The sister made this. I think the American MAG team made a gym fan out of her.
I am so delighted by Nastia taking gold and the Americans going 1-2! And you know what was just as good? The medal winners all went 4 for 4 in their routines, the competition wasn't a huge splatfest and was a true competition instead of a process of eliminations like we've seen so many times in the lead up to this very day.
I have never seen Nastia perform so well. Her vault was as perfect as a 1.5Y could be. I do think it was scored a little low. I think it was because 1.) it was a 1.5Y and 2.) Yang Yilin had gone before her with a DTY and they didn't want to score a 1.5Y equal to or higher than a DTY. A friend pointed out to me that had this been 1996, Nastia's vault would have been a 9.8, easy. Probably, but that's another decade, another CoP, and an entirely different scoring system. But her vault was damn good.
Her UB wasn't as good as it was on previous nights, namely the landing, but was I nervous throughout that entire routine. I figured that the skills that she had issues with would be fine, but she would fall on her Gienger or something like that. Thankfully, she didn't.
Nastia's FX was her best ever. Crazy cowboy on her double front as usual, but she'll be no Ivana Hong on that skill, so she's got it as best as she can get it. She nearly gave away an OOB tenth, but saved herself (seriously, what has been with the Americans and the OOB line?).
Papa Liukin nearly had me going. I have never seen him so emotional. It must be crazy to see your little girl achieve something her dream and be right there next to her when she does. Their father-daughter moment was so adorable. All their tense moments, arguments in Russian, all that, for this.
Shawn, I want to give her a hug. I've never been her biggest fan and made no secret of it, but one tends to show their true colors when missing out on something huge as an Olympic gold (like that Swedish wrestler's temper tantrum) and she has been so gracious and sweet in the face of her own disappointment. I can't blame her. She's spent the past year hearing everybody say that she's got the gold, it's hers 100%, yes siree Bob, she's got the gold (especially after it came out that she had an Amanar). People in her town building creepy statues of her out of butter and bronze. Walking into local and national chain grocery stores and seeing herself as a life-size cardboard cutout and seeing herself on local and national products like Coca-Cola and Hyvee-brand ice cream sandwiches. She's 16. She probably bought into her own hype a little bit and probably did not expect to not only lose the gold, but by such a large margin (.6).
My hypothesis is that because Shawn was being so well gifted at domestic meets and hit a purple patch when she became senior (most of her direct competition was either out with injury or just coming back from injury) that they were well content to keep things as they were and and kind of lapse on the things that needed working on, namely her leaps and jumps, instead choosing to upgrade and hope that high A-scores would offset her flaws. Many armchair judges said that she would get slammed on those very things come Beijing. She did and it cost her dearly. I didn't think that the margin would be so wide between her and Nastia, but there you go. Plus, Shawn got very lucky in regards to her vault because given how long the judges pondered over that and even had Nellie Kim over there, I seriously thought they were going to downgrade that vault.
Either way, Shawn has a lot to be proud of. She's well-accomplished for a gymnast who only became an elite in 2005. Qualified elite in 2005, triple World Champion in 2007, double silver Olympic medalist (so far) in 2008. I'm not sneezing at that.
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.
Holy God, these Opening Ceremonies are full of sweet sweet Zhang Yimou awesomness.
That is all.
Does need some Gong Li though.
Everything I said about the Chinese leotards, I take back.
The U.S. leos are so much worse. Did they let Shawn and Nastia design the leotards and foist them on the other girls? Sweet Jesus. And the names for them: "Hott?"
It's like the 2004 Athens leo, except worse. Anybody else slightly disturbed by the deep mesh in the middle, like an attempt at cleavage?
*sigh* I give up.
Got all the way to Beijing, only to sustain yet another injury. Alicia Sacramone is also still struggling with her leg injury.
Goes to show how the marathon of competitions before the Olympics is NOT a good idea, USAG. What good does it do if our girls show up to the granddaddy of all competitions broken and exhausted? Are you trying to make China's win a cakewalk?
