Leann Wong had a perfect 2nd day of competition, which sealed her victory in the junior all around. She started with a clean beam set whose highlight was the triple full dismount. This was followed by the best floor routine of the night: double Arabian to stag, triple full, double back pike, 2 1/2 to finish. Her momentum continued to grow on vault, where she stuck her DTY (14.600). On bars she was flawless (cast to handstand – inbar – Chow II to Pak to immediate Chow I, toe-on full, Stalder 1/2 to pike Jaeger) and dismounted with a stuck double layout under the emphatic gestures of coach Al Fong who was presenting her to the crowd. Wong also won the floor national title, together with vault and bars silver.
Kayla Di Cello won the silver medal; she had a perfect meet actually earning the highest all around total of the second day (59.950, 1 tenth higher than Wong). She started with a clean bars routine, breaking into the 14s, followed by a nice beam set (maybe triple wolf to double wolf aside, but she does them well) with a good flick – loso – loso series. On floor she opened with a massive double layout pass; she was judged a bit harshly on this event (E in the mid 7s), but so was everyone else. On vault, she did a clean and powerful Yurchenko double full earning the highest score in the junior competition (14.900). Di Cello won the vault title and the beam and floor bronze medals.
Sunisa Lee dropped to 3rd all around due to a mistake on vault, where she landed low and to she side, stepping off the mat and losing around 7 tenths compared to day 1. But it was not a bad competition for her, on the contrary: she started with a wonderful beam performance (layout to two feet, side aerial – loso-loso), followed by a clean floor routine (DLO, full in, 1 1/2 to 1/1, double back tuck). After vault, she picked herself up and hit her challenging beam routine (Nabieva included), for which she earned a massive 14.75/6.1. Lee won the gold on this event; she was also silver medalist on beam.
Skye Blakely placed 4th after another beautiful all around performance. She was especially praised for her floor and vault on the night. Blakely also won individual medals on these two events: bronze on vault and silver on floor.
Konnor McClain had another breath-taking balance beam performance: she executes each element to the maximum, a simple wolf jump is done with such amplitude and toe point, the layout to two feet floats for so long that you kinda worry for her life. McClain won the beam gold.
Olivia Greaves placed 6th with good performances across the two days of competition, especially on bars and floor.
The top six gymnasts in the all around were added to the national team.
Here are the all around results:
Results by results:
Article: Bea Gheorghisor
Photo Cover: USA Gymnastics