Riley McCusker
It seems weird to be putting the silver medalist here, but how many people knew she existed before this season? I was taken aback to realize she'll be a senior next year- holding her from elite until this year seems to go very much against Maggie's strategies with Laurie, Jazzy, and Ari Agripides. I love how she has a different style from your stereotypical MG Elite- not as showy, it seems to me. I think she could be very much a Maggie type who turns senior the first year of the quad and than just keeps building. Her foundation she has now is beautiful, and I'd love to see her take on a role as an elegant type in the US.
Sunisa Lee
Her floor is what really caught my eye in St. Louis. I love her DLO and her choreography showed tons of promise! Her bars also have nice work. I'd love to her continue to develop in the next two years before she turns senior in 2019, because she totally has the talent and lovely style.
Madeline Johnston
Madeline caught my eye on bars, which is interesting because they were super low-scoring with only a 4.8 D score, but that's actually pretty similar to Kyla Ross and Morgan Hurd's D scores their first years as elite. What surprised me is she only got an 8.0 E score both days, seeing as she seemed quite clean to me. Especially day 2, that seems low to me.
Sloane Blakely
She's another one who has fairly simple routines at this point but just looks polished. Beam especially is where she stood out to me as one who didn't have the flashiest routine, didn't even have necessarily the steadiest performance, but looked comfortable in an elite competition setting. She didn't hit her acro series either night, and as a back tuck+back tuck series, that just seems to be begging not to be credited (also, thumbs up to you, USAG judges, for not just crediting everything attempted or ignoring a completely missing CR for once and actually encouraging gymnasts to change composition that's not working for them- keep this up), but overall she just seems way more confident than I expect from a new junior.
Lauren Letzsch
Lauren's floor is fabulous and honestly reminds me more of what you'd expect from a Russian junior than a stereotypical American junior- she has that look of Russian juniors who've been around the top scene their whole lives. She also, like Sunisa, has an awesome DLO and I love her twisting connection! Sealing the "you look like you're a Russian junior" deal is her fabulous double L+Memmel turn connection. She definitely had some rough spots on other events, but she does some nice work and I'd like to see it built upon.
Cameron Machado
Cameron really shows promise across the board. She has about middling difficulty everywhere, which is perfect for her since she's a 2019 senior, and her execution and presentation really is quite polished, setting her up well. Like I said, she really has talent on all four events, which makes me hope she'll emerge as a balanced (and stylish) AAer.
Also, I mentioned her in my Classics/Euros bullet post, but I'm gonna give Tori Tatum a bit of an extended mention here as well. I just love her style and line. Beam is unfortunately rather a thorn in her side, but she has two more years on the junior level to build confidence there and she really is just lovely on the other three events. She ups the standard junior vault difficulty a bit with a 1.5 twister, and it is gorgeous.
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