could always see some of them — like Morgan, Jordan, or Riley especially — really grow into their difficulty and end up being solid competitors. They have what it takes to match Perea and O’Keefe but just seem to struggle a bit more.

     LikeLike

     Reply

   • If McCusker continues to progress she’ll probably surpass at least one of those juniors. Hurd is capable of much more than she’s shown. Hurd also has all the difficulty, if she focuses on cleaning up what she already has, she’ll probably be the best in the US. Smith could make waves, but I doubt her ability to stay strong throughout an entire season, to me it looks like the Texas Dreams girls tend to start out with a bang and go downward as the season goes on. Malabuyos best meet last season was Gymnix and then her scores went downward at domestic meets. The same with Ragen at Pac Rims. If Locklear gets her 2016 level bar routine back, I could see Liukin putting her in as a specialist. And I’m sure we’ll get a surprise from one of the seniors from this year or incoming seniors for next year. We won’t see all of the main competitors until classics, and we typically don’t see them at full strength until nationals.

     LikeLike

     Reply

     • I actually don’t see that much potential in McCusker. Don’t get me wrong, she’s incredibly clean, a hard worker but I think Morgan for example has a tad more talent and brings all of the above, too. I have seen her throwing a Moors, it’s incredible! McCusker will be on the National Team, no doubt, but I think next year she’s gonna have a hard time making world champs. This year I’m 100% sure she’s going 🙂
       For Locklear, I don’t really know. The specialist spot really favors her and I would love her to have a run at Toyko 2020. But there a a couple girls up-and-coming who could have really strong (medal worthy) bar routines as well, so we’ll see. The US improves on bars.

       LikeLike

       Reply

3. I love Simone, but worlds will be so much more exciting and nerve racking to watch without her there. (I’m assuming she won’t be doing a comeback by then). Don’t get me wrong, she deserved every medal she got, I loved watching her and I can’t wait to see her come back if she chooses to, but knowing that she most likely would win AA and a couple of event medals kind of took some of the excitement away.

   LikeLike

   Reply

   • YUP. She was fabulous and watching her do what she did was amazing, but this will be a different kind of amazing without her around because it just adds to the excitement of a competition. Last quad it was like, let’s get excited about who could win silver! hahaha

     LikeLike

     Reply

     • And not even that most of the time as the second US athlete took the AA silver most of the time 😀 I’m so excited for worlds this year!

       LikeLiked by 1 person

       Reply

       • I’m going to watch worlds live. This is (proabably) going to be the first time in five years where I could watch a major competition that’s literally a nail biter. I know this sounds horrible but I almost don’t want Simone to come back just so I could actually get excited for Tokyo. I’m not kidding when I say that Rio was one of the most boring competitions for gymnastics. I mean the only outcomes that weren’t 100% obvious going into the games was Mustafina on bars and Wevers on beam. Everything else was to be expected. Besides, Biles achieved enough already, and I’ve become so accustomed to her ability that I really am just not that impressed anymore.

         LikeLike

       • The only thing that would make it interesting with Biles’ return would be if she chooses to actually compete routines she’s capable off. (It’s been rumored that she’s throwing lots of more difficult skills on a regular basis in training but just didn’t compete them because she didn’t need to and was kinda playing it safe) Yeah, her routines were downgraded haha lol wow.

         LikeLike

       • Yeah I’ve seen them, like her double back on vault, double double off bars and beam, Moors on floor, it really goes on and on. But once i see her doing those things for a while, I get desensitized to a point where whatever she does doesn’t impress me.

         LikeLike

4. Where can one find footage of Jesolo this year? It’s like it never happened!! I didn’t even know that Russia sent gymnasts to Jesolo, no wonder their gymnasts look so tired

   LikeLike

   Reply

   • FGI or italian gym fed prob has the vid in youtube but need vpn to access if not in italy

     LikeLike

     Reply

5. So a 60 was a great AA score last quad.. whats the equivalence this quad? 58-59?

   LikeLike

   Reply

   • Yeah, probably 58..59 would be like, a Simone Biles kind of score.

     LikeLike

     Reply