re: Salt Lake City Regional Final Gym Meet Threadl/ LSU and Utah Advances to Nationals

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Several other factors to consider:

The Crimson Tide ain't in Alabama anymore, Toto.

Utah won't have the high altitude advantage this time.

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I was just thinking about these two factors to consider that you mentioned and my mind kept coming back to the same thing: Podium.

From our semi-final, I may be wrong on this one but, I am about 95% sure that us and Alabama are the only teams who have competed on a podium this season, and since Covid hit. Yes both Utah and OU have girls who've competed on podium in the past, but it has been a couple of years which as we know in general changes things and the way the girls compete. We've seen some power gymnasts struggle on podium and we've seen others thrive, and vice versa with the girls who aren't as powerful. Our regionals finals score was .025 lower than what we did at SEC Champs on podium, with both HB and KJ having an off day. Our entire team of girls who will most likely be in lineups have now competed on podium, and even if Jay makes a change on bars and/or beam, we'll still be ok (Dean competed in 2019 on podium on bars and Alyona has competed on podium during her elite career on beam). If we can handle our nerves on both nights and just be normal, I truly believe that the only team standing in our way of us and the title is Florida, which we know we can beat given how close we came to them during the regular season and the fact that we're better now than we were then.