U.S. Olympic gals gymnasts...All Around

Fantastic!

Gold and Silver.

For those who put them down earlier...FOR SHAME!

I trust that this doesn't require a spoiler alert...it is passé.

Congrats!

1) It makes sense to ignore what the DU meanies say .... Just because you visit DU doesn't mean you are isolated from mean ass people ...

2) WHY the FUCK are they waiting until 11:30 PM to start the women's all around ? .... CRIMINY ! ... What of all the young girls who should be inspired by this wonderful competition to become gymnasts themselves ? .... How can they be inspired if they have to get to bed before they even start ? .... NBC doesn't have to wait until so late to show this ... what DID they play ? .... Beach Volleyball ? .... EVERY evening, it has been Beach Volleyball to start the prime time coverage .... I love that too, but that is NOT as important or as widely attractive to most viewers .... It frustrates me that I have to stay up WAY past bedtime to see this .... I am sure I am not alone ...

3) What is up with the scoring ? .... I dont think of myself as a jingoistic nationalist, but I could swear there was a distinct anti american bias present .... Maybe it's the Bush effect .... but those girls worked HARD to be as perfect as possible, and other gymnasts who had more faults had better scores .... IMHO ...

Girls ? ... You ROCK ! ....

NBC, MSNBC and the USA Network. Channel switching. Get to watch the sun rise daily. Not good for old coots like myself.

It is 6 p.m. in Beijing at this moment...3 a.m. here.

Agree with you on your third point. That often happens in host countries. But, the gals overcame.

American's are doing themselves proud.

is when the scoring is this bad. Usually in gymnastics during the summer games and ice skating in the winter games. Otherwise I just pick the person or teams that I feel are the best or who I like best.

Anyway, yes they rocked and were clearly the best of the group!!!

Which is sad, but I can't stay up that late and also...I am in complete agreement about the funky scores. Now, I think that the U.S. women likely would have gotten the silver in Team regardless (after Sacramone's beam mount error, nerves just seemed to get the better of them), but it's hard to say, considering all the preceding scores that I thought were just "off " (in China's favor).

I used to judge gymnastics, and though I am no expert at the new scoring system, I do know what to look for and am excellent at "guestimating" scores before they come up. Arguably - for similar difficulty performances (on beam especially) - China didn't get nearly as many execution deductions for balance checks compared to the Americans. And it was visibly so, IMHO; I'm guessing I saw about 5-8 balance checks from the Chinese against 2-3 for the Americans, but the Americans took a huge hit while it didn't seem to impact China at all. And I'm not jingoistic either; I just like fair, and found both the men's and women's scoring to rise to the level of WTF?! several times. So you're not alone...

Huge congrats to Luikin and Johnson - I was happily surprised to hear they won gold and silver! Way to go to ALL the U.S. ladies, as well. You are all fabulous ambassadors to the sport. And yes, they do rock. What a great team. :-)

There is a 12 hour time difference between Beijing and the east coast so it is something like 10 am there when it starts. If they waited to show it here at a reasonable hour (like prime time the NEXT DAY) everyone would already know the results because the assholes at CNN and on THIS SITE cannot resist posting spoilers.

So it's late, so what? At least we get to watch it live.

I don't know that the scoring problems were anti-Americans. There were some other gymnasts (Russians I think) who also got ripped off.

So they could be showing it at 5 to 10 PM, instead of 8 PM to 1 AM ....

I read somewhere that NBC was able to get times shifted around so that swimming and gymnastics could be shown live in the US. Since those are the money sports (viewer-wise) I guess NBC wanted to make sure that time-delay wouldn't affect their numbers.

I recall that a recent Olympics was one of the worst viewed in years because all the big events were shown as a time-delay and the winners were pretty much common knowledge by prime-time viewing hours.

And what makes it worse is the judges are sitting there going over a bazillion instant video replays on their laptops and they make the athletes sit there and wait and wait and wait for the scores...

I don't see how they can stand it.

In my experience, sometimes judge indecision gives you valuable time; you can quiet down internally and "visualize" your routine and be better than if you had to just go straight to the wall. Or that's my take as a former competitor (not in any way near the Olympic level, but it carries a bit, regardless - especially if you're hard on yourself as a rule - and I was back then).

on edit: some clarification

For all I knew, you could have reported that they tanked in the all around.

