God. Poor Anna Shcherbakova sitting by herself because her entire team is melting down, and there’s no one to even pretend to care for her. Kamila and a Sasha in ruins. Nothing good here. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Wakaba Higuchi, an un doped skater, did the same elements as Valieva better, Valieva had 2 major mistakes, and Valieva's still 10 points ahead.
Eject this fucking sport from the Olympics.
I have tears in my eyes. The gymnasts themselves are so damn good and caring. Look at this genuine happiness and sportsmanship.
All I want is a sport that cares for them, that is as fair as possible, and that treats them like the gold they are.
Hello? ISU judges? My daughters, Wakabotchka Higuchievna & Kaorinka Sakamotova are brand new Sambo 70 students. Yes, effective immediately! They’ll need their PCS & GOE adjustments in time for that free skate. Maybe even a little extra to make up for the short!
My delightful Russian speaking friend is presently translating Trusova for me, and apparently she called Eteri a "sterva" which is somewhere in the realm of c*nt!!!!
Keeping it simple:
A) Mental health is VALID
B) In many sports if you’re having an off day, you’re not at risk of death or paralysis. Gymnastics is not one of those sports.
C) Simone Biles does the hardest tumbling in the world, meaning she’s most at risk on a bad day
Thoughts from the sober light of morning: I have a soft spot for Kami, but letting Russia, Eteri, Dudakov, etc send a doped up 15 year old to win 2 Olympic golds would be the absolute end of any illusion of Olympic integrity.
Ugh. At this moment I’m just overcome with sadness that Becky Downie and Georgia Mae Fenton were robbed of an Olympic team bronze medal that they truly earned and deserved.
The fact that Suni Lee and Rebeca Andrade are Olympic All Around 🥇 & 🥈, and they both have some of the highest difficulty in the field AND some of the most beautiful gymnastics makes me feel hopeful for gymnastics! 🥲
This LUDICROUS save meant that Ashikawa Urara made the balance beam final, where she was perfect, and is now WORLD CHAMPION. This is why you always fight for it!
If she had fallen off, she wouldn’t’ve even been a finalist!
Maggie Haney & her allies are doing more work than any SafeSport hearing ever could to show the depths of their sadistic, abusive mindset.
The sniping at Riley, the PUBLIC celebration of her mistakes, etc? Unhinged. Sociopathic. Riley was a CHILD when she worked with Maggie.
Sunisa Lee is America’s STAR. Unexpectedly launched into the position of the top American athlete in the team final and hit decisively! Beyond proud. 💜💜💜💜
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an athlete so excellent get so consistently screwed and disrespected by her own federation, and here she is INSISTING that she’s gonna go to the Olympics no matter what.
At this point I’m concerned that the only people left standing for the team and gonna be Simone Biles, Dulcy Caylor, Simone Rose, Chellsie Memmel, and Alicia Sacramone
I get mad thinking about Emily Lee out there working 2 jobs to support her own training, putting in excellent beam work & tumbling and getting virtually ignored by
@USAGym
&
@NBCOlympics
.
If USAG wanted Emily Lee to be happening, Emily Lee would be happening.
Literally fuck off. She placed second at Nationals immediately after her dad’s accident, backed it up at selection camp, and won two individual medals at Worlds. Making that generalization is intellectually lazy & offensive.
Suni Lee cannot be trusted in high pressure situations. She faltered on the big events at Worlds— breaking a no fall streak for American women in team finals and a streak of top4 AA finishes for both American WAG at Olympics/Worlds (2017 being an * year).
This is the hardest and best element performed at the Olympics by an athlete whose performance isn’t under the shadow of probable doping. If there’s any justice (lol), Wakaba Higuchi will be an Olympic silver medalist and a legend for learning the triple axel as an adult
DO NOT misconstrue my words. That is not at all what I implied. I did NOT say I support to abort rather than to put them through the foster care system. What I did imply is that you should not control someone elses body/decision. Let’s be real what you care about is control…
Let me be honest. I've spent the past couple of years worrying that Suni's legacy and greatestness would get lost in the background of Simone's GOATness.
Now Suni's unequivocally among the all time greats. Fought for every tenth. Unreal under pressure. A Queen.
Imagine how this quad might've looked like if USAG regularly sent full teams of gymansts to World Cup events.
The amount of intl experience Jordan could've had before the Olympics. The accurate data about how certain athletes would score internationally, not just domestically
What if we had a GB team that was Ellie, Becky, Amelie, and then Jen & Jess Gadirova switching out Parent Trap style so all 5 of them could get that team medal?
