It's that time of the week and time for for my weekly power rankings.
Once again, these rankings are not based on the official Road to Nationals rankings, but rather these are stories and or people that have intrigued me or caught my attention this week.
Last week's power rankings were:
1. Soooo many perfect tens
2. Morgan Lane of North Carolina's Beam Routine
3. Battle of the beamers - Chayse Capps versus Danusia Francis
4. The Big Fives - competing to compete for bragging rights in the Big Ten
5. Shawn Johnson Professes Her Love for NCAA Gymnastics, and the reasons we all watch and love it
6. Allie Northey Beats the Second Ranked All-Arounder in the NCAA on Senior Night
Without further adieu, let's get to this week's power rankings!
1. UCLA's side eye inducing beam total
This weekend at the PAC 12 Championships, UCLA usurped the current two-in-a-row PAC 12 Champions, Utah. Utah started on beam and immediately had a fall, then another fall. But Utah falling on beam is not what this topic is about today. When UCLA went on beam, they produced a beam total of 49.575, really, really high. That's because everyone in the line-up went 9.9 and above, and yes, I mean everyone. At the end of the day, the ranking was correct, UCLA was the best team on the floor that day, but those beam scores really were, possibly inflated. Honestly, I wondered if the judges from the SEC (specifically Florida) were flown in just for this meet. Because, why not, I guess? Either that or the judges were awed by a beam rotation with not a lot of flaws and everyone hits. I'm still not sure about it and I'm still giving those beam scores the side eye. Speaking of UCLA...
2. Peng Peng is Injured... Again....
Have you watched a UCLA meet recently and wondered "why am I not seeing the wonderful Peng Peng Lee in the line-ups? I know she was a little inconsistent, but what gives, man?" Well, the answer is Miss Christine aka "Peng Peng" is injured yet again. *Face Palm*
Per International Gymnast, dear Peng is out because she had surgery for a torn meniscus. She told IG she was experiencing some popping and clicking in her left knee (the same one she's had operated on TWICE) and she went for an MRI and low and behold, she had a torn meniscus. Ugh. What do we have to do to keep that girl healthy? Seriously! This girl has miss like two and a half years of gymnastics competition because of that ACL tear in 2012. Earlier this year, she had to do a "bluetooth" handsfree beam routine because she'd had surgery on her thumb prior to the start of the season. Per IG, she said she's hoping to be back to compete for UCLA at Regionals, April 2nd. (They're in the Utah regional with Washington and Utah). I guess for now, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed for Peng and hope for a speedy recovery.
Read the original article here.
3. Florida Wins the SEC Championship; Coach Jenny Rowland has her Oscar Moment
(Spoiler alert - they're tears of joy) So this year, Florida usurped Alabama as the reigning SEC Champions. They beat them by like 0.05 AND they did it with a new head coach, Jenny Rowland. She's obviously worked very hard to peak the girls at the right time (despite SEC over scoring, cough cough) and to bring them together as a cohesive unit, under a new coach. It's definitely a big challenge and not an oft accomplished feat (of course, unless you're Alabama in 2015). At the end, the SEC reporters and commentators spoke with Jenny about her team's accomplishment. Coach Jenny was so happy and overcome with joy, she broke out into tears.
The Oscars may have been two weeks ago, but god dammit, this was Jenny's Oscar moment. She said of course how proud she was of the girls and how over joyed she was at the honor AND that she did this with HER team. This woman has clearly been working her ass off and dammit all to hell if she wasn't going to enjoy it.
4. Kaytianna McMillian of Oregon State does a hella cool back spin on floor
Oregon State is kind of the little team that could this year. They've suffered from injuries this year and have struggled to stay consistent and have fought back. They earned a spot in the evening session of the PAC 12 Championships and wound up tying for second with Utah.
Despite having lost athletes to injury this year, they do have a backbone of hard working, talented athletes. I've mentioned Maddie Gardiner, who is glorious, and Risa Perez, who is her own one woman show. Today, I'm giving a shout out to Kaytianna McMillan. At this weekend's PAC 12 Championships, she pulled out a freaking bad ass back spin on floor exercise. I just love weird, random cool skills like that.
