USA Gymnastics FINALLY posted some videos with footage of skills! It's mostly a sort of mini-doc, and it only focused on Bailie, Nia, and Alexis, but still, FOOTAGE!!
Bailie Key
On vault, Bailie showed her DTY. It looked a bit messier to me; I wonder what will happen in competition. Is the Amanar ever going to surface, or is she just going to stick with the DTY? Her bars work was clean and a bit interesting- she showed a toe-on 1/2+Jager, kip, Downie. The flight over the high bar was a bit close on the Downie and she looked to just squeak it around. She showed her confounding layout series on beam- it's so extended, but gets so little height. No one's really sure how deductible that is. It did seem to be a bit higher than last year's to me, though. On floor, she showed a double pike, DLO, and Dos Santos. The double pike was fine, duh, on to the next. The DLO wasn't fully rotated, and I noticed that problem in her training video last year. Her Dos Santos was great, but her toes weren't pointed. That could be fixable, though. I'm not sure about the DLO, and I definitely think the Dos Santos is a better upgrade option.
Nia Dennis
Nia only showed bars work in the video. We saw a toe-on full+Tkatchev+Pak and Maloney+bail+toe shoot. It looks like maybe she had to kip twice between the two connections, but I couldn't tell. She came in a bit close on the toe shoot, but otherwise looked great. Huge flight, love it! Really, there's not too much to say about what she showed because it was so little. I do think she has the potential to pull out a surprise leap-frog over Bailie.
Alexis Vasquez
Alexis seems maybe to be being pushed to the forefront in USAG. Martha seems to see what she likes in her. Vault wasn't shown, which could be a sticking point for her. According to Lauren over at The Gymternet, the US will be applying an FTY penalty this year, so I'd love to see her at least go for a 1.5. On floor, Alexis showed a 3/1, done both on the floor and onto a soft surface. It wasn't quite around either time, but I'm not sure what to think of it. The one on the soft surface definitely didn't look scary, but the one on the floor had a little bit of a red flag. I'm not sure how alarmed to be, though. Her bars work looked great and definitely showed improvements on the last two years. Very clean, I love it! Her swing was pretty good, but she did have a bit of a labored kip. She also showed a good full-out dismount. Her beam work was also gorgeous! She had a beautifully precise and fluid front aerial+sheep jump, definitely one of the best I've seen! She also showed a strong combination double pike dismount. She could definitely succeed on beam at a senior level.
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