re: Why is Haleigh Bryant not on the U.S. Olympic team?

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Only one of the LSU gymnasts

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Konnor McClain

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The reason why Alieah is competing for the Philippines is because it is easier to make their team

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(Think Mondo Duplantis).

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Mondo is a little different. These are the reasons that have been enumerated in the past. The first and second were the primary reasons initially, with 2, 3, & 4 plus his appreciation for the early opportunities probably being his primary reasons for continuing. USATF sometimes gets in their own way when it comes to international and Olympic competition selections.

1. By competing for Sweden, Duplantis was able to start competing in pole vaulting at a younger age. Sweden does not have the same age restrictions on competing at the highest levels of the sport. The United States does.

2. Sweden offered to let Mondo's father Greg Duplantis, a former world-class pole vaulter himself, coach him on the Swedish team. The same offer was not made by the U.S. team. Mondo is still coached today by his father Greg, and mother Helena.

3. As it pertains to the Olympics, Sweden selects their Olympians on the totality of their performance over several years, rather than an all-or-nothing Olympic trial.

4. It's more lucrative financially. Pole vaulting is popular in Sweden. It is not a mainstream sport in the United States. Mondo Duplantis is a national superstar in Sweden, viewed with the same regard by Swedes as the country's best soccer players. He was the 2020 World Athletics Male Athlete of the Year and is estimated to be worth millions.

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So with that logic explain then how Leanne Wong is a likely USA Olympian…

Bryant is way better than Wong.

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Wong has been training elite and qualified as elite (can do it at a qualifying meet by achieving certain scores) in 2017 and I believe went to her first international meet as a Jr. at Jr. Pan Ams in 2018. She has competed internationally each year and became a Sr. elite in 2019. She never quit her elite training and has been competing in both NCAA and USA Elite gymnastics meets all along. If you've never qualified as elite before or trained elite routines, it would take around a year of training to do so and also competing at qualifying meets do be considered for the Olympic team.

I wouldn't say Bryant is "way better than Wong." I'd say Wong's NCAA gymnastics probably suffers because she's training elite. Yes, Bryant won. NCAA and elite are just 2 different things and Bryant was better at this meet. Wong beat Bryant during the season. They are both great gymnasts.

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he difference between college gymnastics and Olympic is the difference between AA baseball and the Major Leagues.

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Bad comparison. Not for the top collegiate gymnast.

I mean there are currently Olympic gymnasts competing in college. No major league players are dropping down to AA and not even being the best person on their team.

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It's actually a fair comparison as far as level of difficulty goes, once you factor in the other variables.

Some of the harder skills are easier to perform with a 15 yr old body than a 20 yr old body. Your point of balance can change depending on development. You lose your maximum potential flexibility at some point.

So, age-related changes, if a big leaguer wanted to keep playing baseball for the sake of it, and just couldn't see or catch up to MLB fastballs anymore, he could go down into AA level. At that point in his career he may not be the best on that team, either. That just happens in a much tighter age range in gymnastics, because baseball emphasizes different physical characteristics.

Since gymnastics isn't about the money to the extent baseball (or other huge spectator sports) is, someone continuing to compete just due to love of the sport is more common. We're not going to see MLB All-Stars hang around in the minors after their prime. It's maybe more similar to Senior Golf, where you could see former elites still playing well after they peaked and declined.
It's just that gymnastics is weird, because the age range is so low. We don't tend to think of college as "senior citizens", but that's what it is for most gymnasts.

Color me pleasantly surprised that a number of people gave smart, educated answers to this.

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When people are saying “Olympic gymnastics is harder than college gymnastics” what they are saying is “Olympic gymnastic routines are much more difficult than college gymnastics routines”

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Right, because it’s the fricking Olympics.

This is like people saying “professional football is much more difficult than college”.

It’s obvious, and by pointing it out like it’s not obvious makes you look like an idiot

Because this is the hardest Olympics team to ever make and she's not even in the Top-10 of most talented at this current moment

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My daughter was training level 8 following the end of 7th grade and trained an average of 25 hours per week. She retired before entering 8th grade. The time commitment for gym, exclusive of a home school program, does not allow enough time to perform at a high level in both gym and school. Home school kids train approximately 30 hours per week on average, and spend about 12-15 hours per week in class. Typically longer training hours during meet season.

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100% to all of this. My daughter also trained 25 hours per week and was training L8 when she quit at 13. She ended up diving through HS and college. Our girls were way behind the curve as many are already Jr elites at that age and were Level 10s at 11-12.

It is a demanding sport on bodies, time, and families. But if put my money on those kids to be successful in their lives. The lessons of time management, delayed gratification, and work ethic are with them forever.

Thank You! To everyone who responded. I had no clue that college and "professional" aka elite gymnastics were different and that the amount of training and training regiment was different.

It makes sense now why Bryant isn't on the Olympic trial roster.

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Why is Haleigh Bryant not on the U.S. Olympic team?

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College gymnastics is like college baseball. The best athletes in their respective sport go to the next level out of high school. Those who aren't ready, go to college and play.

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It's actually a fair comparison as far as level of difficulty goes, once you factor in the other variables.

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I'm not saying college gymnastics is as hard as the Olympics, I'm just saying you have Olympic gymnasts competing in college. You don't have the very best MLB players just choosing to play in AA baseball.

Training for college gymnastics and the Olympics is not ideal and very hard, but girls are doing it now.

Suni Lee, Leanne Wong, Jade Carey, and other potential members are/have competed in college and trained for the Olympics. I think Konnor McClain will be someone who ends up making an Olympic team while at LSU.

I'm not saying the ideal age for a gymnast is the age of a college senior, I'm just talking about the level of the top talent.

And it's not like the US gymnasts are the only gymnasts in the world. Aleah Finnegan is an Olympic gymnast and Haleigh Bryant is a much better gymnast all around than Aleah, that can't be argued. If Haleigh could have some other nationality eligibility she 100% is good enough to be in the Olympics. The US gymnastics team is just insanely good right now.