Nastia Liukin’s gold medal in the all around competition in Women’s gymnastics is marketing gold for her. It has opened up all kinds of doors for her. I still expect her teammate Shawn Johnson to make a lot of money in endorsements, but this gold medal may actually provide more opportunities for Nastia. Time will tell.
Here is a good video from NBC about how Nastia’s life was instantly changed by winning the all around competition:
Matt Lauer and Al Roker performing men’s tandem rhythmic gymnastics.
There were definitely still areas to quibble about, but tonight the end result was satisfactory. Shawn Johnson finally gets her gold— yea, Shawn! Nastia Liukin adds to her collection with another silver. Of course, the Chinese gymnasts each had pretty major errors, so if that HADN’T been the result, well I just don’t know how ugly a post I would have to have written!
And then on the high bar, Jonathan Horton pulled off a silver!
So, that was a pretty good night for American gymnastics.
The U.S. women end up with 8 medals overall, and the men end up with two.
As I alluded to in my last post, the new tie breaker system is ridiculous (and I don’t mean in the good sense of the word “ridiculous”). She tied for gold, but received the silver. What was wrong with tying and giving out two golds? I have no idea! But that’s not how they do it now.
The commentators asked if He Kexin really believed she won the gold. Well, of course she’s does— she’s too young to know any better!
Well, this is becoming the theme of my Summer Olympics blog— gymnastics scoring sucks! So, here are the reasons I can come up with (feel free to add your own in the comments).
1. Tie breakers— Really? A tie breaker? And the tie breaker protocol doesn’t even make any sense! You drop the highest and lowest scores, as usual. Then you drop another score, look at the remaining scores, and the gymnast with the highest score from the remaining three scores wins. Confused? Yeah, so was Nastia’s Dad, and he’s a judge. And it’s not even the same tie breaker procedure for different events within the same sport. The gold in the men’s vault was also decided by a tie breaker, but in that event you just take the highest score out of the two vaults (which at least makes some sense).
2. No perfect 10— no explanation needed
3. Difficulty scores— meant to make things more fair but really just makes things more confusing
4. Inexperienced judges— Because there can be no judges from a country that is competing, you end up with judges from countries with horrible gymnastics programs judging the finals. And, apparently, in their programs falling down isn’t a big deal!
5. Judges bias against American gymnasts— Can it really be coincidence that China always seems to benefit from “voting irregularities”, and it never seems to help the Americans?
Those are my beefs. What are yours?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you fall down, you shouldn’t medal. When Alicia Sacramone fell off the beam and then had another fall on the floor, I could totally accept that she got low scores. Tonight, she completed two decent vaults. Small steps or hops on both landings, which should never beat a perfect vault, obviously, but nothing that should have taken her completely out of contention. Her scores were decent, and I had no complaints.
Then, Cheng Fei performed her vault. The first one had a high difficuly, and she performed it well and got a well-deserved high score. On the second vault, she fell. She landed her knees. And you know my rule— you fall down, no medal. Only in this case, even with the fall, her overall score was approximately .03 higher than Alicia Sacramone’s, so she eventually received the bronze.
I just don’t get it. I don’t care how difficult a vault is, falling down should knock you out of contention unless everyone else falls down.
On the up side, the silver medal went to Oksana Chusovitina, the 33 year old from Germany. Way to go! I can’t even believe that she’s still able to compete at all against these other young women half her age, much less get a medal.
So, that was the good and the bad of the vault competition tonight. Too bad for Alicia Sacramone, but great job Oksana.
The American women’s gymnastics team was disappointed with a silver medal in the team competition, but the all around competition was another story, altogether. Teammates Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson won the gold and silver medals, respectively.
I watched the competition last night, and it was really great! Where the men’s competition was really decided based on who messed up the least, the women were almost flawless. Many women were eliminated from medal contention based on minor mistakes.
