Men's and Ladies' Gymnastics | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Men's and Ladies' Gymnastics

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Is eurosport free or you need to pay for eurosport player? I m watching bbc with expat shield, I think their coverage is amazing, a tone of technical mentions and neutral comments.
Eurovision sports, not Eurosport. It is gloriously free if you live in an EBU country, which I believe you do or you wouldn't have top ten Eurovision entries every year ;) They have 12 live streams and you can also choose broadcasts from any of the EBU countries or watch full event replays. It is a fabulous thing and I hope we will have it for Sochi.
 

seniorita

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2008
Oh EBU site thanx, I know the site, it is awesome and was watching the Q there but they have no commentary which meant I had to glue on the screen, BBC I can use it as radio too.:cool: If you download expatshield which is free you can watch bbc player and rewatch the parts of competiton you like. They also froze Maroney's vault in the air on the replay which was even more amazing to watch.
 

Buttercup

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 25, 2008
Oh EBU site thanx, I know the site, it is awesome and was watching the Q there but they have no commentary which meant I had to glue on the screen, BBC I can use it as radio too.:cool: If you download expatshield which is free you can watch bbc player and rewatch the parts of competiton you like. They also froze Maroney's vault in the air on the replay which was even more amazing to watch.
You can use the EBU Members Live option instead of the 12 Live feeds one, problem solved... there are several English language streams there, or other languages if you want to practice :)
 

MoonlightSkater

On the Ice
Joined
May 17, 2011
Poron was Romanian. I noticed her too. After the tentative wobblings of the young girls on the balance beam, she was as steady as a rock. Apparently she won the event several Olympics ago, but she won't be in the event finals.

Ponor qualified to the beam finals with the eighth highest score in preliminaries. She also qualified to the floor final.
 

MoonlightSkater

On the Ice
Joined
May 17, 2011
I think Jordyn may have a second shot at competing in the Olympics all-around if she competed for another country, and she may have had an actual shot at gold if this was pre-FIG CoP. I just don't see a 21 year old winning under the current rules. And I really don't see a 21 year old staying competitive under the brutal, gladiatorial US gymnastics program. The ridiculous amount of injuries suffered by American gymnasts aren't caused by the CoP, but by the ruthless training/competition schedule they have to follow in the US. See this article. Jordyn can either keep herself in the mix for the next 4 years, which would require enduring a really grueling regiment without incurring any debilitating injury, or she can take a break from competition for a few years, and risk losing her skills/reputation/favor. Part and parcel of the Karolyi program is the fact that the US is so ridiculously rife with talented female gymnasts, they can afford to chew them up and spit them out. Jordyn would have to hold back a nonstop horde of fresher, stronger gymnasts while not overdoing it to the point of injury. She's in a couple of catch-22s.

With all that said, is it totally impossible for Jordyn to make the next Olympic team and compete in the all-around? Definitely not. In fact, I would consider it an epic achievement if she makes it onto the next Olympic team. She would cement her status as a legend and would no doubt win over even more fans and endorsement deals. But it's going to be an uphill climb full of pitfalls.

Ugh, that article. I've read that article. While it does make some good points, most gymnastics experts, even those who agree that the training camps are a little too much, take issue with some things about it. The biggest criticism is that it takes a lot of quotes and anecdotal evidence while using few concrete sources, and that it ignores the fact that the injury rate in other countries has also been extraordinarily high since the implementation of the code. The camp system might need some overhaul, but it seems Marta is already willing to take suggestions from other coaches and at least consider them. John Geddert was able to add some input about the pacing of the gymnasts this year, for example. I'd also like to note that the only injuries sustained in camp before the Olympics were Maroney's broken toe that could happen any time and alternate Anna's injured neck which happened while she was training with her parent coaches and not with Marta's group.
 

seniorita

Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 3, 2008
Wow AA men podium was unrepdictable except for Uchimura of course, he is Daisuke of gymnastics:points::hb:
Leyva had a fantastic bar, I was like:eek:
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
Well, wasn't that some drama at the men's finals!

