Khorkina was at her schizophrenic, melodramatic best last night, wasn't she? From that ugly, every-which-way vault and the ensuing "I vant to be alone" retreat to the "Aren't I Fabulous" floor exercise...one of the more intriguing divas in sports (well, women's sports, anyway) is apparently leaving the house after the all-around...I'll miss the attitude...

You have to admit, she is a joy to watch on her events. She does give new meaning to the word drama queen! I certainly will miss her. As for the Romanians winning the team gold, they absolutely deserved it! I think the American womens team this year was overhyped. I still think the 1996 squad was the best.

She seems to have gotten sickingly skinny. But I love to hate her, I'm going to miss her like candy.

I'm not sure the Americans were overhyped, but the Romanians were nearly perfect. Looking to the all-around tonight, I would love to see Khorkina take it after the debacle in Sydney. Carly Patterson is a threat, despite a shaky performance in the team final. But 4 years ago, a relatively unheralded 16-year-old Rumanian triumphed before being stripped of her medal for taking Contac-C or something. Can it happen again with Sofronie, minus the illegal cold remedy, of course?

Can someone please explain how the all around gymnasts are picked along with the event final participants? Is it your first night score or does the coach pick the top two?

It's the score from the first night. The top 24 gymnasts are chosen, but only two are allowed from each country (this seems to be new--they had three Romanians in Sydney), so a few lower ranked gymnasts get in.

The event finals are the same, but only 8 are selected.

I'm not terribly familiar with all the American-ettes, but I like the fluidity and confidence of the one with the Goth eye-shadow (Tarin, is it?). I think Patterson has a chance tonight, but as JC infers I can easily see one of the Romanians (I'll take Ponar if she's there) sneaking through...

But I'll be putting my main rally cap on for Khorkina...a gold all-around would be sweet revenge for Sydney....plus how could I not root for someone with quotes like:

"These little girls don't have my experience, my maturity and my pleasure to the public"

HA!...you Kgo Kgirl!...

Ponor is super on floor and beam, but isn't in the all-around because they didn't use her on uneven bars. Given that Romania is pretty weak on bars, I can only assume she must be ghastly on them. I suggested Sofronie as their best medal hopeful because she's the only one who's solid on all 4 events. Oana Ban is the other Romanian in the all-around competition.

For the Americans, it will be Courtney Kupets, who has some chance of a medal. There's also Anna Kozich of Ukraine, who is the European Champion, but has not been all that impressive here.

The Patterbot has a great shot at a medal, although it'll be interesting to see how her psyche is after the team finals. She had some miscues on vault and beam, a major break on bars, but she came back for a solid routine on floor exercise.

Kupets has a decent chance, but she's going to be hurt by a low start value on floor exercise. She's going to have to drill her beam set in order to have a shot at a medal.

I'm hoping that one of the Chinese girls will medal after a disappointing performance in team finals. Nan Zhang has the beam and bar sets to put her in medal contention.

Nick

I only saw her floor and beam, but Carly Patterson was excellent, and well-deserving of the all-around gold.

What happend to Svetlana Khorkina? Her legs look anorexically thin.

I couldn't agree more Mark. But then, women's gymnastics is the total opposite of men's. You just have to concentrate on the athletics, unlike the unbelievable eye candy in men's gymnastics. These girls are also just too young to have any ta-tas. concentrate.on.the skills concentrate.on.the.skills

I felt sorry for Anna Pavlova, who came in 4th. The cameras caught her in tears afterwards. Only three women in the entire world are better than her in her sport on this day and she still cries.

It's refreshing to see people win silver or bronze and go into orbit. It's a nice change of pace from gold, gold, gold.

I got home in time to watch the third set of Martina's loss in doubles and took it as an omen for all the veterans competing that day (such a burden to have these psychic abilities :cool: )...but kudos to Patterson for that solid floor routine under pressure...a deserving if not terribly charismatic champion...

