Want to win an Olympic team gold medal? Stock up on the Amanars.
The controversial vault that most recently distroyed the 2011 season of World Champion Aliya Mustafina, is one of the golden tickets onto the U.S. Olympic team, and both the gymnasts and coaches know it.
This morning, International Gymnast Magazine released an article showing that several top Olympic competitors would be tossing off the vault, also known as a Yurchenko with 2.5 twists, at the two big upcoming summer meets: July's CoverGirl Classic and August's U.S. Championships.
Among the women said to be prepping the Amanar are 2010 World team member Aly Raisman, Gabrielle Douglas, McKayla Maroney (who is nursing a sore back, according to International Gymnast) and star Jordyn Wieber, who may have a clear field to the U.S. title given the injury recovery status of 2010 U.S. champion Rebecca Bross (ankle surgery), and Shawn Johnson (ACL surgery). U.S. junior champ Kyla Ross is almost undoubtedly also working the vault, although nobody's seen it except maybe the national team staff.
The U.S. women's relative weakness on uneven bars has been signalled as a yellow flag when it comes to contending for the 2012 Olympic title, but the value of three Amanars on vault could offset that weakness. That being said, any gymanst who comes along with particularly strong bars (Anna Li or Bridget Sloan or Chellsie Memmel or Nastia Liukin, for example) would have a good chance at making the team.
Except for Bross, none of the gymnasts listed above are considered particularly strong on bars.
Johnson, who has entered the CoverGirl Classic, will make one of the most anticipated comebacks ever in U.S. gymnastics. By the time she steps up to do her two events (presumably bars and beam, to protect her knee) at the CoverGirl Classic, it will have been two years and 11 months since she competed in a meet. The likelihood that she will compete an Amanar again, at least this year, seems very low.
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