Mykayla Skinner Lunges Towards Judges at Meet Again Uclas
The Near Hated Gymnast in the NCAA
… is also the all-time gymnast in the NCAA. Why won't the sport embrace Utah'due south MyKayla Skinner?
At an NCAA regional gymnastics competition earlier this month, University of Utah junior MyKayla Skinner did the unthinkable: She fell on the uneven confined. It's true that falls are pretty standard in gymnastics (Stick It wouldn't lie to you), but Skinner simply does not autumn in contest. This was the first miss of her NCAA career, catastrophe a 161-routine hit streak, the longest in collegiate history. (The fall occurs at 48:30, when she misses her big release move.)
The residual of Skinner's routine was nearly perfect, just information technology didn't matter. Afterwards she landed her dismount, she quickly saluted and rejoined her team, her face inscrutable but clearly lacking the postal service-routine jubilation for which NCAA gymnastics is famous. Her reaction was remarkably stoic, given the fall's significance —but MyKayla Skinner was not about to let the haters see her cry.
For though Skinner can ever count on the notoriously hardcore fans of the Red Rocks (the Ute gym squad has its ain nickname), exterior of Utah, her reception is markedly less warm. And this isn't because she'due south not expert—in fact, she's bang-up. Her difficulty and consistency are unmatched in the NCAA, but even when she doesn't autumn, her scoring oftentimes comes up short of perfection. She's routinely shown upwardly by rivals such as UCLA's Kyla Ross, who compete with a much lower level of difficulty. Ross—known for her elegance and technique—is widely considered the favorite for the individual all-around title at this twelvemonth'south national championships, which start Friday. This, unsurprisingly, infuriates Utah's rabid booster base and delights the many, many, many pourers of MyKayla Skinner haterade, collegiate gymnastics' unofficial beverage of option.
Indeed, Skinner, despite being by many metrics the best college gymnast in the state, might just be the most reviled gymnast in the NCAA—and I, for one, think people should give her a damn break.
And then what'due south the deal? Why is MyKayla Skinner so controversial? In a word: attitude. Despite being an outstanding gymnast—her opening tumbling laissez passer on flooring is a double-double, which near international elites can't throw—Skinner lacks 1 key quality that all champion gymnasts must possess: the constant grin required even of athletes being carried off the flooring. Yes, in the post–Larry Nassar world of U.S. gymnastics, at both the elite and collegiate levels, gymnasts are at present "allowed" to practice all sorts of things they once couldn't: consume, appointment, speak upwards for themselves in certain highly regulated situations. But one thing still remains strictly verboten in gym world: a so-chosen bad attitude. And Skinner is as famous for hers as she is for that double-double.
Take, for case, her widely-shared reaction to the 9.925 she received after a hit floor routine during the same encounter that viral UCLA star Katelyn Ohashi got the same score with a lacking first-pass landing:
Skinner lunges at the judges with a venomous WTF look and only steps off when a motorcoach hugs her away. (It is strictly forbidden for athletes to interact with judges in any fashion exterior of the official presentation lineup before an result.)
And then at that place was the scandalette of 2018, when an improvised salute to teammates in her floor choreography was immediately interpreted as "finger guns" at a rival squad. Or more than recently, the time she tweeted: "So far this season I've stuck 5 [Yurchenko] double fulls without both judges giving me a 10. Stay tuned for our meet vs UCLA on Sabbatum and come across if we can make information technology 6!!"
And it'southward not just in the moments of slight that Skinner's alleged 'tude eclipses her skills: When she's on, she is perceived every bit self, lip-syncing along midroutine with the Carrie Underwood song that works as her unofficial "axle music," or engaging in an fifty-fifty more outré version of a touchdown dance, pumping her fists and crying out in what appears, to haters, to be aggression rather than shiny, nonthreatening joy. Television commentators, those masters of euphemism, telephone call her "fiercely competitive."
Skinner showtime gained international fame equally an elite in 2016 when she had a spectacular showing at the Olympic Trials but ended up going to Rio as an alternate thanks to some behind-the-scenes calculation. In her grief, and beingness a prolific social-media teen, Skinner retweeted some unsavory responses to her slight —including a doctored photo that showed her face up on the body of ii-time gilded medalist Gabby Douglas and included a racist serial of emojis. (Skinner later apologized and seemed genuinely contrite, if inarticulate, in that contrition.)
Though the retweet was a legitimately problematic human action for which Skinner shouldn't become a pass, it was the sour grapes themselves that cemented her villain edit in the gymnastics world. Oh, MyKayla Skinner—good gymnastics, but what a terrible attitude! And despite the stratospheric level of her gymnastics, her villain image has just grown in the NCAA to the signal it'south affecting her results.
It is, for example, widely assumed that her comportment is the reason Skinner is continually passed up for conferencewide awards, and why she more often than not misses out on that coveted 10 despite 161 striking routines and virtually as many stuck landings. Haters will claim her anxiety are flexed or her chest is slightly too low or some other "obvious" class deduction, but NCAA judging is famously, woefully subjective, and—as any Utah fan will remind you lot—that ten is an honor bestowed quite often upon Skinner's joyful colleagues in blueish, despite their share of flexed anxiety and the like. Yeah, it'southward worth remembering that the NCAA is not elite competition. Execution (allegedly) matters more than than difficulty, and as long as athletes accept the minimum skills required for a 10.0 "offset value," that dime is inside their reach, double-double or no. And Skinner certainly knows this—only still, it must be pretty frustrating to (probably) lose the national championship to an athlete with a fraction of the difficulty.
In so many other sports, attitude is often viewed as competitiveness. This is especially the case in men'due south sports. As the Gymternet's Lauren Hopkins has pointed out, "enough of male athletes" get salty with few of the consequences, and Skinner's sportsmanship transgressions are insufficiently tame. Simply in that location is something particular to the "dazzler sports" (gymnastics, effigy skating, etc.) that requires an inerrantly sugariness disposition—one that matches the pageant hair and makeup from the neck upwardly, and not the grueling training and dust required for everything neck-down. (Remember when Skinner'due south alleged 2016 usurper Douglas besides got the villain edit, and the nickname "Crabby Gabby," for not being sufficiently blissful on the medal stand?) Skinner is non doing anything that generations of athletes haven't done before her—merely because she's doing it in rhinestones and an updo, of a sudden information technology matters.
Much has been said in recent years, and deservedly then, near the toxicity that accompanied American gymnastics' rise to worldwide authorisation. The running narrative this season has been near how many athletes—Ohashi almost prominently—take been able to find joy in the NCAA later withstanding the trauma of the elite world. Ohashi got mega-famous considering her floor routine's ebullient pop moves were, to the greater viewing public, destructive. Just they were subversive with a megawatt smile, and that continues to be the only kind of subversion that's immune.
Will at that place ever be room for the gymnasts who notice their true joy in, you know, winning? Who dare to intendance when they don't win? Who turn down to be sweetness little bundles of delight? I'll believe that the NCAA is the widely touted panacea to USA Gymnastics' toxicity when its culture embraces the greatness of MyKayla Skinner—mental attitude and all.
Source: https://slate.com/culture/2019/04/mykayla-skinner-utah-red-rocks-ncaa-gymnastics-championships.html
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