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A look at Shayla Worley’s balance beam…
By Andrew Thornton
A member of the U.S. gold medal team at the 2007 World Championships, Shayla Worley has clearly become one of the most popular U.S. gymnasts on the scene right now. Not only does she have exquisite gymnastics with beautiful lines and presentation, but she has a personality and presence that is simply magnetic to gymnastics fans. Something about her look just grabs your attention and makes you want to watch her – a quality that so few gymnasts possess. After struggling with injuries for a couple of years, her fans were thrilled to see her finally compete at the senior U.S. Nationals last year and show what she is capable of. A silver in the all-around behind Shawn Johnson propelled her to her first world championships, where she was actually 8th all-around in preliminaries and competed in the team finals on bars and floor.
I would definitely consider beam her strongest event, but the U.S. actually needs her more on bars. Her beam routine, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and beautiful to watch in the world. Her Onodi to two feet is absolutely awesome, and this year she also added a unique Onodi to immediate scale. She also performs several other top-notch skills effortlessly and with a bit of style that most gymnasts aren’t bold enough to show. Her full-twisting backhandspring, Rulfova, and front aerial to back handspring have a certain crispness about them that just demands respect. My only complaint about her beam routine is her standing Arabian – it’s just a skill that doesn’t look that good on her because it’s a bit low and underrotated, and I’ve seen her have trouble on it more often than she nails it. While the rest of her routine shows off her fantastic lines, that standing Arabian just seems a bit out of place – I think she’d be better off to leave that out. Shayla did score a very strong 15.775 on beam in the prelims of last year’s worlds, which would have made the event finals without the two-per-country rule. She wasn’t used in the team finals, though, which suggests she probably wasn’t as consistent in practice as Martha would have liked. Sacramone was used instead and did an outstanding job, but in my opinion Shayla’s routine is simply too good to not show in the Olympics. I really hope she can compete this routine in Beijing and possibly make it to the event finals, although she’ll probably have to beat Johnson or Liukin to do that.
As beam and bars are by far her strongest events, she’ll need to hit both of these at the U.S. Championships and Olympic Trials to secure her spot on the team. Here’s a look at Shayla’s beam routine from last year’s nationals, where she scored a 15.75. I think you’ll see what I mean about the Arabian, and you also may have seen her fall on this skill at this year’s American Cup. But take a look at the rest of it – truly world class.
Next blog…A look at what Shayla Worley contributes on bars.
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