The moment I've been waiting for is almost finally here! Tonight the Olympic Trials begin for gymnastics!! I honestly feel like only yesterday I was watching the 2009 Visa Championships and thinking how far away London 2012 was! Then a year later, I watched the 2010 Visa Championships while we were in our hotel on our vacation to NYC right before our wedding. Last year, in 2011, it finally started to feel close, and I can't believe here we are, it's 2012 and time for Olympic Trials!!!
I wish more than anything that I could be there, however, they are all the way in San Jose, CA, and I've been on 2 vacations in the past two months so no way I could swing that. I'm still super super excited for tonight though. I work until around 4, and then I'm going to come home, shower, charge my laptop, make myself some popcorn and get ready to watch!!! I'll probably be tweeting both my thoughts on every routine as well as with my friend Alexis on Twitter, she's the only one I've met yet that is as obsessed with gymnastics as I am .. she even watches men's also, which I don't.
I'm so excited for all the girls. I'm so proud of some of them for how far they have come since the first year after the 2008 quadrennium. I love all of the girls, but my overall favorite is Kyla Ross. She's a first year senior and I'm SO BLOWN AWAY by her ability to just perform with so much pressure on her! A majority of the rest of the girls have been seniors for a year or two already, and have international experience so they are used to the pressure more, but this girl has only had 2 meets as a senior so far and she's nailed both of them! At Visas she didn't even use her full difficulty in her routines and finished 4th, so if she would have done all her difficulty she no doubt would have finished on the podium.
Jordyn and Gabby are being called "the new Nastia and Shawn" since both of them have such an amazing shot at the all around in London. I agree that there will be a huge rivalry, and I love both of them -- especially Jordyin, HOWEVER, I don't think that they are as good now as Nastia and Shawn were at this point in '08. Jordyn has gotten SO MUCH BETTER on her weakest event, bars, but in her beam routine she usually wobbles on the tough connections. I know difficulty is important, but she needs to hit those every time. Gabby CAN BE amazing on all four events, but consistency seems to be her issue. At trials, to go 8 for 8 would be the biggest victory for her and give her so much more confidence going into London. Nastia and Shawn in '08 were pretty much as close to perfect in all of their routines as they could get; by the time Beijing came there was virtually no problem areas with either of them.
Aly Raisman has been rock solid for literally years. Her floor exercise, in my opinion, is the best in the world. I want her in the FX EF at the Olympic games, and I want her to win gold. Jordyn would need to take the silver though, because I love her floor too :) Alicia Sacramone has looked great on beam and vault and I would love love love more than anything for her and Aly to be teammates in London (they are club teammates), but I just don't know if its going to happen.
McKayla Maroney looked amazingly impressive in Podium Training, she looked even better than she did at Visas, and that is after sustaining a concussion and a nasal fracture. I'm pretty sure she goes no matter what, because of her status of vaulting world champion.
Nastia .... gahhh I don't know. I am very proud of her for putting her heart into her comeback but unfortunately I think she started the comeback just a little too late. I don't think she is capable of medaling in London individually, and as for the 3 up for the team competition, you have Gabby, Kyla, and Jordyn that can all score 15+, and I just don't think that Nastia is capable of scoring over a 15 at Trials. I don't think she deserves to go as much as all these other girls who have been training for 4 years or more. I'm worried though that Martha will take her due to favoritism and one of my favorites will be left off. If that happens I honestly don't know what I will do.
Well, I don't know how I'm going to work til 4 today without talking about gymnastics but I gotta go!
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