Could Gabby Do It?

 

Gabby was the third american in three consecutive Olympic cycles to win Olympic gold in the all around- Also the first black american gymnast to win an gymnasts ultimate dream medal! Now she's back to possibly do it again? 

In the past there has only been two other gymnasts who have won back to back in the Olympic all around:

1952- 1956, Larisa Latynina 

1960-1964, Věra Čáslavská 

But as you can see this was way back when and the demands of the sport have changed dramatically. 

If we look at Gabby's biggest competition for the All-around it's without a doubt Simone Biles and in terms of difficulty Gabby has a lot of catching up to do... so do the rest of the gymnasts in the world for that matter;

On vault Simone has the Amanar whilst Gabby is still competing the double, however Gabby is competing this vault amazingly well this year with her average score being 15.19. I wouldn't be surprised if she got the Amanar for next year. 

Gabby has the difficulty over Simone on bars though with a 16.4 at the recent P&Gs, 0.3 higher than Biles. Which in fact was her difficulty at the Olympics (maybe 0.1 less). This is the only event where Douglas has the advantage.

The gap between the two gymnasts significantly increases on beam and floor... but then again who can compete with Simone's difficulty on these events? Gabby's highest difficulty score on beam this year was 16.4 where as Simone has a 16.9. The biggest gap is on floor where there is 0.8 between them with Douglas having a 16 compared to Simone's 16.8.

But its all Ok comparing the difficulty but in the end it all comes down to the execution. Anything can happen between now and the Olympics next year... for all we know Simone may not qualify for the All-around like Wieber... but something thing disastrous would have to happen for someone from the US to boot Simone out of the final.

Unless if Gabby rockets up her Difficulty and execution it's looking unlikely she can overtake Simone in the All-Around but who's to say she can't get silver or bronze which would also be a big achievement for meddling at 2 Olympics in the row. Just looking at the US gymnasts though Gabby does have her work cut out for these medals; for instance her fellow 2012 Olympic team mate Aly Raisman has just come third in the P&Gs and the newbies on the block- Maggie, Bailie, Laurie and Jasmine are shaping up to be competitive all arounders. 

In saying this who would of thought Gabby was in the running for the Olympic gold in 2011? A lot can happen in a year and i think Gabby has a lot more up her sleeve..  

What do you think?

My USA’s World Championship Team 2015

My USA’s World Championship Team 2015

I’ve made this team using just this year’s results as in my opinion you should make the world team on your most recent performances. However I do not think this is the team Marta will take to Glasgow. Personally I think this is the team that would get the US the most medals and give some of the gymnast on the team valuable experience on competing at the world stage.  

Simone Biles

Do you even need to question why she’s made this team?

Extraordinary difficulty and perfectly executed skills. I wouldn’t like to use her on all four events if I could help it maybe take her off bars. But she definitely could contribute on all four apparatus, plus probably qualifying and medalling in the vault, beam and floor finals.

Aly Raisman

So far Aly’s comeback has been pretty good. She’s showing good consistency and her difficulty is second to Simone’s in all the apparatus except bars. Aly has tons of experience and you could definitely use her on floor and beam where she could probably make the finals - I wouldn’t count Aly out of making the All-around either. 

Bailie Key

Some may consider it a risk to take Bailie to Glasgow… A first year senior, no experience at the world stage so you wouldn’t know how she’d perform under high pressure. However her senior year is looking extremely good. Bailie came 2^nd in Jeslo- Beating Gabby and Aly! Where she then continued to placing 4^th in the P&G’s beating Gabby again! In this team you could definitely use Bailie on bars where she came third at the recent P&G’s and I would put her on floor in replace of Skinner (Bailie was only 0.1 behind). Plus you never know she might surprise us and make the All-around as well. This will give her valuable experience also.

Maggie Nichols

Maggie has always been up there in the top 3 at the US but similarly to Bailie she has no world experience. Maggie is coming on leaps and bounds this year and looks like a totally different gymnast. I’d definitely use Maggie on Vault instead of Aly- her Amanar is cleaner and less scary looking also on beam. If Maggie does keep on improving the way she is doing this year having this experience in Glasgow would definitely up her chance for making the Olympic team. 

Madison Kocian

I had an inner battle between Madison and Ashton for this team; as much as I love Ashton’s bar routine and her execution she has hardly competed this year-only just appearing at the P&Gs. However, Madison has the 2nd highest difficulty on bars (behind Brenna Dowell) and she came 1^st on this event at the P&Gs. Madison could even make the bar final. If anything does happen to any of the other team members Madison has pretty decent scores on all four events as well. Plus she has previous world experience.

Mckayla Skinner

Personally I’m not a big fan of Mckayla’s gymnastics I think she relies too much on her difficulty and needs to work more on her execution; but I do think she is improving and a lot of people are too hard on her. In saying that I would only use her on vault as she does get high scores and she is likely to make the vault final where she has medalled in previous world championships.

I do realise I have missed some pretty major names out of this list such as Gabby and Kyla, but in all honestly I don’t think either them are ready for this championships. Gabby is still quite inconsistent - her floor routine has high difficulty but it’s only high if she hits the many difficult spins and her bars is pretty high but she wouldn’t contribute as much as Bailie and Madison (yet). Don’t get me wrong I think Gabby’s comeback has been very good and I would love to see her in the Olympic team next year… I would use her as an alternate though with the other alternate been Alyssa.

As much as I love Kyla’s gymnastics and I absolutely adore her execution she can’t keep up with the other girl’s difficulty. She hasn’t upgraded her routines from 2012- her bars score has gone down by 0.4! If she was in the team you’d use Kyla in bars and beam but the US now have some bar specialist which they can afford to place in teams leaving Kyla with just beam. However you can always rely on Kyla for her consistency but from this year she has had a lot of up and downs. But I can’t see Marta taking a team to Glasgow without Gabby or Kyla.