Tuesday, August 10, 2010

This and That: Nationals Edition

Shocker of all shockers, Bridget Sloan will not be winning Nationals this year. Ms. Sloan will only be competing on balance beam this weekend. She has a strained shoulder and is still dealing with her ankle, but is planning on being back to full strength by Worlds. Beam has typically been her shakiest event, so Bridget really needs to hit in order to avoid feeling the wrath of Martha.

Gymnastike has spoken with a number of athletes.

Alicia Sacramone confirmed that she will be doing a DTY for her second vault. She didn't have enough time to warm up the vault at Classics.

Sam Shapiro has a death wish and plans on competing all four events. She describes the myriad of problems with them, yet claims that there is ''nothing major.'' You can formulate your own opinion about that...

Chris Brooks rolled his ankle off a curb two weeks ago and is nursing a new ankle injury. He is try to do floor this weekend. He hasn't done a floor set in three weeks. He is watering down his floor for this weekend and doing mostly forward landing passes.


A few podium training videos have been posted.

Lizzy Leduc is slowly but surely getting better on bars. There is still a ton of work to be done, but glimpses of technique are beginning to appear. Beam is still her strongest events, but she needs to landed with her butt higher on that double arabian.

Kennedy Baker-BB
Alyssa Baumann- UB
Gabrielle Douglas- VT
Brenna Dowell- UB
Ericha Fassbender- BB
Brandie Jay- VT
Madison Kocian- UB, BB
Katelyn Ohashi- UB, FX
Elizabeth Price- VT
Bridget Sloan- FX
Sabrina Vega- UB
Grace Williams- VT

The Men:
Chris Cameron- PH, PB
Jonathan Horton- HB
Danell Leyva- FX, PB, HB

The Gymnastics Examiner provided a live blog from Podium Training. Cassie Whitcomb seriously underrotated her 2 1/2 twist dismount off beam every time. I don't know that I've ever seen her get it around. Sophina DeJesus will not be competing. Bross is doing jumps out of both her first and second passes on floor. Mattie Larson looks strong. Sam Shapiro was inconsistent on floor, but did well on bars and beam.

7 comments:

  1. Sam Shapiro has a "death wish". LOL. You make my day AJ. I think she has beatiful lines and I love to watch her, but for my sanity, and her health, I wish she would just stop trying to kill herself and go straight to NCAA.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I admire Sam's determination so much. She's a tough cookie. But I will hold my breath that she gets through this whole competition uninjured.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Who is this Katelyn Ohashi? She looks really good on UB & FX. Also, she can actually somewhat dance on floor. Is she a junior or senior?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Katelyn Ohashi won't be a senior until 2013.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Katelyn was 2nd AA at the US Classic. She made the National Team at Championships a year ago while still training at GAGE. She has improved all of her events over the last year and actually battled injuries this entire year. She is extremely impressive.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Beam is Katelyn's best event. She also has a DTY on vault.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Too bad she won't be eligible for 2012. Hopefully Valeri keeps pushing her till 2016. She is really quite impressive at a young age and shows great promise for the future of USA gymnastics. It will be exciting to watch her in the coming years.

    ReplyDelete