WAG New National Team Coordinator

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

I was surprised to discover that the Russians and Americans had the same total team start value, 68.8. Of course that's counting the 1.5 Yurchenko for Simone. So we totally lost this on execution. I think the Americans have been increasingly getting lax in terms of execution. I was never a fan of Tom for coordinator, he's never produced an Olympian in his coaching career. I don't know that he has the critical eye needed for this role. I wonder if they would consider Armine Barutyan from GAGE? Her gymnasts like McCool, Humphrey, Eaker and Wong show good form.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JBS
I highly doubt anyone from GAGE would be considered for NTC as their abuse history is kinda sketchy… one gymnast died , harsh environment etc but they do produce some lovely gymnasts … but so did Marta if you get my drift.

Tom is definitely in over his head … the fact that the alternates didn’t warm up before team final when the commentators were honing in on Simone “being lost “ in her twisting in her warm up and Tom didn’t see it … goodbye.

Yes he was nice, and not Marta …but he’s not the right fit for this job . He put ALL his eggs in the Simone basket, without a contingency plan.
 
We've trained at GAGE... we had a blast.


As far as the US team... yes... our style is go big and don't stick. However... it's worked for us... the rules really do create a certain style.
 
Idk, at a minimum, Tom needs a PR or professional spokesperson. His PR/public communication skills are horrible. And while I disagree on how he chose this team, he seems to be the right bridge between the Marta era to whatever is next.
 
Yeah, I think there'd be an uproar if someone from Gage was selected. I believe people when they say the place has changed and it's a really good environment now, but there's just too much history and I suspect they'll want the least controversial choice possible.

But I do agree Tom is in over his head and the stress of that is starting to show big time. He doesn't seem like the kind of person who can keep his emotions off his face and present a polished, well articulated front to the media. I'm not sure who the right answer would be because at this point the overlap between people who want the job and people USAG wants to hire for the job might not be very big. At the very least someone needs to get him his own PR consultant to teach him how to communicate with the public.
 
My opinion, based on the information I have at this time, is Tom should stay, maybe with a PR consultant. If USAG is heading in the right direction, they shouldn’t start completely over with someone else. Honest people tend to get in trouble in the press because they say what they are thinking at the moment, rather than hedging.

The Russian gymnasts had beautiful artistry and were fun to watch. My daughter is a dancey gymnast and when she beats the more powerful ones who are wooden and mechanical while dancing, other parents have tended to get frustrated. I guess it really varies from country to country what is more valued.
 
I will say though that we lost on execution it was with a low execution score on Simone's vault as well, and we counted a fall on floor which is atypical. Yes the US needs to work on the out of bounds issues on floor (too much power on landings it seems to me) but really we werent far off the mark on execution either. And to be honest I was personally surprised at some of the Russian execution scores. I feel like their artistry gets them higher scores even when their execution is not necessarily better. The US execution scores seemed comperatively low to the Russian ones so it made me wonder if it was an aesthetics thing more than an actual difference in execution.

All in all the details will matter going forward for the US because we wont have that difficulty cushion Simone provided with her routines.
 
Maybe its cause I am not a trained judge but I feel like I see as many form breaks (knees and toes) on the Russians as the US. Their twisting is not as clean as some of our double tucks etc and I feel like I saw more small balance checks on beam and even with thier falls they were only like .8 lower than the US on their execution scores I would have thought with the fall that difference would be greater. But once again I have untrained eyes. Floor I saw that Russia seemed cleaner on their routines but not on all the other events.
 
The execution gap between the Americans and Russians is huge imo. Many of the US girls don't even hit 180 in their split jumps, leaps, ect. especially on beam. Legs apart on backhansprings on floor, falling-out of turns, ect. Lots of flexed feet over all events. I think overall the US team looked pretty sloppy on basics that should be a given in elite.
 
Obviously I'm no fan of Tom, but I'm wondering if Simone would have done what she did with Marta still in charge? I'm not saying bring Marta back, just curious about the different dynamic.
 

New Posts

DON'T LURK... Join The Discussion!

Members see FEWER ads

Gymnaverse :: Recent Activity

College Gym News

New Posts

Back