perfect 10

CHINA:

These guys were phenomenal in their quest to win Gold.  They pulled ahead of the field and showed how dominant they truly are.  It was great to see them hit when it counted, to erase the demons of Athens and end up on top.

It’s hard to choose a favorite routine from among them but my top picks would be…

• Chen Yibing on rings.  His strength was unreal but what took my breath away was his dismount.  Full-twisting double layout, which he opened up and flaired before landing with ease.   It was gorgeous.
• Huang Xu on parallel bars.  Clean, precise and a perfect landing.  Like Tim says, it was “gymnastics 101.”

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If Samantha Peszek can’t compete any events in the Women’s Team Final, here’s my pick for the US Team on each event, in order.

• Vault: Sloan, Sacramone, Johnson (in order of highest scoring potential)
• Bars: Sloan, Memmel, Liukin (again, in order of highest scoring potential)
• Beam: Johnson, Liukin, Sacramone (Johnson and Liukin have proven their stability and consistency time and time again on Beam.  By putting Sacramone up last, it should take a bit of pressure off of her and boost her scoring potential.)
• Floor: Sacramone, Johnson, Liukin (Liukin is normally the lowest score out of these three athletes - putting her up last, like Sacramone on Beam, would maximize her scoring potential).

If Sam Peszek is back in the mix by Wednesday morning, I would change the vault lineup with Peszek filling in for Bridget Sloan.   I would leave the Floor lineup as is because when they both hit, Liukin tends to score a tad higher than Peszek.

What do you think?  Who would you put in the lineup if you were head coach Liang Chow?

I decided, like Blythe over at the gymblog, to attempt to enjoy the Olympics old school-style and wait for the primetime coverage in the evenings, rather than reading all the spoilers online.  It really is so much more fun to watch the action unfold as opposed to reading about it.    I’ll admit that it was extremely difficult to wait, knowing that all the news was one click away.    I avoided email, newspapers, phone calls… but it was definitely worth the wait.  I am glad that the Team Finals and All Around will be live, though, since I don’t know how long I would be able to hold out.    Now that the Women’s Prelims are over, here are eight of my thoughts on the competition (based on NBCs coverage).

• Samantha Peszek… what a heartbreak.  To injure yourself just minutes before the biggest competition of your life is completely devastating.  And since she was a longshot for making the All Around or Event Finals, her time to shine was in the team competition.  I hope she’s able to recover enough to compete some in the Team Finals.
• Although I was only able to see Anna Pavlova on Floor, she looks to be in great shape and I read this morning that she made all the finals sans Bars.  She deserved to be on the All Around podium in Athens so here’s to hoping that she gets some Olympic hardware this time around. 

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So I realize that the entire gymnastics world is talking about one of three things right now… Paul Hamm’s withdrawl from the US Men’s Olympic Team, the alleged age falsification of some Beijing-bound athletes, and the Dominque Moceanu/Jennifer Sey “stuff.”  All of these things have certainly been on my mind of late and I have been preparing a post regarding the Sey controversy, but for now, I’m going to keep things on the lighter side.

I wrote a post last Fall about the ten things I dislike in the world of gymnastics and thought I should counter balance it with a list of ten things that I do like.  I find myself complaining about the current state of gymnastics far too often.  I thought it would be fun to remind myself of what is good about our sport right now.  Without further ado…

• I like the return of the aerial cartwheel on Beam.  Yes, I suppose it’s overused already (what isn’t with this code?  Wait, this is a positive list…)  but it’s a gorgeous skill when done well.
• Mattie Larson.  Isn’t she fun?  She has such spunk and seems so unaffected by the things that have happened this year.  We need more athletes like her, with expressiveness on the apparatus and clean, precise execution.    I hope she recovers well from her stress fracture and look forward to seeing her in the years to come.

