As we get closer and closer to the Olympics, NBC released the first three episodes of its series “Golden: The Journey of USA’s Elite Gymnasts” on its new streaming service, Peacock. Unlike most of the NBC gymnastics pieces from over the years, these episodes take a more serious angle. In short, the episodes are far from “The Ranch” documentary from 2016.
Join us as we recap each episode. If you’d like to watch along, the episodes are available here with a free Peacock account.
Once again, they are making it clear that West Virginia is COLD. Until “Golden,” the temperature of West Virginia had never been something I was aware of, but I have now been enlightened.
We’re in the hair salon with Konnor’s coach, but no Konnor. She’s chit chatting with the stylist about how Konnor is getting ready to debut at her first senior meet.
We get a montage of home videos and maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but I’ve never seen that clip of her on Steve Harvey. Her coach does mention that they’re still planning on 2024 over 2021 still, and I appreciate their honesty.
At Suni’s house, her parents ask what events she’s going to compete at the Winter Cup. Shouldn’t they already know this? It’s five days until the competition.
Now we’re at Winter Cup. But wait! First we get some clips from the ’70s (?) describing the four events. I’m not completely sure what the purpose of that was. A good point is made that the Winter Cup is a hard competition because gymnasts should be showing that they’re ready for the competition, but they also can’t risk getting injured or overtrain right now.
Seriously, what year is this from?
OK I lied, we’re not actually at Winter Cup yet. Instead, we’re watching Morgan cook while she FaceTimes with Konnor. Konnor mentions that they don’t have mangos in West Virginia and at this point, I have learned more about West Virginia in these two episodes than I have in my entire life. They talk about how Konnor used to throw up into her coaches hands before meets because she was so nervous and Morgan used to get bloody noses during practice because she was so scared to throw new skills. I feel like this was brushed over way too quickly. This isn’t normal, right?
At least Morgan had the common sense to see that throwing up before you compete is not normal.
Morgan and Slava had decided not to go to Winter Cup because Morgan wasn’t where she needed to be. Slava wants to protect Morgan from negative backlash if she has a bad competition. The sentiment was cute, but has he met the gymternet? Morgan could compete and have the worst or best night of her life and there would still be backlash.
Konnor is Zooming with Tom Forster to show him her bar routine. He tells her that Winter Cup is a big deal and she should continue to up her difficulty as the season goes on. Which I’m going to go out on a limb and say Konnor already knew.
Ah! Another old clip! This time maybe from the ’90s? I’m not completely sure, but it’s definitely older than me by at least a decade. It’s an old clip of Tom from his club coaching where it mentions that “his gymnasts look different because they smiled.” OK…the bar is low.
I know these were different times, but still? They were advertising gymnastics like this?
They talk about what Tom’s role is and that his job is hard, which is expected, right? There’s also a weirdly ominous clip of him being asked about his thought process for deciding the team and the alternates, where he doesn’t answer at all. I don’t really know what the point of that was either.
Now we’re in Arizona with MyKayla. So much for starting the segment at the Winter Cup five minutes ago. MyKayla is explaining to her husband how hard gymnastics is and I know they’re just doing it for the show, but seriously, wouldn’t he know this already?
Since this is a gymnastics documentary, there’s a montage of different gymnasts getting injured. Katelyn Ohashi is now here telling the story of when her foot slipped off the back end of the beam, landed on her neck and fractured her sternum. Ohashi went back and finished that beam routine though, so really what is this telling us?
Is the moral of the story supposed to be even if you’re injured you should keep competing?
After a clip talking about how coaches can help their athletes but also push them, and then we cut to Jenny and Howie coaching Laurie, which makes sense, because they are the best. Laurie’s parents talk about how whenever she competetes she lights up a room. We hear about the Maggie Haney situation and why it kept her from competing. Wanda Hernadez speaks directly to the camera, apologizing to Laurie, which is tear jerking. Laurie’s dad refers to Jenny and Howie as “the sunshine,” which is just perfect.
As Konnor gets ready for practice, she mentions that she “might have to take six Advil today,” and her teammate, being the only sensible person in that room, responds with “I dunno how you still have organs.” I’ve been wondering the same thing.
The question we’re all asking.
Konnor mentions how they used to have a schedule of what they were going to add each year until 2024 and how hard its been to push everything into one year. I really like focusing on this aspect of Konnor’s training. It provides insight into the logistical side of training. There’s also more talk of Konnor vomiting before beam into a bag…seriously, this shouldn’t be normal.
As Konnor and her mom drive to Winter Cup, her mom mentions that she can compete in the 2032 Olympics, which is only 11 years away. Konnor has the correct response, saying that 11 years “is a whole ’nother lifetime.”
We’re finally at Winter Cup (actually this time)! The gymnasts go through warm ups. It does not seem to be going well. We see some painful vault and beam falls from other competitors. The falls seem to spook some of the girls; Laurie makes the decision to downgrade her routine to keep her from risking injury and Konnor pulls out of bars and floor.
Nonetheless, Konnor’s beam was pretty good, with a 14. We see Suni’s bars, which look great, with a 15.050. By Konnor’s vault, you wouldn’t know she was a little off her game, with a 14.700. They make a point of showing some of Jordan Chiles routines too.
For Laurie’s beam routine, they cut a few clips of her doing it with clips from Rio, which is adorable. Laurie gets a 13.950.
In the last few minutes, Konnor’s mom mentions that Konnor has been able to have a good experience with USAG because of the suffering the gymnasts before her went through, and it’s her job to keep competing because they made such a sacrifice.
READ THIS NEXT: “Golden” Episode 1 Recap
Article by Katie Simons
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