Uneven Bars and Vault Champions Showdowns

Courtney Kupets has overcome her second place finish in the floor champions showdown to put on a near-McCullough display of dominance in the beam showdown. Can she keep it up on bars?

I didn't plan these polls out particularly well, so I'm including both bars and vault in the same post because after today will come time to start thinking about preseason rankings and the coaches poll and team previews and all of those delicious morsels.

2013 NCAA Bars Champion – Alaina Johnson (I just wrote Alabama Johnson on the first try. Ugh, me.)


2012 NCAA Bars Champion – Kat Ding (routine begins at 17:30)

Floor Exercise Champions Showdown

Floor exercise showdown.

Six NCAA champions enter.

One leaves.

You decide.

2013 NCAA Floor Champion – Joanna Sampson


2012 NCAA Floor Champion – Kat Ding

Ranking the 2012 Floor Final

Continuing the mission to pick the real winner of things, it's time to look at the 2012 NCAA Floor Final, a.k.a. the vacation home of our very best friend, controversy.

Unlike the vault 10s, in this case we do have an actual winner. Kat Ding won the title with a 9.950 over the 9.9375s for Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs and Geralen Stack-Eaton. There were . . . a lot of opinions about this result the first time around, so it will be interesting to see how things have developed now that we've had months to reflect.

The top 5 finishers are included below. Watch the routines and rank how you think they should have finished. I did not include the 9.900 routines from Zamarripa, Dickerson, and DeZiel because, while they were solid performances, none would be mistaken for a potential winner. The real shame is that Jaime Pisani probably should have been our floor champ, but she didn't have a strong performance in the final.  

(Where would we be without NastiaFan101 uploading all these individual routines?)

Kat Ding - 9.950

The 9.950 Club - Week 1

Kat Ding - UB - 9.975 - Georgia

Tauny Frattone - VT - 9.950 - UCLA

Watch more video of #5 Utah at #1 UCLA on gymnastike.org

Champions Battle: Uneven Bars

2011 Bars Champion - Kat Ding

2010 Bars Champion - Carly Janiga

2009 Bars Champion - Courtney Kupets

2008 Bars Champion - Tasha Schwikert (from the meet vs. Georgia)

2007 Bars Champion - Terin Humphrey

Intrasquad Roundup

Teams have finished up their December intrasquads and are breaking for the holidays.  Coaches have given their teams specific "we can't officially make you train but here's what you better do over break" instructions and will hope that their gymnasts return in recognizable condition to prepare for the first meet. In the meantime, let's take a look at what some of the teams have been up to in the past week or so.

Georgia has posted a new episode of We Need to Talk about Kevin (Copp) containing highlights from the recent intrasquad.  Of note:

• Chelsea Davis has been fully gymdogged out (it's a real word...now) with the glitter and the ribbon and the temp tattoo.  We'll just have to deal with it.  We didn't see too much from her except the vault, which is her weakest event.  She lacks competitive amplitude.  I'm interested to see bars most of all.
• Kat Ding is a gem.  She rates them at an 8.5.  I love the use of .5, like it's a real scale, and her ability to resist the "I'd give us a TEN!" snap reaction.  She knows her teammates aren't up to her level.  Still, it's Georgia, so adjust for inflation.  How dare they show us that stuck beam dismount and make us want her to compete beam even though we know she'll get like a 4 in competition.  
• Jay is worried about the team's fitness coming back from the break.  Apparently, he got his hand stuck in the cookie jar at 1:30.    

Our updates from UCLA have been sporadic.  They had the "Meet the Bruins" event, which wasn't a real intrasquad (it was weirder and better), and now we have videos of only some of the gymnasts on only two events.  I'm not really surprised.  

They actually look well prepared on vault.  Hopfner-Hibbs and Peszek don't have the same distance as the others, but they are both capable of sticking landings sometimes (as we see in this video), which should even out the scoring.  A presumed lineup of Hopfner-Hibbs, Peszek, Larson, Courtney, Frattone, and Zamarripa (with occasional routines from alternates Wong, De La Torre, McDonald, and Gerber) will be very difficult for any team to beat.  They have enough depth that they won't miss Sydney Sawa's competent vault.