I used to believe that a leg separation/cowboy was an inevitable, necessary evil part of an Arabian double front, and then Alicia Sacramone spoiled me:
Gabby Douglas is a 3 Michelin star restaurant, and you, a local McDonald’s franchise, should immediately stop embarrassing yourself by taking shots at her.
I'd like to take a moment to point out that if Tom and Lori Forster had been able to impose their asinine rank order on the entire team process, OLYMPIC CHAMPION JADE CAREY might have been left at home.
Reason # 457 to send him packing!
The others you ask? Tragically, Kami, Anna, and Sasha have defected. Mid Olympics! To Azerbaijan. They were even seen eating solid food yesterday. Complete travesty. Their marks must reflect this. Put them behind Karen & Mariah to teach them a lesson!
Thoughts on Tom & Lori Forster and their struggle 25 years later holding onto the pain of Theresa Kulikowski not making the 96 Olympic team:
"Hurt people hurt people" feels very relevant.
Their pain is valid, and understandable, and I *also* see that it's blinding Tom as NTC
If you can understand why an NFL coach who needed a new quarterback should not draft a linebacker instead simply because the linebacker was a higher seed in the NFL draft, you can understand why picking the US Olympic gymnastics team on rank order is incredibly stupid.
Gymnastics is a sport where the top athletes are often children living hyper controlled lives, not having access to regular education & socialization, at the whim of coaches & parents, yet people are outraged when they “can’t think for themselves.”
We can’t have it both ways. 🤷🏼♂️
A general thought:
Listen to what Suni herself says that she wants & what her values are. Offer thoughtful advice if you have some, but don't speak from a place of knowing better if you don't know her, her family, her situation.
The older & whiter you are, the more this applies
“It would be the greatest accomplishment of any Hmong person in the U.S. ever,” he [her dad] says. “It will go down in history.” 😭
I cannot tell you how much I want Suni Lee to be an Olympic gold medalist.
Akhaimova coming for Khorkina is sending me 😂💀😂
“Personally, I’ve never seen hate or dirty looks in women’s gymnastics. I guess it happened before in Svetlana Khorkina’s times.”
Because Suni already has an Olympic gold medal, I will only be having 3 heart attacks during her bars EF routine as opposed to 7.
Love this for me & my cardiac well being.
I love that Jennifer & Jessica Gadirova’s floor choreo is age appropriate but not the demonically happy child choreo of the early - mid 90s 14 year old phenom genre. I can’t wait to see them develop as athletes, artists, and performers!
Two things can be true. Livvy can deserve to make her money & deserve to be celebrated, and the fact that she's the highest paid female NCAA athlete can be a symptom of a regressive system where female athletes are paid more for being desirable than for athletic excellence.
And my girl Riley McCusker said, “You ain’t seen the last of me!” So curious about her working with Brian Carey & what that could do for her floor & vault! Truly an ideal scenario, all things considered
The moment in Claire Gagliardi’s floor routine where she pretends to spot a shark, swim away, and twist out of the water is PURE camp, and I’m obsessed.
The
@USAGym
Communications Team is doing a fabulous job with no statement about the athlete who tested positive for hours while the international news media is all over it.
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
I’m assuming Tom Forster is waking up in the St Louis Hilton to flowers from Valentina Rodionenko, Wang Qunce, Nina’s mom, and everybody else standing to benefit from the willful abandonment of a potential UB medal.
The fact that ONLY Asian gymnasts have ever been charged with falsification of age & had medals stripped when multiple white/European athletes have also had their age called into question is, simply, racist.
The continued casting of suspisicion on Asian gymnasts is also racist.
I hope Shilese Jones shows up to Trials at 110%, hits 8 for 8, unveils one of her training updates, and throws everyone’s predictions into chaos.
And, frankly, this is more likely than some of the ostensible favorites doing so.
Remember when Tom Forster didn’t send eventual Olympic champion Suni Lee to Pan American Games in 2019 because she hadn’t done all around at US Classic?
But yeah. Rank order all around results exclusively. The only way to develop a program 🙃
Hurd Immunity — the belief that if 70 - 90% of the gymternet believes Morgan will make the Olympic team, all possibility of that not happening will be rendered ineffective
Also for those asking where “I hear it when sakamoto takes the ice and you can’t see her but you can still hear her audio! Also maybe a bit earlier when dude in blazer is talking to her??!!”
Brian Carey has managed Jade’s career just about perfectly thus far, and she threw an Amanar unequivocally better than any of Skinner’s at Trials.
Hold your horses predicting her missing vault finals. I’d put money on her being perfectly paced for Tokyo.