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NBC has finally released its full Olympic schedule. For those who thought they would enjoy both TV and online coverage of gymnastics (or just go for online and escape the Head Trauma Trio), HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Your plans have been foiled. Despite their boastings of over 2200 hours of online coverage, marquee events such as diving, swimming, and gymnastics will not be live online. Not to mention that Mac users such as myself are shut out, non-Americans are shut out, and non-Vista users are shut out. Good job, NBC.

I'm doing WAG because that's pretty much what I pay attention to and what this blog is about. Check local listings and all that jazz. Oxygen is one of those basic cable channels in the vein of Lifetime, except with not as many movies that have women having the crap beaten out of them by men. It just loves to show a TV show called Snapped, about women who kill men. That's empowerment.

Friday, August 8:
Opening Ceremonies (if you're not boycotting)
8PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Sunday, August 10:
WAG - Preliminaries
7PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Monday, August 11:
Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Tuesday, August 12:
WAG - Team Finals (LIVE)
8PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Wednesday, August 13:
Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Thursday, August 14:
WAG - AA Finals (LIVE)
8PM-1AM
NBC/NBC HD

Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Friday, August 15:
Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Sunday, August 17:
WAG EF - FX & VT
7PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Monday, August 18:
WAG EF - UB
8PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Tuesday, August 19:
WAG EF - BB
8PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Wednesday, August 20:
Gymnastics Gala
8PM-12AM
NBC/NBC HD

Gymnastics: A Daily Look
6PM-8PM
Oxygen

Sunday, August 24:
Closing Ceremonies
7-11PM
NBC/NBC HD

08trials617

Did Vox eat my Nationals Day One post? I swear I made one. Oh well.

Anyway. The Trials have come and gone and to nobody's surprise, Shawn and Nastia locked up the two guaranteed spots. If you were surprised, either you only just started watching gymnastics or I need to start drawing you pictures with crayons.

The 12 girls going on to the selection camp are:
    Shawn Johnson
    Nastia Liukin
    Alicia Sacramone
    Samantha Peszek
    Bridget Sloan
    Ivana Hong
    Jana Bieger
    Shayla Worley
    Mattie Larson
    Corrie Lothrop
    Chelsea Davis
    Chellsie Memmel

The only actual surprise on that list is Lothrop (who is coached by USAG staple Kelli Hill). Lothrop apparently agrees because she was in tears once hearing her name called. Just getting to Trials was a major accomplishment for her. I think she's awesome and wish her a lot of luck.

Chellsie Memmel pretty much sealed her spot on the O-Team, leaving one spot left (aside from the four locks of Johnson, Liukin, Sacramone, and Peszek). Bieger seems to be everybody's current #6 despite not even being on their short list for so long and Sloan, who was the lock up until Trials, is now out. God, we go through these girls like they're fads or something.

Mattie Larson made her case for an alternate position. Larson's FX was the favorite of both evenings and her DTY, while could use some improvement on the landing, is usable. There's the added bonus in that Larson isn't putting a lot of pressure on herself to make this particular team because she knows most of the spots are all but sown up and she has every intent on going for London 2012. Whatever you all are doing to those AOGC girls, please keep it up. Shapiro and Larson are just such a treat. They're what gymnastics should be.

Ivana, Ivana, Ivana. She's pretty much out at this point. An alternate position would be her highest attainable position. Nationals didn't go so well and Trials wasn't much better, culminating in a botched BB dismount that revealed her headcasey side. A damn shame because she's in the same category as Larson: what gymnastics should be. Her double front is a thing of beauty.

Shayla Worley is broken and others have surpassed her on UB, the event that she would have been taken for. I would say that she would be alternate. Too much of a liability to put her on the team.

I don't know much about Chelsea Davis or her gymnastics, except that she is coached by former Golden Girl/World Champion/Karolyi favorite Kim Zmeskal. It's almost nepotism with Davis getting to the camp (I'm only half serious).

Juniors:

• When Rebecca Bross broke her foot and couldn't compete at Nationals, everybody predicted that Jordyn Wieber was going to run away with the competition. After preliminaries, Wieber is...well, winning. But Samantha Shapiro is not making it easy! Shapiro was actually leading the competition with her precision, grace, and poise (and that 15.75 on BB sure didn't hurt), despite Wieber's big tricks. It wasn't until nearly the end of the competition that Wieber took the lead by .1. Day 2 will definitely be interesting between these two.