Theme of the night: beware the pommel horseman of the apocalypse. John Orozco botched his pommel horse routine again (barfed the ending, if I recall), and knew he lost the medal there. He once again burst into profuse tears. :cry: He competed well enough for the rest of the night, though, to come in 8th.

He was not the only one to be felled by the horse, though. Tanaka Kazuhito of Japan came out really, really strong. Held onto second through most of the rotations, even after he sat his behind down during the floor routine (he had that much of a cushion, pun intended). But then, disaster struck on pommel horse, his last apparatus. His leg hit the side of the implement and had no choice but to fall right off. He went from being a shoo-in for a shock silver (he was a replacement on the Japanese team) to sixth place.

However, some people could get back on the horse after falling off! Leyva also botched his dismount, losing massive amounts of the D score. But he did not give up. He got a respectable score on floor, subpar but not fatal scores on rings and vault, then came parallel bars. The reigning world champ on the apparatus knew this was his chance. And he took it full force. A beautiful routine on it got him the highest score on the apparatus (which would eventually tie with Marcel Nguyen, more on him later). But the real comeback happened on the high bar, where Leyva had the crowd gasping with massive release skills one after the other. A solid landing later, and he and his coach/step-father knew he was on the podium. They were ecstatic. Since he was one of the last athletes to go, as soon as the scores came up it was confirmed he was on the podium. He'd wind up with the highest score on high bar, and this time he did not have to share that honor.

And he'd share that podium with yet another competitor who botched the horse! Germany's Marcel Nguyen, who seemingly came out of nowhere, also botched something on the horse (I forgot what it was, though). Enough to leave him in 17th in ranking on that apparatus. But completely unfazed, he nailed routine after routine on all the other apparatuses (except until his last routine, floor, where he faltered a tiny bit, but it was obvious it wasn't enough to jeopardize his silver). The man is something to watch. A delightful combination of power, spryness and flair.

Then, there's the guy, the gymnast god, really, who fell back to earth after very shaky performances in the qualifications round, and that controversial botched dismount on the evil pommel horse in the team final. Today, Kohei Uchimura tamed that freaking horse. He performed a flawless routine on it, enough to have the second highest score on the device. After that, it was pretty much never in doubt. Sure, now and then there are cracks in his form and power that shows you he's not quite the Superman of yore. But he shook off the Kryptonite during vault, where he exploded in perfect form, culminating in an immovably stuck landing. This was the winning moment of the whole event. It earned him the highest single score of the night, and sealed his gold medal right there. He'd end the night on floor with a pretty big stumble on one of his runs, but his lead could not be surpassed. The man who's generally acknowledged by people in gymnastics to be the greatest gymnast ever proved himself to be just that. Even in an entire competition where he's visibly off, he did well enough in the all-around to have the second highest scores on 3 of the apparatuses, the highest single score overall, and of course, the win.
 
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DianaSelene

Medalist
Joined
Aug 2, 2011
Poron was Romanian. I noticed her too. After the tentative wobblings of the young girls on the balance beam, she was as steady as a rock. Apparently she won the event several Olympics ago, but she won't be in the event finals.

Catalina Ponor is indeed Romanian. I think she got 3 gold medals in Athens.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Pls forgive if the following information is redundant; I have not been following this thread closely. But for new as well as long-standing fans of the American gymnasts at the London Olympics:

I just noticed that Jordyn Wieber, Gabrielle "Gabby" Douglas, Aly Raisman, Danell Leyva, and John Orozco (plus Nastia Liukin) will perform in the skating and gymnastics show - live in Jamestown, NY, on Dec 15, 2012; and televised on Jan 19, 2013.
Skaters in the show: Meryl Davis and Charlie White, Jeremy Abbott, Ashley Wagner, Alissa Czisny, Maia and Alex Shibutani, Adam Rippon, and Gracie Gold.
https://www.facebook.com/DissonSkating/posts/313332272095952
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
Very happy to see the USA Ladies take the gold. They are one of the greatest teams in the history of the sport as their winning margin showed.