Florida held an intrasquad on December 9th.  Kytra Hunter looks strong and Alaina Johnson looks on point.  Ashanee looks about as enthusiastic as usual.  Marissa King's double layout is a dream.  Given that these are highlights, it's difficult to draw real conclusions from the performance, but the Gators seem on track.  Although, those dangly little half-hearted streamers are a little too reminiscent of when Mary trashed the gym on Seventh Heaven.  Don't pretend like you don't get the reference.

Oklahoma has a highlight reel with a few full routines on each event.  The article is a breath of fresh air when K.J. doesn't pretend like her other freshmen are going to make lineups.  This is unusual among NCAA coaches.

#9 Georgia Preview

More of this, please.

The narrative surrounding Georgia has largely been one of negativity since they failed to make Super Six for the second consecutive year under Jay Clark, and that negativity contributed to their record low preseason ranking of #9.  While this ranking is not necessarily unfair or unwarranted, the Gymdogs have some bright spots for 2012, and there is reason for at least measured optimism as we head into the season.

This optimism comes largely from the fact that the team is improving.  It's easy to forget that they were a much less talented and much more injured group in 2011 than they were in 2010, and yet the final result was much better in 2011.  While Jay receives more than his fair share of criticism in NCAA circles, he deserves credit for that and for doing what he could with a team that was just not Super Six-caliber.  While they did not perform up to their capabilities at championships, fourth place in their semifinal was a victory for this team given their injuries and the results from the previous year.  If they can actually stay healthy, they can expect much more than 195.450 in a national semifinal in 2012.

At a minimum, the team has to replace 7 routines from last season: 4 from Cassidy McComb and 3 from Hillary Mauro.  However, there are a number of competition routines from 2011 that have not graduated and yet still need to be replaced.  We see several early-lineup gymnasts across each of the apparatuses score in the 9.700s not because they've made mistakes but because they don't really deserve to score any higher than that.  The 2012 season may be the time we finally accept that even though Christa Tanella was an elite and went to WOGA, she's a 9.750 as an NCAA gymnast.  Can the team afford to be content with those scores again this year?  Not if the goal is higher than #9 in the country.

Watch more videos on Gymnastike

One gymnast who will be relied upon as a major replacer is Kaylan Earls, who had to sit out last season after tearing her Achilles.  She is a powerful tumbler, and it remains to be seen how well she will come back from that injury on vault and floor, but she deserves to make those lineups at her best.  We haven't seen her compete in a while because of that injury, but form issues do keep her from standing out on beam and bars.  If she can prove solidity, though, Georgia will need her on beam.  They are trying to give her a Hindorff to help her be effective on bars, but if they can get Ding, Davis, Nuccio, and Worley up to scratch on that event, the team will not need Earls to be a star.

There is no question that Chelsea Davis should be competing the all-around for this team if everything goes to plan.  The biggest question with her is always injury, and she came into fall practice carrying yet another one – this time a strained elbow.  The bar routine above got her on the world team in 2010, and her skills there should earn a serious helping of huge scores in NCAA, as should her exceptional cleanliness across the board.  In fact, Davis's biggest weakness as an elite was a lack of difficulty on the other events, often necessitated by the back injury that has prevented her from doing back handsprings. With the lower difficulty required in NCAA and the greater options for competitive routine competition, she should be able to accommodate and overcome this problem.  

Watch more videos on Gymnastike

Sarah Persinger doesn't have any "Oooh, Aaah" routines the way Chelsea Davis does, and while there are weaknesses on each event that will prevent her from being a late lineup performer, she should prove to be valuable to the team.  When watching her gymnastics, it is easy to see a poise and line that could be the making of a very impressive NCAA gymnast in the future.  For now, she looks like she will be a solid 9.8 gymnast who will be in the hunt to replace some of the 9.7 routines mentioned above.