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I’m going out of town tomorrow morning and will miss all the coverage of Day 2 for the US Women’s Olympic Trials.   I’ll be on a camping road trip so I likely won’t know anything until the first of July.   So based on what I saw tonight from Day 1 (and from Nationals), here’s who is on my team…

• Shawn Johnson
• Nastia Liukin
• Chellsie Memmel
• Alicia Sacramone
• Samantha Peszek
• Bridget Sloan

Ivana Hong, Shayla Worley, Jana Bieger & Mattie Larson are all legit contenders as well.    With the team scenario I listed above, I think that Bridget would be used on Bars only and if that is the case, she can bring in the highest score there (compared to Hong, Worley, Bieger & Larson).    The rest of the events would look as follows…

Vault

• Johnson
• Sacramone
• Peszek
• Alt: Memmel

Bars

• Liukin
• Memmel
• Sloan
• Alt: Johnson

Beam

• Johnson
• Liukin
• Memmel
• Alt: Sac or Sloan

Floor

• Johnson
• Sacramone
• Memmel or Peszek
• Alt: Sloan

What do you think?   Who would you put on the team based on Night 1?

Already named:

• Paul Hamm
• Jonathan Horton

Perfect 10s Remaining 4 spots + 1 alternate:

• Justin Spring
• Sean Golden
• Joseph Hagerty
• Raj Bhavsar
• Kevin Tan

I admit that it pains me to leave Morgan Hamm off this list.  He certainly has the clout and reputation.  It pains me to leave Durante, Townsend, Alvarez & Artemev off as well.  What a tough call.  What do you think?   Who are your picks for those remaining spots?

I just read the article on the International Gymnast site about Ashley Priess’ decision to retire during training at the US National Championships. Always impressed by her gymnastics, and her coach as well, I admit I was quite curious as to what caused her to decide to step away from the Olympic Selection process mere weeks before the Games. Citing a chronic back condition which she feared would not survive the Summer, Priess decided to forgo her dream of the Olympics in order to pursue another dream: competing on a collegiate team. She did not want to jeopardize her collegiate chances by overworking her back in the Olympic Selection process.

Two quotes in particular stand out from the interview. The first is in regard to her family. (more…)

No introduction really needed here.  I watched the televised coverage on NBC and have seen a few extra routines on youtube.  In no particular order, here are my thoughts on the competition…

• Alicia Sacramone really needs to ditch the random chin-stand split in her beam routine.  I’ve blogged about it before and I still think it needs to go.  She’s not full split and it looks ridiculous in an otherwise world class Beam routine.  I think a teammate of mine back in the day did the same skill.  She was a level 8.
• Speaking of Sacramone, why have we been watching the same floor routine from her this entire quad?  Isn’t it time for something new?

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Everyone has their dream teams for this Summer’s Olympics.  I certainly have mine.  I also have some dream placements and story lines.    So here are the Top Ten Things that I would like to see happen in Beijing this August.   These are, of course, just my hopes, some more realistic than others.

1. Ivana Hong (USA) winning a medal on Floor.  Yes, yes, I realize that Ivana may be a long shot for the US Team at this point and that her difficulty on some events leaves something to be desired  but her form and style are unbelievable and should be displayed on the world’s greatest stage.
2. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs winning a medal on Beam.  Her consistency on her series of aerial to two layout step outs is uncanny.  What a feat that would be for the Canadian Women’s Team and I can think of no better way for Carol-Angela Orchard to cap off her incredible coaching career with Canada. 

   

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I first heard of Cirque du Soleil about 9 years ago when I was in college. I have longed to see it since then but it was always just out of reach. I was either in the wrong city or did not have enough money. So many of my non-gymnastics friends have seen multiple Cirque shows and it always seemed so unfair. They could not possibly appreciate it the way I could, right? But Cirque has now come to Seattle and my husband and I decided that money was, for once, no object. We were going to go no matter what!

So last Friday night we drove out to Marymoor Park in Redmond for Corteo and I can honestly say that the show lived up to my 9+ years of expectations. It was breathtaking. Three acts stand out in my mind as the most memorable…

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