2012 WOGA Classic- Results, Videos and Analysis

Senior Results

	Name	Vault		Bars	Beam	Floor	All Around
1	Mackenzie Brannan	14.050		14.000	13.600	13.250	54.900
2	Krystyna Sankova	13.550		12.400	14.100	12.050	52.100
3	Claire Hammen	13.600	13.050	11.900	12.700	11.750	63.000
4	Leslie Delgado	13.100	12.850	11.150	10.000	11.250	58.350
5	Briley Casanova	13.900		0.000	12.550	13.500	39.950
6	Hayley Sanders	0.000		13.900	0.000	0.000	13.900
7	Rebecca Bross	0.000		0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000

Only four gymnasts competed all around in the senior competition, and only two scored above 50, so the all around results here don’t mean much. Still, congratulations to Mackenzie Brannan, who has been an elite for years and has been steadily improving. Her gymnastics is very clean, but it won’t be enough to make an Olympic team. Depending on who retires post-London, she may be able to make a national team before college.

Sankova semi-justified the decision to send Kysla and Kononenko to the test event. Her score was in between theirs from the test event, and certainly was not remarkable. She had a pretty beam routine, but she needs to learn how to hit routines. She is a typical Ukrainian. Enough said.

Briley Casanova performed a new double layout on floor, and should be able to make it to VISAs this year with a hit bars and beam routines. The national team seems out of reach, but she will do well at Michigan.

Rebecca Bross, obviously, was the big story at the competition. It appears that her routines were only exhibitions, but they still showed that she is 100% in the mix this year. She fell on both events, but showed full difficulty. The fall on the toe-on Khorkina seemed like a little bit of a fluke. The same can not be said for the fall on the Patterson, which she has not landed in competition since world event finals in 2010. They should seriously consider replacing it with a double tuck. If Rebecca is competing well, I don’t think that there is any way that she will not make that Olympic team. Her bars are the best that the US has to offer right now, hands down. Her handstands are always a .1 deduction or less. The same cannot be said for anyone else in the world, even Komova. Her beam may seem inconsistent, but she is a fighter. She is also valuable on floor. Better than Maroney, and she has beaten Raisman multiple times in the past. We’ll see. I really hope that she makes it, despite feeling indifferent about her in 2009.

Junior Results

	Name	Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor	All Around
1	Katelyn Ohashi	14.450	13.500	15.700	13.750	57.400
2	Madison Kocian	14.000	15.100	14.050	13.400	56.550
3	Simone Biles	16.150	11.350	14.000	13.850	55.350
4	Peyton Ernst	14.600	12.150	14.500	12.050	53.300
5	Polina Shchennikova	13.500	13.350	13.400	12.700	52.950
6	Olena Vasylieva	12.850	14.200	10.700	12.050	49.800
7	Macy Toronjo	12.900	0.000	12.350	12.900	38.150
8	Nica Hults	0.000	14.000	0.000	0.000	14.000

Katelyn Ohashi easily won the junior competition, but it was nowhere near perfect for the current US junior national champion. She fell on bars, and on floor, the judges probably downgraded all of her D dance elements, as well as the front double full, taking her difficulty score down from 6.0 to 5.4. Her beam was obviously spectacular. She wants an Amanar, but I don’t see it happening, at least not this year.

Madison Kocian competed for the first time since Jesolo last year. She looks great on bars, good on beam, and okay on vault and floor. She seems to have grown a lot since 2011, which makes her look pretty on bars but could be the reason for watered down vault and floor. Overall, it looks like she will be in contention for some medals at nationals this year.

Simone Biles was in many ways the star of this competition. She just missed out on the national team last year, and has since improved on vault, beam and floor. She competed her Amanar here, earning a gigantic 16.15, and also won floor with absolutely gorgeous tumbling. Bars is still a huge weakness for her. I really hope that she can put together a decent, Aly Raisman-esque routine (yeah, it probably isn’t good when the goal is Raisman-esque bars), because her other events show loads of potential.

Peyton Ernst had a great competition on vault, where she debuted a double twisting yurchenko, and beam, finishing second on both events. She has been to two VISA championships so far, but she has never made the national team. She could do it this year- with hit bars and floor routines, she can score close to Biles due to her weak bars.

Polina Shchennikova, who reminds everyone of Nastia, had an okay competition. She has beautiful presentation and form, but it remains to be seen if she can develop the power, difficulty and consistency to compete with the top gymnasts in the country. I think that there is a chance. Her bars have improved a great deal (she would have scored in the mid 14s without a fall), and she looked steadier on beam than she has in the past.

Vasylieva is also the typical Ukrainian. She hit one event, bars. She should be at junior europeans this year, and she should be fighting for the bars title with the Russians mainly due to her 6.2 difficulty score.

The other athletes from Texas Dreams, Macy Toronjo and Nica Hults, did not compete all around. Toronjo really needs to improve those scores if she wants to make nationals this year. Hults, meanwhile, showed that she is capable of a 14 on more than one event. I bet she wished that she had scored a 14 instead of a 9.85 on bars at the qualifier earlier in the day, which would have easily qualified her to classics, but oh well.