The Olympics by Videotape - Sports Posted by Cher (Tuesday August 24 2004 @ 07:16PM EDT)

Although you could be expected to miss it with the scant press coverage it has received, it is an Olympic year, the Summer Olympics or the "Lesser" Olympics as Jeff calls it. I'm watching it - or rather I'm watching the important part, women's gymnastics, via videotape. Gymnastics is like modeling - one of the few unisex occupations that women excel at a young age, make more money, and garner more attention than men. Granted one relies on a 13-year old never growing beyond 4'8" and holding down school AND a 40 hour a week training schedule and the other is based on height, good genes, and a mean set of stage parents, but you get my point. In gymnastics, women are king and for good reason. Just think about the apparatus, a 4-inch steel girder wrapped in vinyl and suspended from the floor and a set of parallel bars the width of frozen theatre ropes. Now that is entertainment. Tuesday night was the team competition. At one point, the announcer said that he had never seen a better performance than that given by the leaders, the Romanian Team, yet both announcers couldn't help but sound disappointed. The American team, which had stumbled slightly, weren't going to win the gold but wow, that Russian team actually seems happy with the bronze! Can you believe that! Nothing like a little cold war mentality with your sports coverage. Tell me that that the pixie Romanian gymnast with glitter in her hair is a Miami Dolphins fan, and then maybe I can wish her a face plant off the vault. Until then, she's a well-trained 14-year old who controlled her stage fright and delivered. Get up on the podium, sweetie, you deserve it. Another stunner at the team competition was a non-American Svetlana Khorkina, a Russian gymnast and 3-time olympian. (I googled her and found she had amateur fan sites.) At 25 and 5'5", she's an aging giant in the sport. She was favored to win the all-around but lost to another favorite, American Carly Patterson, whose win was the first all-around title for an American woman in 20 years. While newspaper coverage of the event still reads like Page Six gossip, the writer at SI still managed this passage, "Patterson isn't nearly the showwoman. Nor is she as graceful a ballerina as Khorkina. But she's more athletic, more explosive, and on this night, she was just a little bit better." "A little bit better"--that is all that matters. Congrats to all the winners.

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By Jeff (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 07:38AM EDT)

I've watched perhaps a total of perhaps 60 seconds of Olympic coverage. The Winter Games are better. I'd rather watch speed skating than sprinting, ski jumping than vaulting, figure skating than gymnastics, and bob sledding than kayaking. There are few events in all of sports that can match the excitement of the men's Olympic Downhill. Who can forget the heroics of Franz Klammer in Innsbruck? Does the Summer Games have an equivalent to the American hockey team at Lake Placid? I don't think so.

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By Cher (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 08:01AM EDT)

What has sucked recently about both Olympic games has been the scandals in the judged sports. In '02 it was pairs figure skating, and this year it is men's gymnastics. It tarnishes those that won and angers those that didn't.

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By Jeff (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 08:38AM EDT)

This is why I hate judged events. As Cher observerved, in figure skating we had a major controversy in which the French and Russians formed a double entente to outflank the Reich. In alpine skiing, the fastest person down the hill wins. No controversy. (Except for doping scandals and equipment rules violations. Would somebody please check Seizinger's risers? I'll bet they're 16mm.)

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By Cher (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 09:28AM EDT)

More on the squabbles from the LA Times: ATHENS — The U.S. gymnastics team won nine medals here, more than in the last two Olympics combined. They took both men's and women's individual all-around golds and both team silvers. Carly Patterson and Paul Hamm each won three medals. But outside the arena … Russians whined, Canadians pouted, South Koreans threatened and judges hid. Moscow media quoted Russian gymnastics officials as saying they had asked International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and International Olympic Federation officials for a review of the scores of Alexei Nemov's high bars routine Monday night and Svetlana Khorkina's silver-medal all-around performance. .... One of them, Kurt Thomas, a three-time world all-around champion, said, "I couldn't see where the deductions came from, except maybe one-tenth [of a point] on the landing." He added, though, that Khorkina's three-day whinefest about supposedly prejudicial scoring was "sour grapes, pure and simple." Thomas is right. I know, I know – judged sport, but this competition was riveting. Patterson was ON that night and deserved the gold.

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By Jet Man (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 10:34AM EDT)

This is just the kind of thing that chaps the onions of Kevin with just one arm: Car Manufacturers Target Market Gays

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By kevin the one-armed boy (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 12:22PM EDT) Would it not make more sense to comment on the topic here and post completely unrelated commentary concerning your opinions of what chaps my stones on my blog? [ reply | parent ]

By Jet Man (Wednesday August 25 2004 @ 02:04PM EDT) heh [ reply | parent ]

By bitch (Wednesday April 13 2005 @ 05:37PM EDT)

the chinks really sucked 'cause all they did was faceplant!!!!

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