First of
all, it always kind of ticks me off that people only think about and appreciate
gymnastics every four years. It’s hard and impressive stuff. I’d like to see
all the athletes people consider the best in the world do some of this stuff. Then
the Olympics come around and people are amazed, once again, at what gymnasts
can do and are wondering what happened to the people from four years ago. While
gymnastics is not as publicized as the other big sports every year, they still
do typically show the national and world championships on NBC every year. If
you want to know when it’s on, just ask me. I’ll keep you up-to-date.
I’ll start
with the men. Yes, a bit of a disappointment because they definitely had the
talent to medal and possibly even win with the way the other favorites
faltered. They did so well in qualifying but once things started to go sour in
the final, they couldn’t pull it together. Gymnastics is one of those
individual sports that is turned into a team sport after a certain point (like
swimming, tennis, track and field) and it’s hard for some to learn how to be a
team. Since male gymnasts are typically older, compared to the women, a lot of
them have already competed in college and learned this team aspect. Neither of
the top two guys for the U.S decided to go the college route. I think their
lack of experience as a team was evident in the team final. They just didn’t
know how to be teammates when things started going wrong for them. Instead of
getting up and cheering on the others to perform well and get good scores to
make up for their mistakes, they sat and sulked about how they had messed up.
And then never really pulled it together. If you look at team captain Jonathan
Horton, who competed in college, he was there cheering on every one of his
teammates no matter how he had performed.
In the
all-around final, both Danell Leyva and John Orozco struggled again and it was
a question as to if either of them would be able to pull it together. One of
the biggest differences between men and women’s gymnastics is that you don’t
have to be perfect in every event to win or medal. Because there are six events
it’s rare that one guy is amazing at all of them and tends to put up a low
score on at least one or even two. Because Leyva had pommel horse early on, he
was able to put up good scores on his last events that also happened to be his
best. I’m happy that he came back to win a medal and it makes me wonder if he
and John had both done this in the team final what could the team have ended up
with?
But let’s
also talk about that team final in general. China came out strong and there was
no question through the meet that they would win. The biggest surprise
continued to be the British. Where did they come from? Those of you that don’t
keep up with the sport may not know that they were not far off from failing to
make the Olympics. Yet, they got themselves in medal contention. At the end,
they thought they had won silver, Ukraine had finished third and Japan (the
favorites) were off the podium. Japan was going to go home without a medal
because their best gymnast, and the world’s best gymnast, totally tanked at the
end of his pommel horse routine. The question was whether or not he had made it
to a handstand to attempt the required skill of a dismount or not. Japan had to
put in an inquiry and as the coach did this he had cash in his hand. What? And
American money, not British pounds. What was going on?
Well, it
turns out that now when you inquire a score you have to pay and if you get the
score changed you get the money back. It’s kind of like the coach’s challenge
in football. You can challenge the ruling, but if you’re wrong you lose the
timeout. This is to keep coaches from inquiring every score in the attempt to
continually boost a total. To be clear, a coach can’t inquire as to why judges
took deductions certain places, but it’s to ask why the start value was off and
why a certain skill wasn’t considered completed. In the end, Japan got moved
from fourth to second, the Brits ended up third and Ukraine got the boot to
fourth. Everyone was unhappy except for Japan. The funny thing was that if GBR
had known the whole time they would get third, they would have been just as
ecstatic as when they thought they had silver. Craziest ending I’ve ever seen
in a team final.
On to the
Fab Five and they really are fabulous and adorable. Although neither of them
are even old enough to go to college yet, they know how to be a team and
support one another. They were great in qualifying and of course we know about
Jordyn Weiber not making the all-around final. Yes, I’m still sad about that
but I’ve already given my opinion on this topic. They came out again in the
team finals on fire and scored big on vault. McKayla Maroney’s vault was one of
the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen more gymnastics than the
average person. Very soon it was clear that the fight was between the U.S. and
Russia. Uneven bars is the worst event for the Americans and the best for the
Russians and after that we knew that it was going to be down to what both teams
could accomplish on the beam and floor. Well, Russia fell apart and the USA
excelled. Talk about not knowing how to be a team - the Russians could not
figure out how to stop crying and continued to fall further from the lead.
But those
cute girls from the USA nailed just about everything and those floor routines
were almost like icing on the cake. Weiber attacked her routine and after her
first pass the look on her face said it all. She knew she had it. Then Aly
Raisman was crying before her routine was even over. Yes, they knew they had
won, but in gymnastics nothing is official until the score is out. You could
see the overwhelming joy on their faces when the saw the scoreboard change.
They were truly the best team there and proved it.
I’m still
amazed by Weiber and her composure. Yes, she cried after qualifying, but who
wouldn’t? Then she came out and performed her routines wonderfully in the team
final with a smile on her face, while also cheering for her teammates.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t something you really saw from the guys. Then she was
there again during the all-around finals, cheering on her teammates in a meet
she desperately wanted to be in. But enough about her – for now.
Douglas put
together a great all-around meet. She really doesn’t have a weak event and made
no major mistakes, which is what it takes to win the all-around at the
Olympics. After a long drought of not winning this event, the Americans have
really started to dominate the gold and I love it. Let’s also not forget the
significance of her being the first African-American to win the event. And how
can you not love that girl? She has a smile that would light up any room and is
sure to always thank the Lord and the people who have helped her get to where
she is.
I knew it
was going to be hard for Raisman to win gold and even silver, but bronze was definitely
doable. In the end, she did get third, just not the bronze medal. If she didn’t
have one extra step somewhere on any event that bronze would be all hers alone.
It’s crazy that someone who fell off beam and then just gave up on the event
ended up with third. If one of the gymnasts here acted like that towards her
coach, she would be ripped apart by the media. What happens in Russia?
I hate the
gymnastics tie-breaking procedure. It’s come into play now a few times in these
games. I just don’t understand why it can’t remain a tie. They give out two
medals in swimming, track & field, etc. Just because it’s a subjective
sport they can’t tie? This kept Nastia Liukin from a gold on bars in Beijing
and kept a very deserving gymnast from a medal in the all-around. The FIG
should really review some its policies this year.
Now we move
on to event finals where they U.S. (women at least) should bring in some more
medals. Vault happened last night and was a little disappointing. I don’t know
what happened to Maroney. She didn’t need to stick her first vault to get a
great score and help her to first. She got the perfect type of score she needed
without nailing the landing. All she had to do was put the next one to her feet
and the gold was hers. My friends and I laughed about Tim Daggett jinxing it,
but if there was a gold medal guaranteed for anyone, it was for her in this
event. In the end, she still got second by a tenth of a point after falling on
her second vault, that’s pretty incredible. I was more disappointed at her
reaction to the fellow gymnasts coming up to congratulate her. I know she’s 16,
but she’s better than that.
For the men,
the only events we have left that have Americans are vault and high bar. Vault
will be hard but high bar is doable. I love this final because the guys throw
everything out there and hold nothing back. It is awesome to watch.
Now we are
on to bars, beam and floor for the ladies. Bars will probably be the hardest
one to medal in, but we could go one-two on both beam and floor. Douglas will
be on bars with some strong competition. But if she nails her routine and
others stumble, she could walk away with another shiny piece of hardware. And
it’s clear the judges like her, which is good in this subjective sport.
Douglas and
Raisman are on beam and have great routines. Raisman is the favorite if she can
avoid what happened in the all-around. You can imagine I’m cheering for Weiber
on floor. She has been so great and consistent and such a good teammate that I
want this for her. Raisman will want it too and won’t give it away easy. It’ll
be an exciting final to watch.
You can be
sure I’ll give my final thoughts once the events are all completed.
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