• Randi Lau had a good night; solid and with good form. She looks to be on her way to making her first National Team.

Seniors:

• Shawn is leading. Big surprise. She also received the biggest gifts of the night, what with her whip-triple being not being fully rotated, her Rudi and Amanar kind of iffy, and her splits still not where they should be for the Olympic favorite. And seriously, what the hell was she wearing? That leo was pure chaos. In fabric form. Oh, and everybody who reads this has to take a large swig of the liquor of their choice if she shows up on Day 2 with any hanzi (Chinese characters) on her leotard.
  

• Jana Bieger 2008 Nationals = Natasha Kelley 2007 Nationals in terms of scoring.
  

• Chellsie Memmel is kicking some definite booty. Her sets are still watered down, but she's making her case.

• Alicia Sacramone needs to get back into a competition state of mind. She had a nice long break, but vacation's over. I agree with those who said that she didn't quite seem herself.

• WTF happened to Priess? Why'd she drop out and retire at the 11th hour?

• Shayla is also out of Nationals and is petitioning to Trials. Since Priess is out, her status is back up (it was slipping dangerously out of reach because her only ticket was UB), but being constantly broken and leaving camps and comps early is not making it better.
  

• Mattie Larson is still not consistent enough to warrant a spot on the team, but she'll be at Trials. And her gymnastics is as lovely as her AOGC clubmate Shapiro.

• Ivana Hong is a huge disappointment. The double front on FX is impressive and I definitely had my doubts about her getting it around, but her bars are abysmal and her best events are more than covered already by the O-Team locks. Plus, the DTY, the one thing that could have won TPTB over was majorly flawed. She'll get to Trials and probably the selection camp, but alternate will likely be the highest attainable position she'll get. Hopefully Day 2 is better. Her gymnastics is still pretty, though.
  

• Nastia, Nastia, Nastia. We understood the meltdown at Nats last year. You're supposed to be healthy and better this year. WTF is with the UB dismount? That shizz is just fugly. The FX isn't improving. In fact, it almost seems to be regressing. And methinks you need a new BB mount or to speed the one you have up because you're dangerously close to going overtime and you're not holding the scale long enough.

• It's starting to look more and more that ScAm was a fluke for Samantha Peszek. She was shaky, to say the least, here. Given the rumor that Janssen-Fritsen equipment (that is, what will be used in Beijing) was disguised to look like AAI equipment (that is, who USAG (and Nastia Liukin) has deals with) and that Peszek has issues with anything but AAI equipment, plus the fact that Peszek always had consistency issues, I'm not surprised. But no matter. She's on the team, barring injury or her performances on the level of FUBAR.

• Darlene Hill has quite a few injuries and is backing off in order to prevent some of them from getting worse. She scratched bars and only got a 12.75 on BB after two falls. This does not help her case, as endearing as she is.

• Bridget Sloan competed only two events, BB and UB, and put up a 15.2 and 15.75, respectively. Word on the street that she's probably on the team, barring further injury or meltdown. These scores, especially the UB, would cement her spot.
  

• While I realize China kind of backed the U.S. against the wall with their overscoring at their Internal Test Event and Nationals, I wish the U.S. was scoring more fairly and closer to what the girls would score internationally. Overscoring the stars and busting the balls ovaries of the unliked does no favors.
  

Just announced on International Gymnast:

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has reduced the number of gymnasts on an Olympic team from six to five, the federation announced Friday.

The decision comes as part of the FIG's new Olympic qualification procedure, proposed by the Executive Committee and accepted by the FIG Council at its meeting last weekend in Cape Town, South Africa.

According to the FIG announcement:

"In the future, two events will serve as qualifying events: the world championships organised the year preceding the Olympic Games and pre-Olympic events.
The number of gymnasts in a team will be reduced from 6 to 5.
All medallists will be qualified for the Olympic Games."
The FIG also has cancelled the biennial World Cup Final, last held in 2006. The federation has struggled to find a host for the World Cup Final on several occasions.