You can watch it here (it's at approximately 1:12)
5. Zoe Draghi of Cal's funky floor choreography
At the PAC 12 Championships, Cal placed fourth overall, their highest finish at the PAC 12's in like, forever. This team has a lot of talent and not all of the talent comes from sophomore wonder woman, Toni Ann Williams.
Case in point. Zoe Draghi earned a 9.9 on floor with a floor routine that featured some weird, funky choreography. Zoe shows off beautiful toe point (her toes are pointed in her double back) and lovely flexibility. She's just delightful to watch. This team has come a long way since the the days of the program being threatened to be cut and it's delightful to see this team come together to achieve
6. No tens for you, Ebee Price or McKenzie Wofford
So over the weekend, Ashleigh Gnat got her third consecutive perfect ten in about three weeks time frame and that makes it the fifth or sixth ten she's gotten this season alone. While SEC judges are busy throwing out tens like they are candy, other certain athletes who are very deserving of tens, do not get them. Because the judges are assholes.
First, there is McKenzie Wofford of Oklahoma. She's a bars specialist in every sense of the word. Her form is impeccable, toes pointed, handstands hit, legs together and extended, beautiful height on her release moves. Just beautiful. She get's awesome scores, but not a ten. It occurred to me after a day of trolling Twitter when someone said that if Kenzie was at Florida, she would have gotten ten tens by now. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it. Dick moves, judges, dick moves. It's mostly interesting to realize this when it seems like some athletes are thrown tens just for existing, but Kenzie Wofford can do a perfect routine, and get a 9.975.
Second, there is Ebee Price. Ebee has gotten perfect tens in the past, but this year, they seem to allude her. A couple weeks ago at the Stanford/UCLA/Georgia tri meet, while tens were thrown at Brittany Rogers got a ten on vault for her yurchenko one and a half and Danusia Francis on beam. Ebee did a huge DTY on vault, had a ridiculously awesome bar routine with a billion connections, perfectly executed, but no ten. Whatever. Jerks.
That's all for now. Tune in for regular season power rankings to come soon.
Once again, these rankings are not based on the official Road to Nationals rankings, but rather these are stories and or people that have intrigued me or caught my attention this week.
Last week's power rankings were:
1. Soooo many perfect tens
2. Morgan Lane of North Carolina's Beam Routine
3. Battle of the beamers - Chayse Capps versus Danusia Francis
4. The Big Fives - competing to compete for bragging rights in the Big Ten
5. Shawn Johnson Professes Her Love for NCAA Gymnastics, and the reasons we all watch and love it
6. Allie Northey Beats the Second Ranked All-Arounder in the NCAA on Senior Night
Without further adieu, let's get to this week's power rankings!
1. UCLA's side eye inducing beam total
This weekend at the PAC 12 Championships, UCLA usurped the current two-in-a-row PAC 12 Champions, Utah. Utah started on beam and immediately had a fall, then another fall. But Utah falling on beam is not what this topic is about today. When UCLA went on beam, they produced a beam total of 49.575, really, really high. That's because everyone in the line-up went 9.9 and above, and yes, I mean everyone. At the end of the day, the ranking was correct, UCLA was the best team on the floor that day, but those beam scores really were, possibly inflated. Honestly, I wondered if the judges from the SEC (specifically Florida) were flown in just for this meet. Because, why not, I guess? Either that or the judges were awed by a beam rotation with not a lot of flaws and everyone hits. I'm still not sure about it and I'm still giving those beam scores the side eye. Speaking of UCLA...
2. Peng Peng is Injured... Again....
Have you watched a UCLA meet recently and wondered "why am I not seeing the wonderful Peng Peng Lee in the line-ups? I know she was a little inconsistent, but what gives, man?" Well, the answer is Miss Christine aka "Peng Peng" is injured yet again. *Face Palm*
Per International Gymnast, dear Peng is out because she had surgery for a torn meniscus. She told IG she was experiencing some popping and clicking in her left knee (the same one she's had operated on TWICE) and she went for an MRI and low and behold, she had a torn meniscus. Ugh. What do we have to do to keep that girl healthy? Seriously! This girl has miss like two and a half years of gymnastics competition because of that ACL tear in 2012. Earlier this year, she had to do a "bluetooth" handsfree beam routine because she'd had surgery on her thumb prior to the start of the season. Per IG, she said she's hoping to be back to compete for UCLA at Regionals, April 2nd. (They're in the Utah regional with Washington and Utah). I guess for now, all we can do is keep our fingers crossed for Peng and hope for a speedy recovery.
