Unreal Gymnastics by McKayla Maroney for Team USA!!!
Yesterday was quite a day for me as a viewer of the Olympics. I watched Michael Phelps come paper thin to one record in one swim and slam into another in his last swim of the day. Still to come was the team gymnastics in which the USA hadn't gold-medaled in 16 years, since the Magnificent Seven in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. My favorite event in gymnastics is by far the vault and yesterday, the world champion of the vault, McKayla Maroney, changed the way the world will look at vaulting.
http://deadspin.com/5930714/relive-mckayla-maroneys-phenomenal-vault-in-super+slow-motion
(Watch it here if you missed it or would like to see it again)
McKayla's only purpose on Team USA was to do that one thing on the vault and raise their aggregate score and boy did she do that!! She gave them such a boost that even after the Uneven Bars,which is the team's weakest event, they still had a lead over Russia. Of course, aided by Russia's self-implosion, it was a victory lap to the gold medal. Almost all because of one vault.
And the judges still didn't give her a perfect score!!
I'm no expert in gymnastics, but if it was possible for a gymnast to put on a 16.5 perfect score worth performance, wouldn't it have been McKayla's?
Anyway, I'm just glad I got to witness something like this at least once :)
