USA World Championship Team Prediction & Medals

Kyla Ross: Now without Gabby and Jordyn in the picture, Kyla has a real shot at a medal in the All Around, possibly even a gold medal if she can fend off Aliya Mustafina, Larisa Iordache, and her own teammate Simone Biles. She hasn’t regained her amanar and the unique beam connections seen at the training camp have yet to be seen in actual competition.  If Kyla wants to have a shot at the medals she’s going to have to take some actual risk.

Kyla is also the US’s only chance at getting into the bars finals.  Though I don’t think Kyla will be on the podium, you never know, the Russians don’t seem to be at full difficulty yet (Mustafina) and the Chinese are usually very inconsistent.

In my opinion, her consistency and execution will get her far in the competition, but her lack of difficulty will keep her from the coveted gold medal.

Simone Biles:  The 2013 national champion.  She is the US’s best potential all arounder right now and be more than capable of getting into the medals with consistent performances on all the apparatus.  In addition to a spot in the all around, Simone will be looking to make the floor and vault finals.  On floor, she tumbles like no other, performing a double double and double layout in the first 30 seconds.  Her difficulty score is a bit difficult to calculate at the moment because she has been upgrading and downgrading certain moves recently.  She had a 6.2 difficulty at the American Cup, a 6.4 difficulty at Jesolo, and a 6.5 difficulty at Nationals.  A big problem for her is that she has too much power! She’s very bouncy on a lot of her tumbles, especially the first 2.  If she goes clean, the floor final gold could be in her grasp.

She has two vaults under her belt at the moment: an Amanar and a Lopez (Round-off, flic-flac with ½ turn on – salto fwd stretched with ½  turn off) Her 2^nd vault is less difficult than Myckala Maroney’s and thus she will have to pray that Mckayla fumbles in order to secure a gold medal for herself. 

She’s got the difficulty, now has she got the execution and consistency?

Mckayla Maroney:  Her presence at the world championships will secure a gold medal in the vault finals without a doubt… as long as she doesn’t land on her ass again.  Mckayla won the floor competition at Nationals and in my opinion has a good shot at getting into and possibly medalling at World’s floor finals.  She needs to clean up her landings in my opinion, maybe adding a leap or two in her routine, especially after that hard to stick double Arabian, will help out with those landings and raise her difficulty score simultaneously.

The Fourth Spot (Brenna Dowell, Kennedy Baker, Peyton Ernst): With Simone, Kyla, and Mckayla all locks (in my mind at least), that leaves 2 more spots to compete in qualification: on the uneven bars and on the beam.  No offense to the rest of the US national team, but the real world team will just consist of the 3 gymnasts already stated in this article (Biles, Ross, Maroney).  There’s no one else that has proved that they are capable of earning an individual medal at these worlds.  The other member of this team will be going for international experience, not for medals.

This is all assuming that Mckayla Maroney does not compete in the all around in qualification. Maroney has suffered from many injuries the past years that have kept her from really showing her potential in the all around.  She’s not as good on bars and beam as she is on vault and floor but she could be a real all around threat if she’s given the chance.  Plus, after the Olympics, it’s no secret that Marta likes to have an extra gymnast competing in the all around.

Because the entire US team is weak on bars and will have to face off against the Russians and Chinese in the finals, I think Marta’s going to want to put a ‘Beamer’ on the team as opposed to someone who is decent on bars just incase something goes wrong with Simone or Kyla in the qualifications round. Kyla is really the only one capable of medaling in the bars finals at worlds and with her difficulty score, she’s already pushing it.

It’s such a shame that Ohashi is out because she would have been perfect for this spot

Medal Predictions:

Simone: AA (Gold/Silver/Bronze), Vault (Silver), Floor (Silver), Beam (Bronze)

Kyla: AA (Silver/Bronze), Bars (Bronze), Beam (Bronze)

Mckayla: Vault (Gold), Floor (Bronze)

Note: I’m being QUITE optimistic here, I’m not really sure that Mckayla could medal on floor and Kyla could medal on bars but anything could happen in event finals.  Simone however is in fact capable of getting all of those medals, except maybe the beam medal, if she stays CONSISTENT.