‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ spotlight: Are Laurie Hernandez, Val Chmerkovskiy destined for high marks?
Going into this season of “Dancing with the Stars,” we feel like it is pretty darn hard to peg anyone other than Laurie Hernandez as the favorite to snag the Mirrorball Trophy in the end. Think about it: She’s coming off of being a part of an Olympic gold-medal gymnastics team, she’s in incredibly shape, and she is used to being scored on various tricks and routines already. There’s a reason why Shawn Johnson was so naturally gifted at this!
So what could trip up the Final Five member? That’s what we want to figure out in the latest edition of our show spotlight series.
Claim to fame – Olympic gold medal gymnast. She also received a silver medal in the balance beam event ahead of noteworthy teammate Simone Biles, and she is the first athlete born in the 21st century to strike gold.
Partner – Val Chmerkovskiy. He’s won the show before with Rumer Willis, and has a really good opportunity to do so again here with someone predisposed to take well to his teaching methods. She’s been in a coaching environment before, and recently even performed on TV!
Strengths – First things first, her strength! She’s in great shape, she has an enormous following, and is doing this show right at the peak of her career. Certainly we think her having a popular pro is only going to further cement her popularity. For every reason we’ve said above, it’d be irresponsible to not name her a favorite to win it all.
Weaknesses – The only thing you can argue here is that her schedule could be her own worst enemy, given that the Final Five has a tour and countless other commitments to attend to. It’s for this reason that Biles was not too interested in doing the show this fall. It’s possible that she won’t have the rehearsal time of some of the other dancers.
Prediction – Laurie is certainly going far. The time to really watch with her is closer to the end of the season, where almost everyone is exhausted and trying to figure out how to push through. She’s gone almost the entire year without much of a break, so doing this competition now is going to be a challenge. Yet, with her history, we think she is ready to take it on.
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