Yah, ok, I watched women's gymnastics.Follow

Back on topic!

I just watched the floor exercise single competition for the women, and was very happy with what I saw. Now, I'm no gymnast expert (hell, I can't even claim "enthusiast" in this, I watch it pretty much on the Olympics only), but the three winning routines were just beautiful. Liukin had only one landing that I thought looked a bit shaky (and painful, she landed with her legs crossed, but her ankles bent outwards a bit). I admittedly didn't see all of Shawn Johnson's run, but the Romanian gold medalist had a routine that I thought was simply amazing. Everything looked so fluid, so clean... so -easy,- to the point that if I didn't know better, I might think I could do things like that. Not one landing even had so much as a small step, not one thing looked in the slightest bit awkward.

My congratulations to the US women for getting silver and bronze, but my real amazement goes to Sandra Izbasa, the top performer on the floor.

Edit: Formatting

Edited, Aug 18th 2008 4:49am by Speedly

Ahahahaha, classic. I can't believe I MISSED that!

Also, way to drop the ball again, Alicia Sacramone. How you came to get in on the Oluympic team, I'll never know.

Granted, I couldn't do better myself (or even look the slightest bit graceful, for that matter) - but I'm not the one trying to be in the Olympics.

Agreed. I wish I understand what the calculation was for the tie-breaker. But glad that Shawn Johnson got the gold for the balance beam.

Even with the total ****-up of the "Tie", Liukin was ever so gracefull when she was interviewed.




Linky

Edit: I wonder what is going through her mind? Anyone care to caption?

Edited, Aug 19th 2008 11:50am by Aadyn Litefoot

I know, I did watch it. Maybe I didn't word it correctly - my comment about her was only halfway sarcastic. I say "halfway" because she did really land a better vault than the Chinese girl. But she stepped both times. During the team competition, she REALLY dropped the ball. Multiple times. She's good, but Olympic good? No.

Am I happy that the Chinese girl beat out Sacramone in a terrible vault like that? No, of course not, that would be stupid for me to claim. But that's the way the scoring system works - there's a set .8 deduction for a major fall like that, and for the vault competition, your score is the average of your two vaults. Alicia got two .1 deductions for steps on her vaults. The deduction system that they've placed removes the interpretation of the judges, and turns it into a science.

I can understand how it would happen.

But this does not mean I agree with the judging system - the system is, quite apparently, heavily flawed. Taking interpretation out of an event which is, in fact, mostly about art and fluidity, and not about hard mechanics, is a shame. I can, of course, see that landing on one's knees is not better than taking one step, but landing on one's feet. It's obvious - but the judging system does not properly take this into account.

The Chinese gymnast's difficulty rating is what saved her score - the judges grant full difficulty score if the gymnast completes the predetermined skill in the performance. Deductions are taken off afterwards from the execution score, and the two are added together.

Notice that I did not say that difficulty is not reduced as a part of this. I think that a manner of improving the scoring system would have been to deduct from both execution -and- difficulty, because a fall is poor execution, and it is easier to completely miss a landing than it is to hit a landing and take a step, while still on your feet. In the latter case, only the execution would be dinged, because the landing was completed (granting the difficulty score), but was, in a technical manner, not quite right.

Then again, I'm no gymnastics expert, and my system may very well be flawed as well. The point is, the current one clearly needs work.

I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids!

Oh ****, I just laughed at a gbaji post.

Now that you mention it, add a Great Dane and I have seen that movie.

Looks like Smasharoo's OP wish just came true.

Oh shi-

You know, it's funny you say that. I was awake at whatever-o'clock-in-the-morning-it-was to see Phelps win the final gold medal of his stint at the Olympics. I kid you not, five minutes after he won, they went to commercial, and were ALREADY advertising a DVD of Michael Phelps's campaign at the Olympics.

It hadn't even been ten minutes old, and they were already trying to scalp fools for their money, using the awe of what had just happened.

Holy sh*t, let it SINK IN a little before starting the marketing campign.

I'd like to congratulate the US's female soccer team for their incredible achievement.

Perhaps you should send them to the South Africa World Cup in 2010 instead of the boys. You might at least stand a chance of getting out of the group stages then.

Also, Bolt. If he's not on drugs, he could be the greatest track athlete, like, ever.