Sunday, July 28, 2013

Thoughts on 2013 U.S. Classics

The thing that I was most impressed from the Americans was their difficulty. I think they didn't try to peak or tried to hit all of their routines. I could be wrong though. A lot of them had some problems with their routines but it's not a major issue because this is not an event for them to be at their all time best.

Simone Biles did a cool DLO with a 1/2 twist out. I wonder what the FIG would rate it. Simone should just do DLO 1/1 because she can probably do that skill easily and it's a H. I think she's doing the DLO with 1/2 twist out just to get it named after her if she makes the USA team and successfully competes it in Antwerp. IMO the DLO 1/2 twist out should stay an F. IMO it's easier than the Dos Santos II (Arabian DLO), which is a G. Since FIG has "H" skills IMHO the Dos Santos II should have been rated H too, especially if the DLO 1/2 becomes G. Speaking of the Dos Santos II, Kennedy Baker does it. Edit: Kennedy pikes the Arabian skill. At first it looked laid out.


Kyla Ross won this meet and I was most impressed by her bar routine and her stuck DTY in podium training. I can tell she is working really hard to up her difficulty. I liked that she worked hard on her Van Leeuwen (toe-shap 1/2). She used to have leg sep but now she doesn't and it looks nice.


Maroney is still great on vault. That's not a surprise. I think her new floor routine is okay. I like the DLO but it went out of bounds. I think the middle section of her floor routine music (around 0:41 sec) is funny because it's something my parents would listen to. You know that weird old music tune, it's like an old folk love song. Actually a lot of her other previous floor music has that old feeling music. It's funny in a good way.



Other things that stood out were the difficulty the Americans were doing on floor. Some of the gymnasts were doing two H skills in their routines. I thought Lexie Priessman had interesting music compared to her old music choices. Mykayla Skinner does the DLO 2/1 twists and what's crazy is that she does the dbl dbl tucked as her third pass. One thing that the Americans did a lot was the tucked stand spins on floor and beam, yuck. Also they love to do leaps + tuck/pike backs connections on beam. It gets too boring and Simone Biles rarely gets those skills connected. IMO she should take those out of her routine. She does it once at this competition but earlier in the competition season she was doing more of them and not getting them connected. 

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