Deciding athlete line-up in a team competition is a very, very difficult task.
If the USA had won Worlds, we’d never hear about this issue. We’d have assumed the coaches made a good call.
Here’s a quick summary of a summary from The Perfect 10 blog. (Read the original article if you want to weigh in on this one.)
If you haven’t read the Ziert Alert from April’s International Gymnast, you should. Paul Ziert, publisher of International Gymnast magazine, as per usual, does not hesitate to call it like he sees it. …
Ziert researched the United States’ Women’s lineup from the 2006 World Championships Team Finals, which, to use his word, was a fiasco.
… Ashley Priess and Natasha Kelley were completely left out of the finals line up.
… the U.S. dominated the prelims by a whopping 3.80! They were virtually unbeatable. So it was a shock to see them slip to second behind China in the finals. It was especially curious to see Priess and Kelley not listed in the line up when you consider the fact that Nastia Liukin (one of the four U.S. athletes that was listed) was injured and only able to compete on Bars. If one of the remaining 3 athletes listed had had to scratch from an event, as Chellsie Memmel almost did and probably should have, the U.S. Team would have would up in 8th place.
perfect 10 » Punishing Athletes: Is USAG using Psychological Ploys?
Wild conjecture? I’m not so sure this time.
Ziert is not the most responsible source. My observation of IG over the years is that Ziert often gets it wrong, Normile (editor) always gets it right.
In any case, 2006 was the unimportant Worlds. There will be a lot more scrutiny of at Worlds 2007 in Stuttgart as it qualifies for the Olympics.
U.S. women earn team silver medal – USA Gymnastics 2006
photo gallery – USA Gymnastics 2006
Gymnastics Coaching.com 