Nice to see Khorkina go out on a relatively high note...and loved the costume change for the medals presentation....I'm thinking Uma Thurman for the movie role, if she loses 30 pounds...

I watch gymnastics only during the Olympics and find it beautiful and exciting, but am unable to follow the scoring, in part because the commentators do a poor job of explaining what a non-fan should be looking for. Following one woman's vault, we are told it won't get a high score because it was too easy a vault & then another woman does what appears to be the same vault and we are told she'll score much higher. With the landings, it's the same: one gymnast takes a step but we're told it won't affect the score while another takes the same step and we're told judges will have to deduct something for that. It seems that Daggett and Elfi (is that her name?) always say US gymnasts will score higher and steps won't count against them while non-USAers do easier things and should receive deductions. Thus, I often hit the mute and just watch without paying attention to the scores.

~Adam

Adam,

I think the commentators don't explain it because they don't know. For instance, last night, Khorkina took a big step on the landing of her bars routine yet scored hugely.

I thinkt he commentators base their predictions on how the routine was scored the last time it was performed at a big event.

Interesting comment DC_Guy because, as a former gymnast, I don't think that you're not all that far off base. I would perform a routine that I would feel would be much better than a previous set, but I would score nearly the same. *shrug* When I competed, I didn't really understand how the judges came up with their scores, but after I spent a few years as a coach, I had a much better understanding of the system.

As for the commentators scores being different from the judges score for a routine ... well, let me provide some background information. There are 6 judges for each routine (the highest and the lowest are thrown out) and on the code of points, each deduction has a certain range that could be taken off.

For example, a gymnast performs a full pirouette out of handstand. Unfortunately, there isn't a blanket deduction that a judge can give for a missed element ... each judge must determine to which degree the gymnast missed the element. If a pirouette is made at say ... 10 degrees out of handstand, there is a smaller deduction than a pirouette performed at 40 degrees out of handstand. If one judge deemed the pirouette to be completed at 10 degrees and another judge deemed the skill to be completed at 40 degrees out of handstand, the scores will be different. Since commentators have the benefit of instant replay, they can get a better view of a skill versus a judge who must not only write down the skill, but assign a deduction to that skill within a second of viewing said skill.

As for Khorkina, I believe that she received a huge gift on bars. She performed a shaky stalder full, which should have lowered her start value for not only for missing the skill, but also for losing the bonus that she would have received for completing the skill in combination with other skills. I would have scored her around a 9.5 for the routine. *shrug*

(Side Note: With the current code of points, one must not only perform difficult skills, but they must perform them in combination ... and by doing those skills in combination, they receive additional bonus points to their start value. Therefore, when you miss one part of the combination, your score will be affected to a larger extent.)

To make a point out of my ramblings ... Elfi and Tim were both medal winning international gymnasts who, I believe, have a fair understanding of the code of points. While the commentator's scores aren't always accurate, there is so much that goes into judging a routine (assigning values to the skills, taking proper deductions for the skills ... all of which need to be done within seconds of viewing the skill) that it's not all THAT surprising.

Nick

One thing that was clear last night was how much more difficult gymnastics has gotten in the last 20 years. Because Patterson is the first US all-around gold medalist since Mary Lou (and not to take anything away from Retton, she did compete in a boycotted Olympics, so Patterson's feat may be even more impressive), NBC was showing the famous Retton vault on which she scored two perfect tens (back when athletes got more than one chance, at least at the vault).

It was clear from the 1984 video that Retton was performing a vault that was FAR less difficult than the easiest one done in competition this year. And her dismount, although she stuck it, seemed to barely include a twist - nothing like the 2 - 3 somersault dismounts we saw in this year's games.

It had seemed to me that this year's athletes were more shakey than what I even remembered from the 1996 games, and that may only be because they are performing tricks that were unthinkable to a previous generation of gymnasts.

The degree of difficulty and danger have definitely increased since the 80's. I don't remember any girls doing the big release moves on the bars.

