The Summer Olympics Had An All-Time Screw Job After USA Gymnast Jordan Chiles Does Not Qualify For The Individual All-Around Despite Having The 4th Best Score In Qualifying, Due To Ridiculous, "Two Gymnasts Per Country" Rule
Last night I performed my patriotic duty of watching the Team USA Women's Gymnastics team qualify for both the individual all-around, and individual gymnastics events. Simone Biles, despite a calf injury, managed to keep pace with America's lofty expectations of, "If she doesn't take home gold, silver, and bronze medals in every single event then it will be a massive disappointment."
Side Note: Do you think Simone Biles could dunk a basketball? I'm sure she isn't just going to throw down a regular dunk where she leaves the ground with the ball in hand and stuffs it through the rim. But what if she treated it like she's doing her floor routine. But what if she takes a running start (without the ball) into a cartwheel + back hand spring combo to launch herself towards the rim. Could she launch herself high enough off of a hard basketball court surface where if LeBron threw a perfect pass right next to the rim that Simone Biles could grab the basketball and drunk it in the basket? She get's more than high enough jumping off of the springy gymnastics floor. Her head gets as high as 12 feet off the ground.
So it depends on how much height the mat adds to her jumps. If Simone Biles can get her head up to 9 feet. Maybe even 8.5 feet. And LeBron puts the ball exactly where it needs to be… I'm leaning yes. She could do it. I don't think she could roll out of bed and do it now. I think her and LeBron would have to spend some time working on their chemistry. But physically, I'm willing to bet she has the tools to be on the receiving end of an alley-oop.
Sorry, just something I've been thinking about today. Anyways, aside from Simone Biles, last Olympics' individual all-around gold medal winner Suni Lee (also American) managed to qualify for the event again.
She finished with a score just barely higher than the third best American, and 4th best gymnast in the world Jordan Chiles. Only 0.067 points higher to be exact. The top 10 qualifiers scores were as follows (per NBC)
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Again, based on their performances yesterday, Jordan Chiles is the 4th best all-around gymnast in the entire world. So I was disgusted when I learned that she would not be one of the 24 total gymnasts qualifying for the women's all-around. For some stupid reason, countries can only send a maximum of 2 representatives into the individual all-around.
As her grandpa Jackie would say…
The word, "individual" is in the title of the event. It shouldn't matter what country you're from. In any individual event, it should be the best athletes in the world competing. They could at least let anybody who they're allowing to participate in qualifying to actually qualify. You shouldn't be punished for having 2 former Olympic gold medalists on your country's team. To deny the 4th best gymnast in the world, who's qualifying score was less than a 10th of a point away from medaling (i.e. she would have a very legitimate shot at medaling) is wildly unfair. The Olympics are notorious for being big dumb idiots, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. But this is one of the dumbest rules they've got. If I were Jordan Chiles I'd be livid. Come Thursday, she'll be forced to sit on the sidelines cheering on her teammates as they beat the piss out of 21 other girls who Jordan Chiles would also beat the piss out of. Be better Olympics. Jordan Chiles deserves to be let in on the piss beating. Stop trying to clip America's wings.