I am overwhelmed at the turn of events since the start of the 2012 gymnastics, I barely even know where to begin. Oh what the hell. I may as well start at the beginning!
Mens qualifications was an eventful meet indeed! I didn’t actually see every routine from every team, but form what I gather, Uchimura had a few falls, Japan fell all over the place, Great Britain rose to the occasion, and despite a few mistakes, the USA Men shockingly ended in 1st place, poised to take the team gold medal for the first time since the early 1980’s!
The team finals however was a different story and FILLED TO THE BRIM with drama! Danell Leyva and John Orozco both made big mistakes on the balance beam for men, aka the Pommel Horse. They should rename that thing the Pummel horse. It’s much more an accurate description.
On floor, Jake Dalton put hands down on one of his passes. Thats basically 3 falls in the first 2 rotations!
On vault, Orozco sat down his vault! JEEZ this is truly brutal. Visibly trying to fight back the tears, he eventually collected himself. There is much more gymnastics to be done, but those 4 mistakes was 4 points shaved off of the team total.
Still, the USA Men fought and fought hard for a medal of any color, unfortunately it wasn’t their day and landed in 5th place behind China, Great Britain, Ukraine and Japan respectively. The 3 teams, CHN, GBR & UKR celebrated, only for the celebration to be cut short after Japan contested one of Uchimura’s scores on horse. The scores were adjusted, and Ukraines celebration was short lived. Japan moved up from 4th to 2nd!
Now on to the Women. Oh lord. The drama, the drama, the DRAMA!!
Let’s just cut to the chase and get right to the meat and potatoes of this meet. The GOOD News: Aside from a few uncharacteristic out of bounds deductions (one sizable one by Douglas), the US women were as dominat as ever!
Starting off on vault, Raisman & Douglas nailed their beastly handspring onto the board to 2.5 twisting Amanar earning 15.8 and 15.9 respectively. Jordyn Wieber landed her out her Amanar out of bounds, but still received a great score. Vaulting diva McKayla Maroney landed her spectacularly high Amanar with enough power to add another half twist (maybe even a FULL twist!) with a bounding hop foward. The step cost her a bit, and she scored the same as Gabby Douglas. Her second vault was gorgeous, and she was awarded a 15.7 to average 15.8 and lead the field in Vault finals. Maroney’s qualification round is done, and she can hang out and watch the show.
Up next. Bars. Raisman lead the way with a solid set for her. This is not her best event, there were some form issues, but she looked a lot cleaner than what she typically does. She cleaned up some of her leg separations, and dismounted without any major breaks. Kyla Ross was next with a great, clean exercise! She can swing bars with the best of them and has great form on this event. Then there was Jordyn. Like Raisman, Bars is Jordyn’s achilles heel, and overarched one of her handstands, but she managed to muscle through the set for a hit routine! And achoring the bars rotation for USA is Gabby Douglas. No surprise here; she swung well, had great form, high release moves and very solid. This we have come to expect of Ms. Douglas on this event. The USA has yet to have any major faulters, and they are feeling it now!
Next comes beam! Kyla Ross was very solid as per usual, and hit her set. Douglas was next and, aside from a couple balance checks (due to doubting herself), she nearly stuck her dismout and earned a good score! Next comes Jordyn. Now I was a little nervous for Jordyn mounting beam because her warm up was a bit of a mess; Falling twice. One was borderline scary! But she mounted the beam, and aside from a few balance checks and slow connections, it was a hit set! Next up was Aly Raisman. She was her typical solid self and dismounted with the difficult Patterson unscathed.
The final apparatus is Floor. Leading off, Kyla Ross had a clean floor exercize, not as difficult as the rest of the field and a sizeable step out of bounds, but she managed to get through it. Her first Olympic qualifications are now over. Next up. Gabby Douglas. She started very well on her first pass, but her second pass always makes me nervous for some reason. Sometimes she has sooo much power, she flies out of bounds, and here was absolutely no exception! She came very close to slipping down the slope and I have no idea how she didn’t sit that one down, but she managed to shake off the routine, and finish strong! Gabby is still in the lead. Next up is Wieber. Wieber had a strong set, but she a 3 tenths hop back into out of bounds territory, and it cost her at least 4 tenths. This gonna be close if Wieber, the reigning world champion, is to make the all-around for team USA. she is going to need a little help from Aly Raisman, who is has one of the most difficult floor routines being performed today. She nailed her routine and after the scores were counted, Raisman moved ahead of Douglas and Wieber. A shocking result to an eventful day. Raisman and Douglas have advanced to the all around, and because of the 2 per country rule, Wieber is out by under .2 behind Douglas. Overcome with emotion, she bursts into tears at the realization of Olympic all around glory dashed to pieces. Raisman also burst into tears, but of a different variety. She was going to the all around finals at the Olympics!
After the smoke cleared, and the shock wore off, blogs across the US were hit with “The 2 per country rule suck” and “PROTEST, PROTEST…” and “How can the reigining world champion not advance to the all around?” and “FML” and “Gabby doesn’t deserve to be in the finals!!”
Although Team USA is headed into team finals in the first place position, that accomplishment has been overshadowed by this shocking turn of events.
Now I do have my personal opinion on the matter, but I will post that after the finals are in the books. But no one can deny this plain and obvious fact. These games for gymnastis has been EPIC in every sense of the term!
GymnastHole 