My only complaint with the night was the judging. I’m really glad the women won so that I can legitimately address this issue without being accused of sour grapes. It sure seemed that the American women were consistently given lower scores for routines that had fewer mistakes. And I’m not talking about the difference in difficulty. I’m strictly talking about the execution scores. When you make it through a balance routine with no major balance checks or mistakes, and you receive a lower score than a gymnast who has FIVE mistakes that were obvious to even my husband’s untrained eye, something is wrong! I understand that the judges may favor other gymnasts’ style, but that shouldn’t affect the scores— at least not that much! Fortunately, the American girls maintained their cool, continued to perform their best and brought home the medals.
Below you can see the girls discuss their medals, as well as Mary Lou Retton and Bela Karolyi and the families of the gymnasts.
Gymnastics is a big sport in China, which is why the Chinese chose Li Ning, who excelled at the Los Angeles Olympics, to light the Olympic torch. So, when Yang Wei won the all around gold last night, it was a major victory for China.
Watching the all around competition was a bit painful. I don’t know if it’s the added difficulty in routines encouraged by the new scoring, or what, but it was one of the sloppiest nights of Olympic gymnastics I’ve ever seen. Several men had serious falls, and almost no one performed a clean routine.
It was so much an “anyone’s medal” for anything but the gold that the sports commentators had almost no information on the French gymnast, Benoit Caranobe, who won the bronze. It was almost as though they had no idea who he was. It was a really genuine, touching moment though when he won. I don’t think he could have been more thrilled if he’d won gold.
Kohei Uchimura, of Japan, won bronze. Since he is only 19, he’s definitely someone to watch for the 2012 London Olympics.
Hopefully, by the London Olympics the time delays and other issues brought about by the new scoring system will be worked out, and we can watch with more oohs and aahs and fewer ouches.
Before she even attended the Opening Ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, Chellsie Memmel was taken out of contention for the women’s gymnastics all around competition. An injury to her ankle limited her Olympic experience to competing on the uneven bars. Chellsie put in a solid performance to help the American women win silver. Only after the competition was over did she reveal that her “injury” was actually a fracture.
I’m absolutely amazed with the determination of athletes who compete with injuries like this. On the one hand, you’ve put so many years into training. On the other hand, that must HURT! I imagine there’s not enough ibuprofen to make that stop throbbing. I hope she can now get her ankle attended to with no long-term ill effects.
What a difference a night and expectations make. Last night the U.S. men’s gymnastics team was thrilled to take bronze in the Olympic team competition. Since some thought they wouldn’t even make the team finals, much less bring home a medal, bronze was a pleasant surprise.
Tonight, the women’s gymnastics team was disappointed to get the silver. It’s never easy to lose out on a gold because of mistakes (USA certainly had the opportunity to overtake China), but really it comes down to expectations. The women’s team came into the Beijing Olympics as world champions. Since they got to Beijing, they’ve lost two gymnasts out of six to injuries. But that doesn’t make silver any less of a bitter pill— especially when you expected gold.
Thought you might enjoy seeing the men’s gymnastics team interviewed on the Today show after winning the bronze medal.
The U.S. men actually led the Chinese in the gymnastics team competition for several rotations tonight. Winning gold was almost an impossibility, but few thought the team could win an Olympic medal, period. Well, they didn’t manage to win gold, but I think they were plenty proud with their bronze medal winning performance.
Why weren’t the American men expected to medal at the Beijing Olympics? Well, for one, they didn’t have one returning Olympian on the team. Second, they had two alternates replacing the returning Olympians who were supposed to be on the team.
Alexander Artemev, Raj Bhavsar, Joe Hagerty, Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring, and Kevin Tan did America proud.
If you follow gymnastics regularly, last night’s scores probably made perfect sense to you. If you just watch gymnastics during the Olympics, then you were probably thinking, “A 15? What happened to the perfect 10?” Gymnastics has gone the way of figure skating with its scoring system. Now there are two scores— an execution score and what is basically a difficulty/requirements score.
