Relive all the Awesomeness of Olympic Gymnastics in London 2012
With the Closing Ceremonies marking the official end of the Olympics is officially here. No more gymnastics for six months until the American Cup in March.
That makes the thought of suffering through football season a little more bearable. I am going to do my best to keep blogging. Anyways, moving on. This was certainly a successful Olympics for dear old Musty, Gabby Douglas, and Aly Raisman.
Today, I'm doing one final recap of all the awesomeness. Just because I gotta soak it all up for just a little bit longer.
One of the most awesome moments of the games happened upon the Fab 5 earning their title and living up to expectations. After the qualifying round, the ladies of the Fab 5 qualified in first ahead of Russia, Romania and China, some of their biggest competitors. This also became Jordyn Wieber's day to shine after not making it to the all-around final after qualifications. She stepped up for the team and put her disappointment behind her and gave a giant, figurative middle finger to the judges, hitting routine after routine perfectly. Her exclamation point was her floor routine. After hitting her tumbling passes, Jordyn looked to the judges and smiled a giant "Screw you for not putting me in the all-around. This is what you'll miss" smile.
Gabby Douglas rose up from the high of beating Jordyn at trials and winning the team gold and came home with that sweet, sweet, all-around gold. Gabby stole the girl on fire title from the fictional Katniss Everdeen. Gabby took the lead right off the bat and never let it go. Viktoria Komova, who was intent on beating Jordyn Wieber's ass into the ground, probably thought she didn't have any competition in Gabby. She beat Gabby's score on the bars and on floor, but it was never enough to get the lead and Gabs won by .259. She got the silver medal again. She didn't do much better in the event finals, scoring last or near last on all fronts. Jordyn Wieber got beat again in the event finals by Aly Raisman during the floor final. Aly scored the gold and Jordyn walked away with disappointment again.
Maybe dear Vika and Jordyn can now get together and have a "losing sucks" party. While they're at it, the can invite Catalina Ponor and John Orozco.
Aly finally shook of her perpetual fourth place finish everywhere and scored two individual medals. Bronze on beam and Gold on floor. Aly was definitely the most decorated gymnast of the Fab 5. She deserved it so much, she's always been the constant for the team, providing leadership and showing strong consistent performances when needed for the team. She lost the bronze in the all around in a tie breaker (tie breakers suck party anyone?) and nearly lost the bronze in the beam final until her coach made an inquisition and got her score changed, tying with Catalina Ponor and ultimately knocking her down to fourth because Aly's execution score was higher.
Changing topics, who else enjoyed Shannon Miller and the BBC commentator's,(can't figure out which one, sorry) online commentary for the streaming coverage from NBCOlympics.com. They provided the best commentary and they focused on the entire picture and they didn't ramble on about how the beam is only four inches wide *cough* Tim and Elife... They didn't entirely focus on the American gymnasts and they didn't call Aliya Mustafina a diva in so many ways. In this day in age of social media, everyone has an opinion and there was talk about Gabby's hair... hmmm. I've never had an issue with Gabby's hair. She doesn't wear giant scrunchies ala Shannon Miller and Co, she doesn't make her hair look gigantic like Nastia and she doesn't spray paint it stupid colors or put a million hair clips in there, so I'd say it looked fine. I personally blame four year fans. Way to detract from an awesome moment, Four Years.
Something funny going around the social media sphere is the McKayla is not impressed meme. It's just a cut out of McKayla with her vault medal and bouquet, scowling, layered in another photo. This one is awesome:
Kim and Kanye? I'm with you McKayla, so not impressed.
Here is the link to the site here and if you're feeling adventurous, create your own!
What rocked:
Team USA and the Fab Five winning the team gold and going down in history with The Mag 7
Gabby Douglas winning, duh!
Aly Raisman finally getting her win.
Dear Princess Musty killing it and becoming the most decorated gymnast at the games, especially considering she's just comeback from an ACL injury. (Team Silver, All-Around Bronze, Bars Gold, and Bronze on floor)
Go ahead, NBC and Tim and Elfi, keep calling me a diva. I'll just prove that I am diva of awesomeness!
Viktoria Komova, even though she didn't get the Olympics she had hoped for has stepped it up since Tokyo, she looks more confident and her gymnastics has gotten far more consistent.
Not every medal was given to first time Olympians. Sandra Izbasa taking home gold on vault, He Kexin taking silver on bars, Beth Tweddle's bars bronze, Deng Linlin getting the gold on beam and Catalina Ponor taking the bronze on floor. Not only are these ladies Olympic vets, they're older than the teenagers that seem to dominate the sport. I love it when the women step up and win.
What sucked:
The men's team not being able to live up to their awesome qualifying round. I hate to relive it.
Fucking FIG and IOC and that damn 2 per country rule. It's bullshit that strong gymnasts like Jordyn Wieber (who is the reigning world champ btw) techinically qualify with in the parameters put forth and they don't move forward, I get that maybe they're trying make it "fair" or whatever, but it doesn't really reflect the "best" of the best.
Fucking judges and them fucking good gymnasts over with their scores. Seriously? Did all of them have a bad day everyday? From day one, during the qualifications, they hammered Jordyn Wieber and then they hammered Kyla Ross on floor and bars. They hammered Aliya Mustafina on the beam. During the team finals, McKayla Maroney had a perfect fucking vault and they decided to take two tenths in deductions. They were assholes!
Waiting around for gymnastics coverage at night. When I was able too, the online streaming made it very convienient to catch events as they happened, but I have a life that I need to attend to and that life includes working and sometimes, they wouldn't play the event till so late in the evening. That sucked.
Speaking of, when the events actually aired, NBC focused almost 100% on the Americans. I was definitely rooting for the Americans to win, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see what anyone else is doing. However, this may have been due to time constraints, so whatever.
No more Gymnastics till after the Super Bowl - So lame, Peyton Manning should learn to do some damn layouts or he should learn to do a routine on the balance beam.
Check back later for more Gymnastics goodness. I will discuss what I hope for the next Olympics and throughout this next Olympics Cycle.
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