As expected, the training gym (tent really) is MUCH more overwhelming in its hot-pink-ness than the actual arena. Hopefully this will help them adjust better. The arena is going to have lots of cream mats and red down on the podium, and sponsorship messages on the side (coca cola and mcdonalds number one choice of all athletes!) so all in all, will be quite the combo. Yesterday the USA girls did eh nobody proud by wearing hot pink leos. Russia wore lighter pink ones. Headache inducing. Thankfully today USA at least are wearing purple ones. The Romanian girls, who just arrived yesterday, wore some nice black ones which WORKED with the hot pink surroundings. Cata is going to look great when she wears her trademark black in beam EF next to everyone clashing.
Lots of photos are emerging of the Russian girls having a laugh, great to see.
You can see the leo in this one, not a nice pink.
Currently only one blogger is on the ground, Alexa Ainsworth on NBC. Yesterday she reported on USA's and Russia's training. Vika fell off beam at least four times, but that isn't really a big deal as she ALWAYS tanks on beam during PT and jumps off. Mustafina hit a clean bars set. No vaulting was seen. She only saw half of USA's training but what is concerning is that McKayla was on the sidelines, while everyone else trained floor. As she herself states, McKayla may have trained floor before she arrived. My guess would be when bars were going on, as McKayla hasn't a hope of being used there. It's also possible that to save her back after the gruelling round of Nationals- Trials- camp, she isn't participating in every floor training. Regardless, I still think she will do floor ahead of Kyla. Barring injury, it makes no sense to use Kyla when McKayla's floor may well score higher than Gabby's NCAA-style routine. She deserves the chance to find out. It's also worth remembering that last year at Worlds, even though McKayla messed up floor in prelims, Marta still used her in the TF ahead of Gabby and Sabrina, which worked out for the team. As well as Marta's insistence that she will not take a girl for one event, John Geddert has stated that they are training 3 AA-ers (Jordyn, Aly, Gabby) and 2 2-eventers (Kyla, McKayla). So why is Kyla training floor? She's still a back-up for AA, I don't see any reason why she shouldn't.
There's also hysteria over Jordyn's health. In the photo above she is shown putting all her weight on one foot. OMGZ! In another team photo, ALL of the girls are posing like this. It's quite common. It's not even wrapped, unlike Gabby's heavily taped ankle all year, so if it IS sore it seems more preventative than actually injured. If she was injured enough to hinder her training or AA chances, we would have heard by now. Let's all stay calm until Sunday, or try! Luckily we'll have even more bloggers on the scene for official podium training, can't wait!
Now for the surprise!
Victoria Moors of Canada. She of the awesome floor routine also has the most original bars dismount we have seen in a long long time. Has anyone seen one of these since the 80's? Brilliant, I was only wondering before this would anyone try one again, so sick of double layouts etc. Of course, the routine isn't difficult enough to see her do spectacularly well with this (and she has made costly mistakes as the first two routines show) but I just love seeing something so surprising and great.
UPDATE: McKayla did not train today either, and iced her right foot throughout training. She did do conditioning on bars and dance moves on floor. Hopefully it's nothing serious. She needs to vault five times in competition- luckily although her floor SHOULD be the first one up in TF, Gabby's floor is worthy too so it's not a huge loss if she can't do floor. Only a loss for artistry! But her vault IS neccessary, very much hoping that by Friday (official podium training) that she's able to land her vaults and do floor safely. USAG have said she's fine though, so I am sure she will be.
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