Women's Preliminaries
Spoilers, if you weren't a numbnut and stayed up all hours of the night, scrambling over the Internet trying to catch live feeds on CCTV-5 and elsewhere trying to watch live. BTW, NBC, you fail. Instead of wasting the energy shutting down the few decent live feeds there were, maybe you should have realized that amongst the casual fans you want the ratings from, there are a grand many hardcore fans that are counted in those ratings. So you had a couple of options: 1.) show qualifications live or 2.) have a live feed like you did for podium training. Quit being greedy bitches and actually appeal to the fans. I can guarantee it would work better for you in the long run; in any case, I'm sure there would be less profanity-laden e-mails in your inbox.
Anyway.
My thoughts, in bullet form (I would be more coherent, but I just found out that Issac Hayes died and now I'm all discombobulated again):
- He Kexin falling on UB was a little unexpected and her nearly missing out on qualifying for UB finals could have been one of the biggest upsets of this Olympics.
- Deng Linlin almost booted Jiang Yuyuan's AA spot. Also surprising.
- Alicia Sacramone missed out on qualifying for FX EFs. Devastating, but when one thinks about it, the writing was on the wall all year. Her floor has been regressing since Stuttgart and I will go out on a limb and say that's where she peaked. I love A-Sac, mostly because she's not your robotic sound bite gymnast in interviews ("It's such an honor!" "I just want to go out and hit my routines!" and so on), but she hasn't really hit a floor routine all year.
- In that vein, Nastia Liukin ended qualifying for FX finals, as well as the expected BB and UB EFs! WTF, yo?
- Chellsie Memmel did not qualify for UB EFs. She fell on her Tkatchev, thus taking her out of contention. That pisses me off. She is only doing one event, much to her fans' chagrin, and she fails to hit that one event so she could at least go for an individual title. Wasn't UB her specialty or something?
- Sam Peszek kind of confirmed my suspicions that she would become the dead weight of the US team, despite her being one of the guarantees (I will never understand how she got into that golden position). Not only has she regressed (her FX has downgraded and she's barely hitting that and Sloan has surpassed Sam on vault), but she sustained an ankle injury and did not compete on FX or VT, that is, THE EVENTS SHE WAS PUT ON THE TEAM FOR. And it's now past the point of no return, so we can't put in Lothrop, who would probably be the best alternate for this position, given that she's pretty good on VT and FX.
- Sloan, however, is rocking the casbah. Her UB was off, but hot damn did she bring in the scores on every other event, even BB, and everybody was saying that would be her lowest score. Go Bridget!
- Shawn, unsurprisingly, hit every set. Her nerves from podium training have seemingly dissipated and she went out there like she owned the joint. But, her flexibility skills have also regressed, and that's really saying something in her case because her splits and leaps were rudimentary at best in the first place. It seemed like they were improving last year, but looking at the pictures from TQs, she's is really cheating the hell out of them:
There are a couple more, but you get the point.
- Japan made Team Finals!!!!! すごい！ おめでとうございます！ 私は、日本がうれしい！ (Yeah, my Japanese is a little rusty, but the main point is I'm so happy for them!). Koko Tsurumi qualified for AA, however Mayu Kuroda did not qualify for UB finals, which is a shame because she's rather good on them, even if she doesn't have a 7.0+ A score.
- Australia also made TFs, but not without an implosion from their stars, Dasha Joura and Lauren Mitchell. Dasha failed to qualify for the AA or any EFs, and we're all heartbroken along with her. Apparently, she crunched her ankle (hot damn, what is with this Olympics and ankle injuries???) in training and continued to compete on it for the sake of her country. Somebody predicted that not only did she not qualify for any individual rounds, but this Olympics would probably be the last we see of Joura. I really hope not. Are we going to lose everybody with a modicum of originality in this sport?
- Great Britain failed to make TFs (Japan just squeaked by them). Beth Tweddle, however, proved she's hardcore by saving her awesome combo after hitting her feet on the low bar. That was crazy.
- Romania was looking rough. I'm going to go out on another limb and say that the two consecutive Olympic team champions will find themselves not on the podium at all. Russia could easily surpass them. Romania is barely a team; it's Nistor, Izbasa, and friends. Though frankly, it's difficult to watch both Russia and Romania while they're rebuilding. There was no infrastructure left in place after everybody and their mom retired so now they have to start from square one.
