With the regular College season winding down, it’s time for backseat coaches and fans everywhere to start predicting the winners. Last week I announced that Georgia will win team.
Anything can happen with close-scoring NCAA judging. But today I’m predicting #1 ranked Ashley Postell from Utah will be Champion.
After losing her first all-around competition of the season two weeks ago against Florida (she finished 5th), Ashley is now in perfect position to win it all at Championships in Athens, Georgia.
Postell first fell on her bars routine. After completing a maneuver on the lower bar, Postell lost momentum and slipped off the bar right onto her feet.
“I knew something wasn’t really right when I was doing the skill before I fell,” Postell said. She said she broke in new grips this week and wasn’t comfortable with them during her routine.
Postell later got on beam and was flowing through her routine before slipping after a pass midway through the performance.
“Ashley doesn’t struggle like that typically, so if she does, you know it’s not her night,” Marsden said.
Postell’s fall on the bars ended a streak of 49 straight routines without a fall. After her vault performance earlier that night, she was just 14 routines shy of Suzanne Metz’s team record of 63 straight routines without a fall that extended from the 1994 to the 1995 season.
Marsden approached Postell after she fell on beam and asked her if she wanted to sit out the floor exercise. She agreed that it was the right thing to do.
Postell’s closest competitors include Ashleigh Clare-Kearney (LSU), Kiara Redmond-Sturms (Oklahoma), Jessica Lopez (Denver), the dazzling Corey Hartung (Florida), Jami Lanz (Oregon State), wonderful Kristina Baskett (Utah), Anna Li (UCLA) and many others.
That shocking, terrible competition in Florida Oregon puts Ashley in a much better position psychologically, I feel. It’s mentally easier to “come back” than to “hold the lead”.
In fact, a week later, Ashley won the all-around AND three aparatus, leading her team over previously unbeaten Michigan. Wow!
As a coach, I get very nervous if an athlete has no problems leading up to the biggest competition. I prefer them to have to struggle somewhere along the line. It helps to refocus on the goal.
The World Champion may benefit in the same way as will Ashley. As did Carly Patterson in 2004:
Yet with that one big mistake on her first event at the American Cup, Johnson became human again. “Actually, she seems to have had a huge load lifted,” Teri Johnson, Shawn’s mother, told IG. “She seems much more light-hearted and back to the old Shawn. I think it’s really great to have some of the spotlight dimmed for a while.”
A similar situation emerged in 2004, when Carly Patterson began the year by winning the all-around and every event at the American Cup. After tying for first with Courtney Kupets at the U.S. National Championships later that season, the spotlight’s glare was at least shared. But when Patterson fell off beam (both days) and placed third at the U.S. Olympic Trials, she could finally relax and focus on Athens.
“[Carly] felt like trials was a blessing in disguise because she was on a winning streak, as well, and that it would have to come to an end,” says Natalie Patterson, Carly’s mother. “It was better to end at trials, which gave her that much more motivation to come back and prove what she was capable of doing. People talk when things like this happen. They write you off as the pressure got to her. This only gave Carly a stronger vengeance to come back and prove herself.”
Fueled by a deeper resolve, Patterson won the 2004 Olympics over then-world champion and main challenger Svetlana Khorkina. …
Now Johnson has something to prove as well. “Personally, I think this is the best thing that could have happened for her,” Teri says of her daughter’s runner-up finish at the American Cup. “Don’t get me wrong. I never want for her to ‘lose,’ but I do think she will be hungrier now. I’ve always told her that knowing how to lose is as important as knowing how to win. You have to experience one in order to fully appreciate the other.”
Johnson’s loss at the American Cup was also her gain – Dwight Normile – IG
If you have your own favourite for NCAA Champion, please leave a comment.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 