8 posts tagged “olympics”
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
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).
My opinion: Too busy. Too much going on. The first one I do like more than the red/gold/blue one. And I like the cheongsam design of it, too. But at least it's something different from the egg and tomato ones they've been wearing for so long.
Linky-poos: 1 and 2
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
UPDATE:
Here's the draw.
So apparently China held an internal test event recently. News to you? To me, too. Wenshuli from one of the gym boards graciously provided information. The girls were divided into two teams: blue/white & red/yellow.
Jiang Yuyuan (my favorite of the Chinese; she's so cute!) does indeed have an Amanar (15.7). But her overall AA score wasn't where it needs to be if she's going to contend for an AA medal.
Cheng Fei won FX and VT, of course. Was there any doubt?
He Kexin broke 17 on UB.
Li Shanshan has a 7.3 BB A score, but was wobbly. The Olympic BB gold would be hers to lose, but she's so inconsistent. Not to mention that her inconsistency could lose her spot on the O-Team.
Deng Linlin (also adorable) won the AA with a DTY and a 7.0 BB A score.
Xiao Sha also had a 7.0 on BB and won the event.
Sui Lu (?) has a 6.4 on FX and 7.1 on BB. I have no idea who she is.
Yang Yilin's foot is still injured, so she only competed UB. Did well, placing second.
Pang Panpan was 4th AA. She has a FTY, but a 7.1 UB A score.
Not much about Zhou Zhuoru. Zhang Nan is fit, but without much difficulty (this does not bode well for my hopes). Same could be said about He Ning.
Pictures:
http://sports.qq.com/a/20080423/000664.htm
http://sports.qq.com/a/20080423/000652.htm
It's looking more and more like it'll be China's gold to lose.
One of these ladies will not be on the podium. This is a final I am so looking forward to.
*Note: I tried to find the latest videos of each girl, not necessarily the best. Obviously, Liukin, Semenova, and Tweddle are the top three in the world, having medaled at World Championships, and He is certainly showing herself to be a force to be reckoned with.*
Aren't you all lucky? When it's days or even weeks between posts, it's only been a couple of hours! I'm feeling posty today.
- Super consistent. What else can one call a gymnast who is called at the 11th hour to compete AA in TFs at her first World Championships and nails each routine? And wasn't even an alternate in the first place, more like the alternate to the alternate? Even after puberty and into the next quad, she's kept her consistency. So you know she'll hit when it counts in high pressure situations. Not even the It Girls and locks for the O-Team can boast such a thing (except for Alicia Sacramone, also a rock, though it took a few years and NCAA for her to reach rock status).
- Is rather self-sacrificing. She injures her shoulder in the UB rotation in Aarhus and instead of saving herself and preventing further injury, she continues to compete and rips up her shoulder something fierce, taking her out of commission for a year and a half. So she sees the bigger picture and while probably somewhat masochistic, would probably be willing to make the sacrifice again for the team.
- Tenacious and determined. At an impasse after being picked as an alternate for the 2004 O-Team, despite being a double World Champion the year prior, she decided to continue on and go for 2008. And many gymnasts would have seen the shoulder injury as a career-ending one.
- Is favored by the international judges. Her scores speak for themselves, despite her form issues. I would love for her gymnastics to be all Ivana Hong-Samantha Shapiro pretty-like (in fact, wasn't she supposed to spend at week training with Shapiro's coach?), but it's not going to happen.
I dunno. I think I'd want her on my team, assuming her SVs are where they need to be. And she's a sentimental favorite. After the hell she's gone through trying to make a spot for herself on the Olympic team, I'd be a little heartbroken to see her left off again.
And Amanda on the Difficulty Plus Execution blog brought up a good point: only in America will we leave not one, but two double World Champions off the O-Team. In other countries, that's like an automatic seat reservation to major competitions. Then again, that was done in favor of a failed gamble on a virtually untested gymnast and a one-event gymnast. *shrugs*
It is now 2008, which means in a short eight months, it will be time for another Summer Olympiad. I figure it'll be good for my own education to do posts on the hopefuls. At least maybe I'll get through Team USA.
First up is Ivana Hong. I think she has a lot of talent. She certainly is the most artistic out of the American women, aside from Nastia, not to mention great form, execution, and technique. Check out her double-twisting Yurchenko:
Amazingly clean and you wouldn't expect such a tiny thing to be able to vault like that. Especially when you look at her flaws on uneven bars:
Her floor and beam were just as clean and had better flow than most and Ivana at least tries to incorporate some dance into her floor routine:
Aside from the turn with the free leg at horizontal (seems like most gymnasts have issues with that; they should devalue it to discourage its use if nobody is going to do it properly), her routine is lovely. I do wish she would up the difficulty. I hope that's what's happening over this time in the off-season.
And just to round it out, here's her beam:
That's Day One of 2007 Nationals. Not too sure how she ended up 4th in the AA when Nastia had a splatfest that day and got 3rd. Day Two didn't turn out so well for Ivana (only hit 2 out of 4) and got hammered even worse by the judges. But she was picked for the World team, but injured her foot and wasn't able to compete in team finals. Some say that she should have been the alternate rather than Bridget Sloan and as a Sloan advocate, I can see that as well. But I'm rooting for Hong first and foremost and I really want her to up her difficulty, better her uneven bars, and gain an Olympic berth. I really think she's at a good learning curve here.
