Weekly GymNews – March 4, 2020


NCAA Gymnastics News:

NCAA rankings for the week: 3/2/2020. Oklahoma is still #1 – who made the rest of the list?

NCAA updates from last weekend’s meets:

Elite Gymnastics News:

The Melbourne World Cup was held with the Chinese gymnasts not allowed to attend due to the coronavirus outbreak. The World Cup Olympic qualification process has been confusing from the beginning, but now it has the extra wrinkle of athletes unable to compete due to the potential for a pandemic. Obviously no one could foresee that this would happen, but it demonstrates some of the problems with the qualification process as it exists today.

Women’s results are available here, and men’s results are available here. Jade Carey continued her dominance on vault and floor, placing first on both events. Where does that leave her in terms of Olympic qualification? She now has three wins on both vault and floor, which means that she has the qualifying spot all but sewn up. The only way she could get bumped now would be if someone won the next two World Cup events, and if she did not win the tiebreaker. My opinion: Jade Carey has punched her ticket to Tokyo.

The final roster for the American Cup is available. Russia has pulled their gymnasts out of the meet due to the coronavirus. The Chinese athletes, however, will still be competing.

International Gymnix will also be taking place this weekend, with MyKayla Skinner headlining the U.S. team. Here are links to the official International Gymnix website, and a Gymternet article about the U.S. senior and junior teams.

The U.S. women held their national team training camp on February 26. Noticeably absent was Laurie Hernandez, although she continues to post videos of her training on social media. Here’s a link to a tweeted beam video. I can’t wait to see her competing again, although it is REALLY late in the game for her to challenge for the Olympic team.

In Russia, Aliya Mustafina has not yet begun training again taking a break in late 2019.

The field is set for the Birmingham World Cup, to be held on March 28.

Educational links of the week:

The Level 6/7 vault practice judging video has been updated. Check it out here!

A new NCAA Gymnastics Rules News is up!

Gymnastics podcasts this week:

GymCastic Episode 414: American Cup Preview

The Routine: Gymnastics Conversations Episode 76: The Battle Out West

I Have Cool Friends (Samantha Peszek’s podcast): How Did Shannon Miller Become the Most Decorated U.S. Gymnast and Use Her Athletic Experiences to Help Her Overcome Cancer?