Carly did a great job last night especially in the last two rotations when it was gut-check time. NBC is doing their part to make sure that America overdoses on her. They did three segments on her within 90 minutes--Carly, Carly and the rest of the team, Carly and her family. I was expecting Katie Couric to get reactions from her manicurist, third-grade playmate, math tutor, etc.

I get the feeling, though, that she won't get the same "Q-Rating" that Mary Lou has enjoyed all these years. There was something unexpected and new about Mary Lou's win because people didn't anticipate the commercial ramifications of a gold medal in gymnastics. Her post-win interaction with the press had a refreshing spontaneity and her charisma was incredible.

One gets the feeling that Carly's responses have already been coached as much as her routines. She seems to be really low-key and has to force herself to look excited. I think she'll be on the level of Sara Hughes when it comes to commercial appeal. She'll be huge in the world of gymnastics but won't cross over to mass appeal and notoriety like Mary Lou.

Nick, I find your comments very interesting, keep them coming for the rest of the games.

ESPN has a great article on British gymnast Beth Tweddle knocking herself silly on the godforsaken balance beam and just getting right back up on it. Gotta love it.

J-Sonic, I agree. Mary Lou is in a class by herself. She put gymnastics on the U.S. map with her win. Her and the American mens team. Think about it, 20 years later and people still remember her. Many people also still remember many of the members of the mens gymnastic team as well. I'm not saying that Carly Patterson and Paul Hamm won't be popular or known but they've got difficult acts to follow, especially Carly. Hamm, not to slight him, will most likely be remembered for his voice. There was a small article in the San Francisco Chronicle that said one viewer thought he was listening to a competitor from Munchkinland. Kind of messed up. Ah well.

Am I the only person--odd as I am--who longs to hear a conversation between Paul Hamm and Kerri Strug?? Maybe Fran Drescher could moderate.

~Adam

That's assuming Kerri hasn't been smoking, boozing and whoring it up since she left the Olympic stage. Otherwise she now sounds like Lunchlady Doris. wink

Did someone call for Miss Harding??? "Anybody got a pack of cigarettes?" wink

Ditto, Nick, on your comments. I learned a lot more in reading your post about this subjective subject than I have in all my years of watching gymnastics. Please keep them coming!

I'm personally pleased to see the Romanian teams doing well because I'm half Romanian and know the rough times the average people in that country have had, including their gymnasts, who have had to train under less than standard conditions. I saw Nadia Comaneci interviewed the other day and she looks great! Proof positive that not all Romanians turn into sluggish sweathogs after 40! Well, at least not all the women. :cool:

Adam, that's funny because several of my co-workers said the same thing! Someone said he's probably her younger brother or cousin. Too much! I think we should all stop picking on Paul Hamm,he's been through so much. Ha! Ha!

I knew it. It was only a matter of time before Khorkina would accuse the officiating of the competion fixed. I wonder how long it will take her to take her complaints to the FIG. God I'll miss her! Whether or not you like her, you have to admit, she is entertaining to watch.

She is such a drama queen!
Women's gymnastic wont't be fun without her.

I am so glad a Romanian finally won the balance beam. I love them! Catalina Ponor was definately the best. It's too bad she wasn't a big factor in the all-around. Not to slight Carly Patterson but she looks like an amateur on the beam compared to the Romanians. I'm happy Carly won the all-around, don't get me wrong, but whenever I see a Romanian gymnast, especially on the beam, you're watching grace and artistry itself.

I agree Terry, Ponor's routine was awesome and she definitely deserved the gold. I hope that Carly was gracious to Ponor because the cameras never showed it. They did show the two of them standing next to each other getting in line for the medal ceremony but at that point no exchange between them.

I was reading on AOL news that the Russians are now filing against the gymnastic results. Apparently they feel the judges were biased against their gymnasts, particularly against Khorkina and Nemov. I'm just waiting for the fourth competitor in mens gymnastics all-around to file his complaint. Wow! I can't wait for the World Championships!