Read the original article here.
3. Florida Wins the SEC Championship; Coach Jenny Rowland has her Oscar Moment
(Spoiler alert - they're tears of joy) So this year, Florida usurped Alabama as the reigning SEC Champions. They beat them by like 0.05 AND they did it with a new head coach, Jenny Rowland. She's obviously worked very hard to peak the girls at the right time (despite SEC over scoring, cough cough) and to bring them together as a cohesive unit, under a new coach. It's definitely a big challenge and not an oft accomplished feat (of course, unless you're Alabama in 2015). At the end, the SEC reporters and commentators spoke with Jenny about her team's accomplishment. Coach Jenny was so happy and overcome with joy, she broke out into tears.
The Oscars may have been two weeks ago, but god dammit, this was Jenny's Oscar moment. She said of course how proud she was of the girls and how over joyed she was at the honor AND that she did this with HER team. This woman has clearly been working her ass off and dammit all to hell if she wasn't going to enjoy it.
4. Kaytianna McMillian of Oregon State does a hella cool back spin on floor
Oregon State is kind of the little team that could this year. They've suffered from injuries this year and have struggled to stay consistent and have fought back. They earned a spot in the evening session of the PAC 12 Championships and wound up tying for second with Utah.
Despite having lost athletes to injury this year, they do have a backbone of hard working, talented athletes. I've mentioned Maddie Gardiner, who is glorious, and Risa Perez, who is her own one woman show. Today, I'm giving a shout out to Kaytianna McMillan. At this weekend's PAC 12 Championships, she pulled out a freaking bad ass back spin on floor exercise. I just love weird, random cool skills like that.
You can watch it here (it's at approximately 1:12)
5. Zoe Draghi of Cal's funky floor choreography
At the PAC 12 Championships, Cal placed fourth overall, their highest finish at the PAC 12's in like, forever. This team has a lot of talent and not all of the talent comes from sophomore wonder woman, Toni Ann Williams.
Case in point. Zoe Draghi earned a 9.9 on floor with a floor routine that featured some weird, funky choreography. Zoe shows off beautiful toe point (her toes are pointed in her double back) and lovely flexibility. She's just delightful to watch. This team has come a long way since the the days of the program being threatened to be cut and it's delightful to see this team come together to achieve
6. No tens for you, Ebee Price or McKenzie Wofford
So over the weekend, Ashleigh Gnat got her third consecutive perfect ten in about three weeks time frame and that makes it the fifth or sixth ten she's gotten this season alone. While SEC judges are busy throwing out tens like they are candy, other certain athletes who are very deserving of tens, do not get them. Because the judges are assholes.
First, there is McKenzie Wofford of Oklahoma. She's a bars specialist in every sense of the word. Her form is impeccable, toes pointed, handstands hit, legs together and extended, beautiful height on her release moves. Just beautiful. She get's awesome scores, but not a ten. It occurred to me after a day of trolling Twitter when someone said that if Kenzie was at Florida, she would have gotten ten tens by now. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it. Dick moves, judges, dick moves. It's mostly interesting to realize this when it seems like some athletes are thrown tens just for existing, but Kenzie Wofford can do a perfect routine, and get a 9.975.
Second, there is Ebee Price. Ebee has gotten perfect tens in the past, but this year, they seem to allude her. A couple weeks ago at the Stanford/UCLA/Georgia tri meet, while tens were thrown at Brittany Rogers got a ten on vault for her yurchenko one and a half and Danusia Francis on beam. Ebee did a huge DTY on vault, had a ridiculously awesome bar routine with a billion connections, perfectly executed, but no ten. Whatever. Jerks.
That's all for now. Tune in for regular season power rankings to come soon.
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