Lightbulb Hands

So, China Wins Again

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:04:42 -0400

Despite committing an error almost DPRK-esque in magnitude, China will get to keep their team gold. What does this mean for Chinese gymnastics and gymnastics in general?

1.) China will continue falsifying ages. It's naive to think otherwise. They're just going to be much more careful about it. Are they going to risk another He Kexin and fake the documents of another little prodigy and attempt to erase all articles referring to her as being age-ineligible for the Games mere months before the Olympics? Well, I don't know. That was a huge risk to take. Not only did it pay off for them, but they got away with it. If nothing else, they're no longer going to put important documents on the Internet anymore.

2.) China will now be put under a microscope. While I'm going to say that any articles about rising stars that end up on the Internet will not have any references to age, people will be keeping caches of any and all articles. Speculation will continually follow them.

3.) The FIG and IOC, long regarded as incompetent, have lost pretty much all credibility. This whole "investigation" was just a dog-and-pony show to put up the pretense that they're doing something and that they do not condone the cheating. They had the same evidence before the Olympics as they did when they started this whole thing. They just hoped that, like all news stories, it would soon fade away for the next big thing. Unfortunately for them, the only way that would have happened is if any team, not necessarily the USA, but any team had won over China. But China won and when a team that most people believe is cheating wins, those people want something done about it. What I wonder is what this will do to Grandi's bid to raise the age limit. When they refuse to enforce the age limit in place now, it's stupid and unfair to impose a higher limit.

Knowing that this decision will be unpopular, the FIG and IOC brought in Yang Yun and Dong Fangxiao from the 2000 Sydney Games. Yang famously said she was just 14 in a documentary aired on state-run television and Dong showed up as a worker at the 2008 Games with papers that suggested she would have been ineligible for Sydney, not to mention that her own blog also supported that. I highly doubt it's still up on her blog, though.

However, the statute of limitations for medal revocation is almost up. And what would be the point now? Some have suggested that China is barred from the 2010 Worlds (being barred from London 2009 isn't much of a punishment because the National Games are also around that time and China never sends their A-listers to the Worlds vs. the National Games). Given the rules in gymnastics, not only would China miss a major competition, but they wouldn't get to qualify for the Olympics. Since the top 24 teams in 2010 get to go onto 2011 and those 12 teams qualify a full team to the Olympics (that is, if I have that right).

But you want my prediction on the absolute outcome of everything? Nothing. Absolutely nothing will happen.

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Oh, Yeah, I Have To Add This:

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:17:01 -0400

814us.png

The sister made this. I think the American MAG team made a gym fan out of her.

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USA Up On UR Podium, Takin' UR Medals

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:14:40 -0400

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.

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Women's Preliminaries

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:15:45 -0400

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:

SJBBTQ.jpg

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.

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O_O

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 20:51:34 -0400

Holy God, these Opening Ceremonies are full of sweet sweet Zhang Yimou awesomness.

That is all.

Does need some Gong Li though.

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The U.S. Olympic Leos

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:01:10 -0400

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?"

379-Hott_Leotard_Team_Photo.jpg

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?

379-fourth.jpg

Do they have any more Pepto-Bismol they used to dye the fabric? Because I'm going to need it.

379-Fourth_Leo.jpg

This could have been cute in another color, oh maybe in a color that represents America???? WTF is up with the pink and purple crap lately?

379-Hott_Leo_Shawn.jpg

Hott_Leo_Shawn says the caption. No. Just...no. In so many ways.

379-Hott_Leotard_Nastia.jpg

This is your fault, you and your pink crap.

*sigh* I give up.

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Chellsie Memmel Injured

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:56:37 -0400

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?

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Thoughts on the U.S. Olympic Team

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:03:02 -0400

Chellsie, while not of the pretty gymnastics, will provide the security that one cannot necessarily count on with Nastia or even Shawn (while consistent, was one of the two who fell in TFs at Worlds).

Bridget, yay! She's really taken herself from being the alternate of the group to making herself worthy of the team spot. Good on her!

I am so stoked to see Corrie as alternate! She was not expecting to get as far as even Trials, so you know she was probably happier than the named team members themselves when she was named as alternate. I'm a little disappointed we didn't get an Amanar from her, but I hope we'll see more of her next quad and I'm sure she'll bring it out then. Better to stay safe than to bring out all the guns for a small chance.

Shayla, what rotten luck that was. But she was already so broken that she was a liability in the first place. Better to have happened then than at prelims or TFs when it's too late to bring in an alternate. Here's to hoping she can keep her chin up and heal properly and rock NCAA.

Mattie developed a stress fracture, taking her out of the running. I wonder if TPTB will take a good hard look and continue to think that having Nationals, Trials, and the selection camp so crunched together (and very close to the O-Games, mind you) is a good idea. The girls don't know when is a good time to peak; they have to look good for TPTB so they can be picked for the team, but not show up for the Games exhausted and past form.

Jana, also another tragedy. If she had hit her UB sets, she probably would have been on the team, no problem. Instead, she fell on the same skill both days and everybody, including herself, lost confidence.

Ivana got lucky with alternate status. For a while, people were thinking that she would be left off the team altogether. Frankly, I think that since A.) the Fong-Hong relationship isn't exactly working out, B.) she doesn't want to continue with her family being split apart (father is in CA and mother and siblings in Missouri with her), and C.) she already has such good technique and basics that she should make one more gym hop and give AOGC a try. I think she'd be happier being back with her family. And since she's expressed an interest in Stanford, well, it's there in CA as well.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, the U.S. Olympic Team and the Alternates

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:55:22 -0400

e-7f04294f_11b31e660b9_-7c9d.jpg

Nastia Liukin
Shawn Johnson
Alicia Sacramone
Samantha Peszek
Chellsie Memmel
Bridget Sloan

Jana Bieger
Ivana Hong
Corrie Lothrop

More thoughts at a time when I didn't just work 10 hours.

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Ready, Set DVRs, Go!

nobody@vox.com(janghwa_hongryeon) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:38:58 -0400

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