At least gymnastics had the good sense to raise the penalties for failing to execute a move, so maybe it won’t result in as many falls as ice skating’s new scoring system, where it seems that you’re better off trying the impossible and falling on your rear than executing a modest routine. Although I do have to say some of the scores that were posted last night, in spite of falls were pretty ridiculous. I miss the simplicity of a fall meaning you were pretty much done in the competition. On the other hand, I understand that it’s not fair that minor deductions on a ridiculously hard routine can result in a worse score than the perfect performance of a really easy routine. But couldn’t they, then, just raise the level of difficulty of required elements?
I don’t know what the best answer is to the scoring issue. And I’m not sure yet what I think of the current scoring system. But I do know that I’m going to miss the excitement of the perfect 10.
How about you? What do you think of the new system?
The video below is a fan’s tribute to the perfect 10. It’s a montage of perfect 10 performances to Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Goodbye”.
Yes, this year there is a women’s gymnastics competitor who is competing in her FIFTH Olympics. She competed in her first Olympics long before some of these girls were born. Who is she? Oksana Chusovitina, of Germany. Born in the Soviet Union, she was on the gold medal winning Unified Team in 1992. Since then, she has also competed in Atlanta and Sydney.
After her son was diagnosed with leukemia, she went to Germany to secure treatment for him. She has continued to compete to pay his bills. He is now in remission. Oksana became a German citizen in 2006. Shortly after that she competed for Germany in Worlds, earning a bronze in vault.
In the preliminaries at the Beijing Olympics, Oksana scored 14.725 on uneven bars (the second highest German score, 27th overall), 14.4 on beam (the highest German score, 43rd overall ), 14.45 on floor (second highest for Germany, 30th overall), and a whopping 15.525 on vault (the best score for Germany and 4th overall, qualifying her to compete for an event medal). So, she’s not just there out of pity. She’s definitely a valuable member of the German team. Wouldn’t it be something if she medaled in vault? That would be just awesome!
Late night on NBC you can watch women’s volleyball and women’s 100m breaststroke semifinals. During the day tomorrow, it’s women’s water polo, men’s beach volleyball and more qualifying rounds for swimming. Then in primetime, Michael Phelps his march towards Olympic history in the 200m free. Teammates Aaron Peirsol and Natalie Coughlin have a chance to medal in the men’s and women’s 100m. Also on during primetime, U.S. women’s beach volleyball with Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh, the men’s team gymnastics final, and the men’s 10m synchro platform diving final.
MSNBC is broadcasting a full day tomorrow, as well, including women’s tennis, women’s handball, women’s basketball, women’s water polo and women’s volleyball. (Incidentally, U.S. women’s water polo is pursuing their third straight Olympic gold medal.) Men’s badminton (where U.S. competitor Raju Rai may actually have a chance), weightlifting and men’s archery are also available for viewing.
CNBC will be showing men’s beach volleyball, boxing, and women’s softball.
USA is broadcasting women’s beach volleyball, rowing, men’s tennis (featuring Wimbledon champion Rafael Nedal), women’s basketball, and women’s volleyball.
Oxygen will be covering gymnastics and equestrian.
Online, you can see archery, badminton, basketball, fencing, handball, field hockey, judo, rowing, sailing, shooting, softball, tennis, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.
Bela Karolyi said the U.S. Women didn’t want to finish first in the preliminaries. Well, they didn’t. They did make the final cut but struggled. The team is suffering from some injuries, which is really unfortunate. Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek are both suffering from ankle injuries. Samantha’s ankle, which she hurt warming up for the competition, was bad enough that she only performed on bars. You can watch the preliminaries tonight on NBC.
If you’d like to watch Nastia Liukin perform before tonight, I’m including her floor routine below.
First, the U.S. Men’s Gymnastics team lost Paul Hamm to an injury. Then yesterday brother Morgan had to bow out as well because of an injury to his ankle that had not healed in time to compete. So, where does that leave the men’s gymnastics team? I read an article in USA Today that gives the men slim odds of any medals without the Hamm brothers. The U.S. team did finish 4th at the 2007 Worlds, so maybe a medal isn’t completely out of the question.
You can see men’s gymnastics qualifying rounds during NBC’s primetime Olympic coverage Saturday night.
