I’ll admit, I’m on a bit of a Katelyn Ohashi kick right now. But can you blame me? The girl is awesome! She beat Jordyn Wieber on floor (admittedly by a very small margin), which is no easy task. Katelyn has got great lines and execution, not only on floor but also on bars and beam. And probably vault too, although I haven’t seen hers from the CoverGirl Classic. Anyways, looks like Katelyn has absorbed all of Nastia’s elegance and artistry - they are from the same gym after all! (And perhaps some of Courtney McCool’s, since GAGE was Katelyn’s old gym!) I love where this girl is headed! She will only be 15 in 2012, so pleeeeease don’t burn out before 2016!!!
CoverGirl Classic Results & Thoughts
Well the CoverGirl Classic has finished and I must say, the Junior girls put up a very impressive showing! I was actually more interested to see what happened in the Junior Division than in the Seniors!
Junior Division AA Results
- Jordyn Wieber, Twistars, 59.95
- Katelyn Ohashi, WOGA, 59.10
- Kyla Ross, Gym-Max, 58.70
- Sabrina Vega, Dynamic, 57.25
- Madison Kocian, WOGA, 56.20
Jordyn Wieber dominated the meet today, she threw a huge Amanar (15.9), had solid tumbling and improved dance on floor (14.7), and scored impressive 14.85 on bars and 14.5 on beam.
Katelyn Ohashi, who has improved tremendously since moving to WOGA from GAGE, actually beat Wieber on floor, scoring a 14.75. She also had an amazing beam routine with a lovely mount, punctuated by an impressive back handspring stepout, back handspring, layout full series. She had a big leg lift to save the layout full but it looked great otherwise. It’s great to see her improve so much, I think she might have surprised herself a little winding up second, so hopefully she’ll continue to get some good results and get some confidence! Go Katelyn!
Kyla Ross, the defending US Junior Champion, did well to place third, but with Wieber back this year (she was out at VISA’s last year with a hamstring injury), she’ll have a hard time defending her title. She did post some impressive scores, with a 15.2 on vault, 15.25 on beam, and a 14.55 on bars.
One of my favorites, Mackenzie Brannan, wound up 8th with 55.45. She’s been training a full in, half out as her first pass on floor, which is really impressive to see. Unfortunately I’ve only seen her land it really low or fall, but it will look AWESOME once she’s got it under control! Not sure if she threw it in competition but she was doing it during Podium Training.
Senior Division AA Results
- Mattie Larson, All-Olympia, 57.15
- Amanda Jetter, Cincinnati, 56.8
- Mackenzie Caquatto, Legacy Elite, 56.45
- Cassie Whitcomb, Cincinnati, 55.9
- Alexandra Raisman, Brestyan’s, 55.7
Many of the top girls (Sloan, Bross, Sacramone) only competed a few events, so we’ve got some new-ish faces in the results. Mattie Larson made a great comeback from an early fall on her beam dismount and charged back with a solid DTY and an exceptional bar routine to win the title. This was her first meet since the 2008 Olympic Trials, so it’s a great return for her.
Sami Shapiro also looked great tonight but had a stiff-legged landing on her vault and didn’t compete bars, her last event. Apparently she is OK. She was in 4th after the third event, so she must have landed her vault without any serious deductions. Shame, I’d have loved to have seen how she finished the meet!
Jetter, Caquatto, and Whitcomb all looked decent tonight, but not overly impressive. Although, Jetter did have a beautiful standing full on beam, as well as a standing arabian. She followed those up with an attempt at a leg-up full turn that barely made it to 45 degrees, and a HUGE wobble on her switch-side leap, unfortunately. Whitcomb had a fall on beam, I think. It will be interesting to see how these two perform at VISA’s, now that they have their wobbles out of the way!
Raisman was solid and aggressive as usual. She had an awkward and painful looking fall on an Amanar which was nowhere near rotated, it was about a two and one fourths twist! She got what looked to be a lecture from Mihai Brestyan afterwards, but perhaps he just has a serious face! At any rate, I’m glad she was ok after that. She finished with a hit bars routine, although her form was a little lacking, flexed feet ala Bridget Sloan 2007.
Alicia Sacramone is definitely back with GREAT form on vault and beam. Her vaults are easily as good as they were in 2008, if not better. Undoubtedly the time off allowed her body to heal up, she was significantly less bandaged than at the Olympics! You’ve got to think this is a great start to the season for her, she didn’t count a fall on beam, and threw two impressive vaults - a handspring front rudi that was HUGE, but not the best landing, and a yurchenko full that was sky high. She told Gymnastike before the meet that she’d be doing a yurchenko double, but apparently decided not to. Anyways, she definitely showed Martha that she’s back just with that first vault, she didn’t really need the second!
I hope I’m not too harsh on the seniors. It’s just that I was more impressed by the juniors, I guess!
What did you all think of the meet?
CoverGirl Classic will be broadcast on UniversalSports.com today starting at 8 PM ET. There should be a link to watch it on the right side of the webpage I’ve linked to.
Hello!
I hope you’re all enjoying these videos I’ve been posting over the last few days. I am in Norman, Oklahoma visiting some friends (this is where I graduated from college!) and filming some stuff at the OU gym for gymnastike.org, so I took advantage of one of Tumblr’s awesome features - you can set posts to automatically post themselves at the time you choose! Pretty cool, huh? I could have just not said anything at all about being gone, lucky for you all I am feeling nice and honest! :P I’ll be back home in Dallas on Monday afternoon, the 12th, so perhaps we’ll get some news updates then. Maybe some CoverGirl Classic news? I know it’s coming up soon!
