Last night at US Nationals 2021 (Night 1), one of the biggest surprises for me was Leanne Wong’s (GAGE) floor routine! It was absolutely fantastic, and earned the second highest score of the night, only behind Simone Biles’s 14.650 on floor exercise. I loved how elegant this floor exercise was, not to mention her strong twisting form and very clean execution. If she can clean up that Silivas landing, she’ll earn an even higher E score, but as of now, an 8.5 is still huge! See how she earned her D score (difficulty score) and E score (execution score) in this video.
If Leanne can repeat her night 1 results on night 2, I think she’ll definitely be putting herself into Olympic consideration. Just as Jordan Chiles proved herself a worthy competitor at Winter Cup 2021 and US Classics 2021, this Nationals competition could potentially be a big breakthrough for her. If you have any Olympic team predictions, feel free to tell me in the comments! Right now, I’m imagining a team with Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, and the remaining spot going to one of many gymnasts, Grace McCallum and Leanne Wong notably in consideration. I guess we’ll have to see what goes on as the results pan out.
I’ve been out for a while due to school stuff and missed US Classics because of that, which was unfortunate, but I’m back now and am able to cover Nationals. If you have any specific requests, please feel free to let me know! I’m probably going to cover Sunisa Lee’s bars and Chellsie Memmel’s beam next.
Notes:
- I had her at a 5.8 (crediting the double L turn at first), but the judges awarded her a 5.7. This is only possible through downgrading the double L turn to a B skill, which I thought was quite strict! It does make sense; her leg drops below horizontal.
- The leg separation deduction on her whip (A) + triple twist (E) was actually on the whip; I didn’t see any deduction for leg separation on the triple twist. I couldn’t tell if she had flexed feet in the triple twist but it looked clean enough to me for the parts where one could see the feet.
- The body shape 0.1 deduction on her leap series was for the switch ring leap (C), where the back leg was a bit below where it had to be to avoid a deduction.
- The excessive preparation deduction before her back 2.5 twist (D) + front full (C) was due to the choreography becoming much slower right prior to the pause and then the pause in the corner. It seemed to interrupt the artistic flow, which is understandable given how important refocusing yourself is before a big tumbling pass.
- I did not see any complex choreography in her routine, so I deducted 0.1 as an artistic deduction. I thought that her choreography was superb in this routine! If she is looking to put some in, I think the bit of empty choreography prior to her third pass would be a good spot.
- I couldn’t use her music on the end of the video; it’s copyrighted! She performs to “Gramphon” by Eugen Doga.
Actual score: 14.200 = 5.7 + 8.5
I’m not an expert judge, and if you have an alternate perspective or a question, I would encourage you strongly to let me know in the comments! Judging is always subjective; judging in real time differs from judging on video. The purpose of this video is not to malign the gymnasts, but rather to highlight their accomplishments and explain why they earned the score that they did.
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Footage does not belong to me. Video belongs to USA Gymnastics from 2021 American Artistic Gymnastics National Championships, Night 1, in Fort Worth, Texas. This video qualifies as fair use (educational, informative, transformative use).