In addition, the FIG announced that as of Jan. 1, 2009, all gymnasts will need "licenses" to participate in international competition.

So it's official, I guess. They really could have found another way to allow medalists to qualify to the Olympics, even if their country didn't qualify a full team and have less athletes at the competition without damaging the team aspect of the sport.

In addition, the FIG announced that as of Jan. 1, 2009, all gymnasts will need "licenses" to participate in international competition.

What the fruit does that mean? They have visas, passports, and birth certificates, forged or not. Now they need another form of identification?

BTW, there is no mention about how the team format will change yet. 5-3-3 just won't cut it. It had better be something that truly utilizes the team, like 5-5-4 or 5-4-3. And I still advocate a constant in team format in prelims and team finals. Nothing like 5-5-4 in prelims and 5-4-3 in finals.

Full roster with accompanying article here.

Exciting prospects:

• the return of Ashley Priess, aka, America's Olympic Uneven Bars Hope
• Randi Lau, the Hawaiian wunderkind who trained at WOGA but did not qualify for Nats last year and is now back in Hawaii
• The world can finally see these rumored upgrades from Ivana Hong that her camp has been so tight-lipped about
• Shawn Johnson's new floor routine ('bout bloody time)
  
• The official American Amazing Race to Beijing begins and everybody is on tenterhooks hoping that nobody (especially the locks) gets injured

Here's the draw.

U.S. Nationals Draw Roster.jpg

Bruno Grandi is running for reelection. Unopposed. Fantastic.

Y'know, if his job has good health insurance, I'd totally go for it.

According to Gymmedia.de (translated from German to English by Ingrid on WWGym), the FIG Executive Council voted to reduce the team size from six members to five. It still has to go in front of the FIG Membership and be approved or vetoed, but from what I hear, they usually never go against the EC. This could possibly go into effect for the 2009 Worlds (though aren't the Worlds the year after the Olympics EF-only).

Now what benefits could this possibly bring to gymnastics competitions? The only reason this was done was so more spots would be open for previous World medalists to get Olympic spots, but I'm sure there could have been a better solution than further damaging the team aspect of gymnastics.

The number of people on a team didn't necessarily need to be changed; it was the format that needed to (and keeping the format constant in a major competition; having 6-5-4 in qualifications and 6-3-3 in finals is ridiculous and detrimental to countries without a lot of depth). The format should have been changed to 6-5-4, 6-5-5, 6-6-5, or 6-6-6 if you wanted to be sadistic. Something to make it a team final, not *the star of the team* and friends.

Are they really trying to get rid of the team aspect when that is what has taken precedence over the AA in recent years? Specialists have become so ingrained already that I don't see the AA become as important as it once was again (at least, not soon).

And really, the team final is what fills the most seats, the AA second.

Since USAG is not posting information yet, these are tidbits from the gymn boards (thanks to various peoples).
AA Results:

1.) Ivana Hong (YUSH!)
2.) Ashley Priess
3.) Chellsie Memmel
4.) Mattie Larson

Darling (not a typo, actually her name) Hill is supposedly injured, but there is no confirmation yet. A-Sac made her three events her bitches, including a 16+ on BB.

Gymn.ca had this to say about the Canadian reps:

Emma Willis of Bluewater Gymnastics club was the top Canadian all-around gymnast at this week’s friendly international competition in Houston, Texas. Willis scored 55.95 after hitting all for events to rank 8th in a field of gymnasts representing the United States, Canada, Germany, Columbia, Italy, and Venezuela. Also competing in the all-around for Canada were Sydney Sawa (10th) and Catherine Dion (13th). Aisha Gerber competed two events only (vault and floor) while Alyssa Brown competed all events but floor. Competition was to conclude today with apparatus finals, with each Canadian planning to compete on two events. This friendly competition was held at the conclusion of a week long training camp.

Nothing about EFs yet and those are what will really tell us anything. This blogger wishes to know about Ivana Hong's upgrades and especially her bar routine, especially since she recently said that she's taken out her signature German giant to reverse hecht because she was getting killed for that.

Recently, a wonderful, creative, and talented member of the gymnastics community has passed away. I have no idea what to say when others have already said it better (except 21 is way too young to die), so I'm going to let my favorite montage by him speak for itself: