US World Team

Some brief thoughts.

The US World team is as follows: Kyla Ross (obvio), Simone Biles (obvio), McKayla Maroney (triple obvio), and Brenna Dowell (okay. . . ).

The non-traveling alternate is Elizabeth Price. No traveling alternate was named, but let's be honest, it's Brenna Dowell. I imagine that was the main thought process behind her selection to the team. She was 3rd in the AA at Nationals, and if Maroney and Price aren't up to the task (as they weren't at Nationals), it appears she is the #3 AAer in the country right now. Therefore, she can step into an AA role if someone gets injured and be a legitimate participant. As it currently stands with her as the UB and BB specialist, she won't get a sniff at beam. It's not out of the question that she could pop into a bars final given the lack of depth going to Worlds from all the countries. However, she would have to outscore Biles in qualification to get a US spot (assuming Kyla scores in the 15s, which neither of the others can do). That's not a given. When we're comparing them to Ross, Mustafina, and the Chinese, both Biles and Dowell are well below that level.  

The interesting thing is that what we've seen from Dowell is less competitive on bars than a healthy Elizabeth Price in both difficulty and execution, which is why I think her selection was mostly a Martha "meh, it has to be someone" selection. In the past, Martha has shown an intense willingness to fill out possibly questionable spots on teams with the next best AAer who can jump into any role if necessary. Dowell basically got the Peszek spot on this team, even though it isn't a team worlds so that doesn't make sense. I had Price as my pick going in, figuring that none of the non-locks are that internationally competitive on beam and Price has the highest potential of the rest on bars, so I'm wondering if perhaps a lack of full AA difficulty or training time made Martha loath to select her for the team, knowing as we do how Martha loves people to have proved their consistency 1500 million times in a row before making a team.