Maile O’Keefe wins the 2016 Junior Women’s P&G Gymnastics Championships with a score of 115.050, winning the competition by over 2.5 points. She will turn senior in 2018.
I wanted to get this out earlier, but right after the competition was over, my family drove across Missouri for our family reunion so I haven’t gotten to be able to put my thoughts down until now.
-First off, I got to see this in person and I got pictures with Sam Pezsek, Bogi, and Ebee (!!!), so that was really cool.
-Simone was on fire Friday. I'm still reeling over the fact that I got to see possibly the best gymnast ever in person. I saw people saying that she was overscored, but she got at least 0.2 in stick bonuses, so that puts her at a 62.700 technically. Her beam and floor are out of this world and I think if she can perform her vaults as well as she did Friday, the vault gold is her's to lose. Her bar routine is basically autopilot right now. I'd love for her to add in the Mustafina dismount, but I don't think it's going to happen at least before the Olympics.
-The screams for Gabby was deafening. Her leotard was imo really pretty in person and I felt that was a theme on Friday, a lot nicer in person than in pictures. Her vault was very solid and some people mentioned she had some mistakes on bars, but she’s very good at covering them. Also her releases really are HUGE. Her beam had a lot of balance checks and she lost several connections, so low score there, but again she had the same problems at last year’s nationals and look where she ended up at World’s. I expect her to rebound at Trials if not tonight. She came back with a really nice floor routine. I still can’t get over that part of her music is from Zootopia. Her full-in to back tuck combo reminds me of both Vanessa Ferrari and Catalina Ponor in 2012. We don’t seem to see that connection that much this quad.
-Aly’s Patterson and 1st floor pass!!!! This whole night I was like “I can’t believe I’m seeing this in person!” Floor and beam were great. Bars were Aly. Her vault wasn’t as great as nationals, but it was still pretty good for Aly and at the angle I was at. I’ll probably go and watch a replay of it and want to take back everything I’ve said though. I’m super happy she broke 60 on Friday. Also, that color of pink/coral on Aly was really nice.
-Laurie is my pick for first year senior to be put on the team. She really showed how valuable she could be for the team. Her bar routine was really nice. In warm-ups, she fell on her Tkatchev?, but then she hit it in the actual routine. Her floor landings were really great as well and her vault was really good, too. She had to wait a really long time to go on beam (several minutes) I assume because NBC want to show Gabby on floor and Simone on bars as well as her on beam, but she was incredibly solid on that event, very sharp. And her chest position was much better than PT.
-Ragan why?????????? I was super excited to see her floor. Her landing on her double layout was much better than PT, but she landed it OOB and then went and Grishina-ed her 1.5 to triple. My heart broke. She went on to have a nice vault and bar routine (never realized how many inbars are in her routine). Her beam routine was shaky, but she hit her Patterson dismount this time (I think her foot slipped at Classics so she couldn’t get the punch she needed.)
-In the battle of the bar specialists, Ashton won again over Maddie tonight in terms of scoring. I personally don’t think there is a large need for a bar specialist, but if a bar specialist is taken, I would take Maddie even though Ashton’s outscored her on bars twice mainly because Maddie trains everything and can be used in case someone goes down a la 2008. Also both of their beam scores were very close on Friday and on bars, Maddie missed a connection so she had a lower score, but again their scores are fairly equal across the board.
-I legit squealed when I saw Brenna do her front double pike, but she had several mistakes on Friday. She didn’t fall on bars, but she bent her arms after her hop change and had to redo it. Her pak was also messy and she stumbled on her dismount. Her beam also had a lot of balance checks and she got slammed for her routine. It will be interesting to see how many people are brought to Trials because I think Brenna is right on the border line.
-Amelia Hundley had a great night. Both her bars and floor routine looked really good. Not the same difficulty as some of the others, but she was consistent across the board and now she’s sitting in 6th place after night 1.
-Alyssa fell on bars which is two misses for her in a row (as she fell the wrong way on handstand at Classics). I don’t see her on the Rio team which is a shame because she has a really nice beam routine and her floor routine is also nice even though she did have some mistakes on Friday. It will be interesting to see who the alternates are from Rio.
-MyKayla has really added so much difficulty to her routines. Wow. I like her floor music a lot more than last year’s. Also, it was pretty good until she stepped out of bounds on her last pass. Her beam dismount was kind of scary; from the angle we were at, I thought she might hit her head when she sprung forward, but luckily she didn’t. Her low beam choreography being the same as Aly’s, which is interesting. I also don’t see her on the Rio team, but I think she’d be a good alternate.
-I didn’t see much of Rachel Gowey just because she had a lot of routines that started in the middle of other routines I was already watching, so I had to go back and watch her videos. Her bar routine was nice, but her other routines were kind of rough. Her vault had a very large bounce. Her beam routine wasn’t bad, just a lot of flexed feet and some balance checks. Someone said she might have possibly gotten hurt on floor which would explain why she downgraded her dismount.
-Maggie was nice on uneven bars, but her balance beam was kind of timid. I really need to see where she’s at on floor and vault to kind of gauge where she’s at.
Random thoughts I had:
-The first half of Christina’s music is legit the Cantina song from Star Wars repeated.
-I didn’t realize how disjointed some people’s floor music cuts were.
-I feel like John Macready hates his job.
-I surprised no one got injured with the t-shirt cannon.
-If you thought Ragan was tiny, Kaitlin DeGuzman is even tinier!
