Just when you think the USA has got this thing wrapped up, Alicia Sacramone goes down with an Achilles injury.
This is devestating for Team USA for a couple of reasons. In a group of so many young ones, Alicia was the leader, an almost unofficial coach, who helped support these babies psychologically in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of Worlds. Without her, there IS no natural leader on the squad.
Secondly, with Anna Li out too, USA has to go up with 5 gymnasts, while everyone else has 6. The pre-lims lineup, courtesy of Universal Sports, is as follows:
Vault: Vega, Douglas, Raisman, Wieber, Maroney.
Uneven bars: Raisman, Maroney, Vega, Wieber, Douglas.
Balance beam: Maroney, Vega, Raisman, Wieber, Douglas.
Floor exercise: Douglas, Vega, Wieber, Maroney, Raisman.
Marta is now looking pretty smart to have named Vega as an alternate, and an idiot for working her athletes to the bone in training. Everything's covered here, but pre-lims is going to be FAR more tenuous than USA would have liked. I'm not quite so worried about finals, because they're still a good team on paper when it's 3 up, 3 count, but having to stick Raisman on bars and Maroney on beam is far from ideal. I'd assume their finals lineup will look something like:
Vault: Raisman/Douglas, Wieber, Maroney
Bars: Vega, Douglas, Wieber
Beam: Vega/Douglas, Wieber, Raisman
Floor: Douglas/Maroney, Wieber, Raisman
Obviously a couple of these spots will be determined by prelims, but that's the general plan. Still not a bad team, but missing Sacramone does shrink their overall start values on vault, beam and floor.
I still think USA could win this, but it's not going to be nearly as easy or clear-cut as before. China and Romania now are looking like slightly stronger than just an outside chance. I never, EVER trust China to hit in a finals, as I've been burned many times before, but I guess there is a first time for everything, right?
Romania has been looking quite steady in training, according to reports, and while they don't have anything in the same difficulty universe on bars as China, and they have a serious vault deficit to the USA, they could really benefit from their trademark reliability in this scenario.
Russia has been such a bunch of head-casing nightmares in training that they could either challenge for the gold or end up in 8th. It completely depends on what team shows up to play on the game day. Alexandrov is probably popping heartburn meds like no other these days.
One thing is for sure- this is going to be a seriously interesting couple of days in the gymnastics world.
This is devestating for Team USA for a couple of reasons. In a group of so many young ones, Alicia was the leader, an almost unofficial coach, who helped support these babies psychologically in the pressure-cooker atmosphere of Worlds. Without her, there IS no natural leader on the squad.
Secondly, with Anna Li out too, USA has to go up with 5 gymnasts, while everyone else has 6. The pre-lims lineup, courtesy of Universal Sports, is as follows:
Vault: Vega, Douglas, Raisman, Wieber, Maroney.
Uneven bars: Raisman, Maroney, Vega, Wieber, Douglas.
Balance beam: Maroney, Vega, Raisman, Wieber, Douglas.
Floor exercise: Douglas, Vega, Wieber, Maroney, Raisman.
Marta is now looking pretty smart to have named Vega as an alternate, and an idiot for working her athletes to the bone in training. Everything's covered here, but pre-lims is going to be FAR more tenuous than USA would have liked. I'm not quite so worried about finals, because they're still a good team on paper when it's 3 up, 3 count, but having to stick Raisman on bars and Maroney on beam is far from ideal. I'd assume their finals lineup will look something like:
Vault: Raisman/Douglas, Wieber, Maroney
Bars: Vega, Douglas, Wieber
Beam: Vega/Douglas, Wieber, Raisman
Floor: Douglas/Maroney, Wieber, Raisman
Obviously a couple of these spots will be determined by prelims, but that's the general plan. Still not a bad team, but missing Sacramone does shrink their overall start values on vault, beam and floor.
I still think USA could win this, but it's not going to be nearly as easy or clear-cut as before. China and Romania now are looking like slightly stronger than just an outside chance. I never, EVER trust China to hit in a finals, as I've been burned many times before, but I guess there is a first time for everything, right?
Romania has been looking quite steady in training, according to reports, and while they don't have anything in the same difficulty universe on bars as China, and they have a serious vault deficit to the USA, they could really benefit from their trademark reliability in this scenario.
Russia has been such a bunch of head-casing nightmares in training that they could either challenge for the gold or end up in 8th. It completely depends on what team shows up to play on the game day. Alexandrov is probably popping heartburn meds like no other these days.
One thing is for sure- this is going to be a seriously interesting couple of days in the gymnastics world.
No comments:
Post a Comment