You Were Warned. Not too late to turn back.
Still here? All right, let’s get nerdy.
Jones had an absolutely iron-willed gut-check performance, competing with a fresh leg injury, pulling off one of the best bars routines of the night as her only event to officially qualify for consideration by the committee. By rule, an athlete has to compete in at least one event at trials to be named to the team, and cannot petition to be considered despite missing the event due to injury. Jones just showed a champion’s heart and if she wasn’t already a lock for the team, she has to be now.
DiCello on the other hand, is likely done. While she’s officially eligible because she did score on her failed vault, she was already rather borderline without a big showing at Trials. She really needed a fifth or higher placement if not third or even second to secure her spot. Unless she miraculously comes back from the injury that had her carted off the floor tonight and absolutely wows everyone on night two, we’re looking at best another Olympics as an alternate.
Although honestly her coming out of the tunnel on Sunday and nailing four rotations might be the most DiCello thing that could happen. Stay tuned.
While we’re on the subject, I literally learned tonight that DiCello and Lee are best friends. Lee said DiCello was the first person she called when she won the All-Around in Tokyo, and DiCello was in Florida at the time, which is a weird place for an alternate to be, but whatever.
The point is Lee was clearly bothered as medical staff wheeled DiCello out of the arena with her injury after the very first vault of the night, and Lee nearly slipped off the apparatus herself a few moments later. But Lee is a mega super star and showed the same level of focus, poise, and determination that won her the All-Around in Tokyo, including another miraculous save on beam where I swear the woman has talons for toenails. Also her bar routine might just be the best in the world.
Chiles showed up and showed out. This is the swaggy punk rock Chiles who’s been missing a bit since she was picked for PanAm instead of Worlds. None of that matters though. Welcome back rockstar. Four routines to go.
Also Terminator Carey was back tonight as well, giving out her patented crisp, clean, mistake-free routines in the most calmly stoic fashion imaginable for an allegedly human person. That may seem as though I dislike Carey, but not remotely true. She’s an absolute legend and champion at literally every level the sport has to offer. Her demeanor’s also a great offset with huge personalities like Biles and Chiles.
On the outside looking in, Roberson scrapped and clawed for a respectable fifth place tonight and even added new routines to her repertoire for trials to close the gap between her and the upper echelon. While that should technically put her into contention the problem for her is she’s basically Jade Carey, but less so (except a lot more personality), in that she’s a Vault/Floor specialist in the same way Carey is, but a little less so. It’s not really a fair comparison as Carey is the reigning Olympic champion on floor and probably would have medaled on vault if not for the botched runway incident. Still begs the question why take the diet version when you can have the original recipe? Roberson is relatively young (18), has an incredible mentor in Biles, and should be a frontrunner for LA.
Lincoln falls into a similar camp as Roberson, but even less so. Ostensibly, she’s a floor specialist (although she performed admirably as an All-Arounder tonight) and was banking on a presumed need with Lee on the team, they’d be light on floor. But with Biles and Jones both in the running to medal on floor, add Carey to the mix who is, again, the reigning Olympic champion on floor and also really rather good on vault, it doesnt look like a need at all, and you have two spots covered instead of one. Always seemed like an overblown issue especially considering how stupid deep the US is with All-Arounders and two or even three event specialists, the days of a Maroney or Kocain making the team to dominate one event may be gone.
Wong started off strong and even lead all gymnasts after two events, but perhaps predictably faded once she moved onto beam and floor, where her mistakes started adding up. At this point, she’s battling for an alternate spot. And even then, while I don’t know offhand how many alternates there are, even with the injuries, I’d give them to DiCello, Roberson, and even Rivera before Wong. OK, maybe not Rivera; that’s probably just being mean.
Even still, Rivera continues to shine and impress, She finished ahead of not only all the other rookies, but both Wong and Sumanasekera, who weren’t exactly doing poorly - Rivera just outperformed them. She’s clearly lightyears ahead of the other Senior Elite rookies and I’m super excited to watch her build off these strong showings over the next four years in route to LA.
While we’re at it, Paris hasn’t officially been selected, but let’s make a prediction for LA (with the age they’ll be in 2028). I have the team as: Skye Blakely (23), Kayla DiCello (24), Josc Roberson (22), Hezly Rivera (19) and Tiana Sumanasekera (20).
OK, now I’ve gone too deep. End transmission.
