2021 Gymnastics - 6 Amazing Moments

What a year in gymnastics 2021 has been.

It started with the return of competitions that began with the Winter Cup in February, replacing the American Cup, which in previous years had been a men's only competition, this event brought back old faces, such as Laurie Hernandez who move to a new gym with a caring coach (after being terrorized by her former coach, who also use to train/abuse Riley McCusker). The Winter Cup was followed by some of the FIG world cups, and then came the US classic, where Simone Biles debuted her Yurchenko double pike vault and also gave us a chance to see 2 gymnasts who were very dear to the public: 32-year-old Chellsie Memmel and Morgan Hurd (back after elbow surgery).

By the time we got to the US national championships, with Simone Biles as the clear favorite and Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles as runner-ups, there were still many gymnasts with serious hopes to go on to compete at the US Olympic Trials for a shot at making it to the Olympic squad: Jade Carey, who had already qualified to go to the Olympics as an individual thanks to the world cups she had participated in; MyKayla Skinner, who was an asset for the team on vault and floor; Morgan Hurd, the 2017 world champion and a great all-arounder; Riley McCusker, an asset on uneven bars, an event where the United Stated was in bad need of specialists; Grace McCallum, a reliable all arounder without a standout event but able to get good scores and to hit when it counted; also Kayla DiCello, Leanne Wong, Kara Eaker,... The big surprise after day 2 was that Morgan Hurd, who fell 3 times during the 2 days of competition, still trying to rebuild her routines after her surgery, was not invited to the Olympic trials, which caused a gymtermet commotion. While this was happening, there was another shock when the British Gymnastics governing body didn't select Becky Downie to go to the Olympics, though Becky had one of the hardest uneven bars routines in the world.

Then came the US Olympic trials, with Simone Biles coming out on top and Suni Lee, 2nd, both getting automatically selected to go to the Olympics, add Jordan Chiles, and Grace McCallum and you have your 4 team members; the 2 individual spots were for Jade Carey (she had already secured that spot many months earlier), and MyKayla Skinner. What came after was the most unexpected results from an Olympic Games in gymnastics that I can recall. If you're one of the few people who don't already know what happened, watch the video to be surprised.