USA-Gymnastics team named
My recently deleted post about Morgan Hamm making the Olympic team came to fruition today and I still don’t get it. He might be able to hit floor in the team final but he was the last person at the Olympic Trials. Not improving from Nationals where he was grossly overscored. His PH is also another event we “need” him for but he didn’t hit those consistently either.
Here is your team and the last 3 are alternates.
Joe Hagerty, Rio Ranchero, N.M./Team Chevron
Morgan Hamm, Waukesha, Wis./Team Chevron
Paul Hamm, Waukesha, Wis./Team Chevron
Jonathan Horton, Houston/Team Chevron
Justin Spring, Burke, Va./Team Chevron
Kevin Tan, Fremont, Calif./Team Chevron
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander Artemev, Lakewood, Colo./Team Chevron
Raj Bhavsar, Houston/Team Chevron
David Durante, Garwood, N.J./Team Chevron
A bigger shock to me then Raj not making the team is Sasha Artemev not making the team. He made mistakes on his best event but if potential of hitting put Morgan Hamm counted in this decision Sasha deserves the same benefit and his results are not more then 4 years ago.
Should have been. A Blog about Gymnastics 
The problem is that Sasha can’t really be given the benefit of the doubt. While I love Sasha he is not known for his consistency, in fact his national and international track record is horrible.
The decision to choose Morgan was probabily not only reached by his results from 2004, most of routines (with the exception of pommel) were great at nationals and he improved his pommel here at trials.
Even WITH his falls, Sash is still significantly better than other options for PH. He should be on the team and Spring off of it. Here is the math:
But all your math doesn’t take into consideration what effect his fall will have on the team, outside of scoring. When your teammate falls, expecially on an event that you are seriously depending on them for, it puts a lot of stress and pressure on you. We saw it in 2004 when Gatson messed up on the rings, one of his speciality events.
While Sasha can score high even with a fall, there is no guarantee that it won’t effect the other members of the team making them perform badly.
All the gymnasts are inconsistent on pig. Sasha has a wide range of scores, but so does Paul Hamm! Should we leave Paul off?
See here (seventh post) for more details:
Tan has high variability on pig as well. If he scores a 13.3, how will we deal with that!?
But its different when you aren’t completely relying on them to deliver on that event. Everyone knows that Tan and Paul are specialist on pommel so their scores aren’t that shocking;Paul at least can make up for any mistake on pommel. Pommel however is Sasha’s speciality and, based off of his recent scores, one of the only events he could contribute to the team. A mistake from a specialist you are relying heavily on has a much bigger impact than a mistake from someone not expected to post very high.
Chris sums up Sasha’s position perfectly on his blog at Inside gymnastics (http://www.insidegymnastics.com/blog/default.asp?Display=129)
“So, is pommel horse a problem? Well, yes, but what the Selection Committee undoubtedly saw was that even though Artemev led the horse standings, even with three out of four falls, he also only averaged a 14.83—less than four tenths better than Morgan—with only a single score breaking the 15-mark for his lone hit, which went 15.65.
So, while Artemev could have theoretically added 1.35 to the team total, there was only a 25 percent probability of that occurring (based on his Nationals and Trials results), and a far better shot that he’d bring three tenths, or less, to the table, if he continued to struggle. The fact that Artemev was also wildly inconsistent on his other events, meant those were odds the Selection Committee didn’t want to bet on.”
Besides even if you don’t agree with the committee’s choice, they are still the team USA is going to send to the Olympics. Instead of *****ing and moaning over something you have no control over, and complaining that they have no chance of every medaling, you should support the team.
The committee made their decision and there is nothing we can do about; if they wanted our opinions they would have asked for them.
Let me bitch and moan a little longer. And I’m right on the math. EVEN WITH the misses, Sasha still brings more tenths to the team than Spring does. EVEN WITH! Would you rather have a consitent 7 or a 50-50 shot of 8 or 10?