And I thank you for that.

And, congrats to the USA womens team!

... to really enjoy the 'sport.' The NBC broadcast team alternated between swooning adoration and thinly-veiled attacks on the judges for bias. Sheesh! Why must those assholes constantly posture and preen as though they're exalted judges of the judges? If they don't like judged/scored competition then don't choose a 'sport' that does it. They should stick to track and field or swimming (stay away from diving).

even though there *always* seems to be some judging controversy. I'm thinking: "have you *just* start watching gymnastics?" :shrug:

From being born in Russia to gold medalist for the USA.....amazing.




Liukin, 18, joined Mary Lou Retton in 1984 and Carly Patterson four years ago in Athens as the only U.S. gymnasts to win the women's all-around competition. Liukin's father Valeri, the U.S. coach, won four gymnastics medals for the Soviet Union at the 1988 Games, including a silver in the men's all-around.


I'm still trying to figure out what the judges had against Johnson.

I love Johnson, because she's closest to my former ethic as a competitive gymnast: "love it, focus, stick it." I enjoy Liukin because she has gorgeous lines, and nine times out of ten (maybe 9.8) she sticks what she needs. They have different aesthetics, but both are fabulous gymnasts and absolutely deserve their standings. They compete against themselves and each other more than we will ever know. They're good for each other, in other words. IMHO of course. :-)

Teammates and rivals at the same time?...that's gotta be hard.

The thing was, going into their fourth and final rotation, all the medals were up for grabs.

It was all up for grabs....that's what made it so exciting.






Not over yet either - they still have some individual events coming up.

once upon a time we just understood that team/individual were different things. We pushed HARD to win as a team, and when it came time for individual, we were on our own. We knew the difference. I have to assume these ladies do too, and I think they'll support each other as they can during the individual medal competitions. In the end, they're still part of a team. But it can be a fine line to negotiate these days, with everything seeming so much more competitive, and so much more money riding on it.

I kind of wish I'd watched the all-around, but I was very discouraged by some of the earlier scoring based on my own knowledge and so just let it go. I'm sure it was thrilling according to your account. DH did TIVO it so I will watch. It's not the same after the fact, but I'm sure I'll see more of what you saw. :-)

...but it's still worth watching.

The scoring wasn't THAT bad....and you lose the sparkle when just watching the highlights.

I want to be IN it. As a former judge, it gets me going. It's always amazing to watch the whole thing, which we really don't get anymore.

I just got "down" on the whole dog-pony show, because it seems like a story was being written for me (the hazards of uber-modern broadcast corporate TV) that I don't agree with. I loved the olden-days ABC coverage of the Olys where they just let it happen and commented. This new "fluff" crap that NBC feels the need to shovel on just galls me - to the bone. It's just a quirk of mine. So I watch what I can, when I can, and make my own assumptions. I ultimately feel terrible I've gotten to this point. I really don't ENJOY it anymore; at all. :-(

I'm not trying to be a brat, but some of this relates directly to the Olys becoming such a "commodity." I think it's kind of sad. Hence my stupid commentary.

on edit: clarity

(figuratively, of course, since I oppose violence)

He kept saying, during the competition, that gymnastics isn't a sport (or diving or ice skating, blah blah blah). He said it can't be called a sport if there isn't an objective means to determine the winner. He said these sports are wholly dependent on a judge to award points or not, so that it can't be called a sport.

I sent him to bed so I could watch the finale in serenity.

Everything at stake and every move could win or lose you the gold. They are some tough little competitors, that's for sure.
They made me nervous just watching...the last 10 minutes were killer.

I told my boss this morning that I was going to go to bed early and try and come in early today...then I got caught up watching the damned Olympics. LOL! She did the same thing though. LOL!

round and round re: the sport thing. He concedes that it is very athletic and difficult, but because the scoring has some subjectivity and the teams aren't on the field at the same time it's not a sport.

He says that if they can make the scoring completely objective and allow teams to try and knock over each other's pyramids, then he'll call it a sport. :eyes:

That Chinese girl was on her knees with the vault landing and still beats her?

Bullshit.

& still won the gold. :wtf:

dg

..