Trials Podium Training Thoughts...

Michael O'Leary 

Thoughts overall: 
-No major injuries. *Knock on wood*. This has become a "who's the best of the best" instead of who can survive the bullshit.
-I love that girls are all in National Team Leos.
-The USA is deeeeeeeeep. I'm so glad.

On individual gymnasts: (in no particular order whatsoever.)

Elizabeth Price has given me second thoughts on calling all Parkettes "skill chuckers". That Amanar is fierce as is the Double Double. She'll be a great alternate.

The videos of Sarah Finnegan weren't particularly impressive to me, but maybe that's because I've watched her routines so many times. I'm interested to see how she'll compete. She's another potentially great alternate.

Sabrina Vega's gymnastics is just so pretty. I wish we could give her Aly Raisman's consistency & difficulty.

I can't get over Rebecca Bross's feet. Still. I love her natural swing though. She did land her Patterson in training, but I'm not holding my breath for a clean dismount in competition. I STILL think that it's too much of a risk for a Team Final.

Gabrielle Douglas looks fierce as ever, but her ankle looks super taped. Was it that taped at Nationals? The slowmo Amanar is not to be missed.

Nastia looks about 0% more ready than she did at Nationals podium training. If it's the Olympic Trials and you can't do a full bar routine with out an enormous amount of spotting, I'm doubting you. (The ring leap was better, though.)

McKayla is impressing me. People were worried that she wouldn't compete at Trials but she looks as good as she did at Nationals, if not better.

Anna Li's bars are fantastic, but I can't imagine Marta taking someone who literally can only go up on one event, no matter what.

Kyla's Amanar is back and looks decent. I wonder if she'll compete it and if she does if she can compete it consistently. Bars & Beam are as solid as usual. I only put her floor on for 4 seconds to see if she had changed music. ... She hadn't.

Aly Raisman is proving herself as more and more of a lock. Honey child does not fall. You can't hate that.

USA Gymnastics

Jordyn Wieber might as well not even compete. She'll be in London unless her arm falls off... and even then she could probably pull off beam. There's honestly not much to say about her at this point. She's solid, but I'm honestly kind of bored, in a Pattersonian way.

Brenna Dowell looks sad throughout. I'm waiting for her to call the news and do an Ivana Hong like news story. You remember she has a broken hand, right? She looks like she's adding a wolf jump after her front double pike though. So that's fun.

Bridget Sloan is being spotted quite a bit on bars, and USAG didn't post a full routine from her. But then again, it was similar in at Nationals, and she performed satisfactorily there.

USAG only posted Alicia Sacramone's beam which looked clean, but I'm more interested in her Vault.  I can't see a FTY as her second vault being a strong enough case for her.

Kennedy Baker wasn't in podium training today, so that was kind of a bummer. She arrived in San Jose late Tuesday evening.