USA's chances take a beating.

In a reminder of the 2003 worlds or the 2008 olympics. The USA gymnastics team has once again found itself struck by last minute injuries. Both Alicia Sacramone and Ali Raisman injured their ankles in this morning's training session. Raisman's injury seems the less serious of the two but Sacramone's injury seems to put her competition status in question.

"She is currently being evaluated and we will provide an update on her condition when we know more information," said Leslie King, vice president of media at USA Gymnastics. Source International Gymnast

The question now is whether to keep the also injured Anna Li on the team in place of Sacramone (Li, a bar specialist is definitely not a replacement for sacramone whose strengths are vault, beam and floor), or whether non-travelling alternate Shawn Johnson can be flown out in time to adjust and get at least one training session in before USA's qualification on Saturday. Sentimentally I would love Shawn to be there, but it's a big ask to get her to overcome jetlag and perform well.

With the USA down Sacramone's high vault score, the consistent looking China could now be favourites to take the team title.

UPDATE - it looks as if the US has chosen neither option, using their 5 remaining healthy gymnasts (Vega, Douglas, Raisman, Maroney & Wieber) on all apparatus in qualification. Sacramone is now out with an achilles injury and the pressure is on this inexperienced team to carry the high expectations of a nation. Only Raisman has competed at worlds before.

I think team gold may now be a step too far. Their new goal may be an all around medal for Wieber, vault for Maroney and perhaps a floor medal for Raisman.