The problem of too much Depth - US women

Looking back over the history of modern Artistic gymnastics there have been very few teams with real depth of talent. Without a doubt the USSR had the most depth on the mens side and the Soviet women almost rivaled the men. Other great teams like Japan, China, Romania, GDR and others have always relied on a relatively thin pool of great gymnasts with the "B" squads being almost average in ability compared with the stars of their teams.

This brings us to the unbelievable number of competitive female gymnast now competing for the USA. At the recent Worlds in Antwerp the US decided to use only Kyla Ross, Maroney og Simone Biles leaving the very talented Brenna Dowell on the sidelines training right up to the last minute literally. The girl was in the warm up gym doing full world class routines until Maroney left for the competition hall next door. To us sharing training time with Brenna and her coaches it seemed very strange not to use her at least on bars where she had by far the most innovative and interesting routine of the whole US team. A real medal contender whom I hope will be representing the US in future major competitions.

Fully worthy to be shown on the podium and reach a final but this can be the problem of representing a to good nation.
Another gymnast which was close to making the US squad the non travelling alternate as I understand is Elizabeth Price a crazy powerful gymnast with tons of difficulty but like so many of the US ladies lacking in polish and artistry. It will be interesting to see how she will do this weekend in Scotland after her impressive but rather nervous showing in Stuttgart few days ago.
There are numerous other gymnast lurking in the shadows in America and surely tons of talented juniors ready to jump into the senior ranks in January. The fight for RIO is starting now.
It is although a worry how few top notch gymnasts survive the massive training load of the Americans. It was at least obvious during the last few major competitions no team trained as hard and with as many repetitions as the US girls. Lets hope the current generation of will stay injury free and history will not repeat itself. The sport needs heros who can last longer inside the sport so we can keep fans interested and grow the following.