So I'm a huge Olympics fan. I might have even secretly wanted to be an Olympic champion in my youth. I still figure I have a shot in archery. Anyway, I watch pretty much all the coverage I can get. During the winter Olympics, it's all about figure skating and during the summer, it's all about gymnastics. Gymanstics has been dominated by the Chinese this year...which fine. The women faltered in the team competition (Alicia Sacramone, I'm looking at you) but the women's all-around was all about Nastia Lukin and Shawn Johnson. I'm a big fan of Shawn Johnson's consistency and steadiness in all of her routines. She just seems hard-working and nice, not to mention that she's an awesome gymnast. I'm rooting for her to win the gold. Nastia Lukin has beautiful lines and a grace that is very rare for gymnasts, especially for the Chinese, who are so awkward everytime they move their arms.
But what is with the scores right now!?!?!?!?! ARGH!!!!
Okay, so I'm still watching the competition (I don't want to be spoiled even though I know I could find the results out right now) but the two Chinese gymnasts bobbled and faltered and balanced-checked their way through their balance beam routines and still scored higher than Shawn Johnson's near flawless routine. What gives judges?
At this point, I just want either Shawn or Nastia to get gold-silver, and the Chinese to get kicked to the curb. Hopefully, on their last event (floor) something terrible will happen to the Chinese (mean, I know, but they've been annoying me with their over-inflated scores and home team advantage) and Shawn/Nastia can nail it on the head.
So now the floor routines are starting. I'll give my minute-by-minute impressions and comments.
JIANG YU-YANG (China): She had a big fall on the vault and she just made a pretty serious mistake on a very basic dance move on the floor. She's not really in medal contention anymore so whatever.... I'm over you. She got a 14.something.
ANNA PAPLOVA (Russia): I'm rooting for one of the Russians or Romanians to kick the other Chinese girl out of her spot. Her music isn't as awful as some other routines. (Sidenote: why do women have music on their floor routines and not men? It doesn't add anything to their routines...actually I find it really annoying because the gymnastics never seems to take musicality into consideration when choreographing these routines...so pointless.) So she did a great floor routine. Really solid. 15.050.
KSENIA SEMNOVA (Russia): She's in 4th place right now behind Shawn Johnson (who goes last). She actually appears to have listened to her music once or twice. Nice. Oh wait....I think her music is "Putting on the Ritz" or something like that. Very jazzy and very 1980s. I hope she steps out of bounds. No such luck. She did a good job. Dang. 14.775. Okay, I can breathe easier....that's not a super stellar score.
YANG YILIN (China): The commentators love to create lots of drama and they make so many nit-picky comments that you think all the gymnasts actually suck. Okay, she has to go down but I kind of have a soft spot for her now because she's using music from Moulin Rouge which LOVE! It's the opening "La Boheme" and I always thought this music was awesome for a dance routine. She had a little stumble. Yay! Okay, she did a pretty good job but I'm hoping the judges will suddenly find a billion little mistakes and give her a really low score. Please judges? You've done it to the Americans throughout this competition. Pass on some of the unloving to the Chinese. 15.000. Okay, that's something that the Americas can easily over-come.
NASTIA LUKIN (USA): She's very pretty....especially for a gymnast. Her father was a Russian gymnast (I think her mother was too) and she was born in Russia before coming to America as a toddler. And her Dad is her coach and it's a little adorable. So far, she's doing a great job. She really is incredibly graceful and beautiful. Okay, she was awesome. 15.525. (Excellent.) Hit everything and she should get the silver at the very least, if not the gold depending on what Shawn Johnson does. She's next!!!
SHAWN JOHNSON (USA): She needs a 16.125 or better to beat Nastia (which just isn't going to happen) so now she's shooting for a silver. Her first tumbling pass was huge and right on. Her music is from August Rush and it actually works really well for a floor routine. She's nailing pretty everything right now. If she just keeps it up, she'll take silver. (Aside from the part where gold is better than silver, I'd rather get a silver medal. So much prettier...gold is a little tacky). YAY! Just waiting for her score....15.255. Silver medal by .075 (between her and third place).
Nastia Lukin wins. I'm quite pleased (even though a Chinese got a bronze). Nastia was really solid, had a lot of great routines and really stuck the landings.
Another sidenote: The commentators have also been making a huge deal over the international make-up of American gymnastics. Nastia Lukin was born in Russia. Shawn Johnson's coach is from Beijing. Kevin Tan on the men's team is Chinese, Alexander Artemov is Russian, and Raj Bhavsar is of Indian descent. I find it rather amusing that this is note-worthy, when America has always been and still is a land of immigrants and since many studies have projected that whites will no longer be the majority in America by 2042*: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_on_go_ot/white_minority. Get with the program commentators.
Anyway, it was a fantastic competition and America took the top two spots (and is now back on the top of the medal count, thank goodness). Now I'm looking forward to the individual gymnastic events, track and field and for the Michael Phelps show to be over. (No doubt, he is AWESOME but I'm pretty sure America has some other athletes. Just a guess.)
Also, does the local news need to tell me everywhere Obama has been on his vacation to Oahu? I do not care that he went body surfing at Sandy Beach or played basketball with his buddies at his old high school. Plus, I so did not need the image of him in a bathing suit floating around in my mind. Anywaaay....
So yay for the Olympics and if you made it to the end of this post, yay for you! You get a silver medal.
* I will, however, not comment on my views on current immigration policy.
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2 comments:
Oh my goodness, I was so annoyed with Alicia Sacramone! She was just painful to watch. I agree with you about Nastia Liuken, she is such a beautiful, artistic gymnast (which you don't see too often!). I'm just sitting here waiting for the beam finals to start. I was so mad about Nastia and the bars...she should have won the gold! She's from this area, so she is all over the news every night...there's going to be a big homecoming here for her. Go Texas, hehe.
I know...I was SO mad that Nastia didn't get gold on the bars. She so deserved it. It makes no sense to me that there can't be ties in gymnastics, when other sports allow for that kind of results. So lame. But I'm so glad that Shawn got her gold on the beam which is my favorite event and that Nastia got silver. Go USA gymnastics! Do you remember when we thought we could do gymnastics in middle school? Oh good times. But seriously, gymnastics is awesome.
David has gamely sat and watched some of the Olympics with me (which he's never watched before...especially not gymnastics) so I've had to explain everything to him but he's so funny how he's gotten into it and the questions he asks. Watching the men's bars, he was like "Wow, that's crazy" after some big release and then "I wonder what that bar is made of?" Even better is that he's always trying to catch some Chinese in the background. Then Zou Kai from China came up to bat and David starts laughing and says, "I hope they're [the commentators] are pronouncing that wrong because otherwise his name is a very unkind way to tell someone to get lost." It's been fun but I think David will be happy when the Olympics are over because I've been ignoring him a little. Oh well. :-)
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