On another note I love Mustafina.....thought her bars and floor were the class of the competition. :love:

Wishing her well in the rest of the competition ....and Gabby too! :yes:
 

skateluvr

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 23, 2011
Ponor qualified to the beam finals with the eighth highest score in preliminaries. She also qualified to the floor final.

fabulous, how old is she? I hope we get to see her. She moves beautifully and as Olympia said she was steady as a rock, and fast, too on Beam. She must have a great FX. I am rooting for gabby tho Ally is from my state, and she has been a great team captain. Jordyn seems to have gotten her mojo back. I hope she is relaxed for her FX routine. Is she qualified for any other event? She is a great girl. I hope Nastia is there pushing the girls on.

HERE IS A QUESTION... McKayla's vault was huge and perfect. she looked like an air missile. What did they deduct on? That was as perfect/difficult a vault as anyone ever saw acc or commentary, and she is a phenom. I forget the name of the vault, Amanar? but only she and another US girl I think do it. Please correct me if I missed the correct facts. I was kind of going from bed to LR, having lost the feed near the end.

Serious Business deserves a gold for helping us find leads and facts in the gymnatics thread. I too despised Khorhina in her snooty days, but ya know, she was tall, and did great things. It is wonderful to have tall women who can do this sport as we see so many 4foot 9 inch babies. But as time goes by one misses the primma donnas of the sport. Spitz was male version. Lochte was talking but hasn't lived up. It is just fun when we have the russian divas and divos. I can't imagine rudssian gymnastics without Olga Korbut (no diva but amazing) or the great khorhina. I can't imagine FS without Plush, Artur Dimitriev, Irina, Maria. It is such a cultural thing. They put the color is the sport.

SO who???? is everyone's best guess of the girl who wins the all around? Who are you rooting for? I'm for Gabby as her mother must be in debt and she had to leave home. Such sacrifice in this family. They captured my heart. I hope if she wins she will get some endorsements. It does not seem like Olympic heros are getting their due. I am hoping they will market Gabby to black community who will support her. In skating or gymnastics, she is rare as a girl of color. I think it might ignite some dreams in a community that is doing poorly despite the current president.

Well, we have to wait for thursday for coverage. It will be hard not to read the spoilers.
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
skateluvr I've updated your thread about finding feeds with what I found to be the best way to watch the Olympics yet. It might be slightly technical, but it's very universal and should work on almost any system. So check that out and see if it works for you.

Ponor was beyond fabulous on beam. She moved like falling was never a possibility. So graceful, and dare I say, sensual, too.

My favorite floor routine in the women's team finals was actually Ksenia Afanasyeva. Such incredibly powerful tumbling, combined with amazing style and genuinely great dancing. Too bad she face-planted on the dismount.

I just rewatched a bit of the men's all-around finals on the BBC site. I have no idea what NBC will actually show tonight, given that so many of the contenders aren't Americans (so probably almost nothing?). But hopefully, NBC audiences will get the chance to watch these defining routines:

Kohei Uchimura on vault, Danell Leyva and Marcel Nguyen on parallel bar, and Leyva and Uchimura on horizontal bar. Sergio Sasaki Jr.'s vault also stuck out to me.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Catalina Ponor is indeed Romanian. I think she got 3 gold medals in Athens.

My deepest apologies to Ponor! I didn't verify the spelling before I posted. (I hate when I do that and goof up a name.) On TV they mentioned at least one prior gold, the one on the beam. I hope we get to see her again during either the AA or the individual events. She made such an impression on me.

Golden411, how wonderful to hear about the gymnastics/skating roster for the show! And it will be televised? I will put it on my calendar right now. So many of my favorite skaters, plus the wonderful gymnasts, even including Nastia! It should be a sight to behold.
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
People who've been watching NBC's primetime Olympic coverage on its main channel, please correct me if I'm wrong. But is it true that as of 10:00 pm, they still haven't shown any men's gymnastics? Do they think the American audience has no real interest in men's gymnastics? Because it's men being judged in an aesthetic sport? Because an American didn't win? What gives? At this rate, given NBC's love of ads, fluff pieces, and pretending their coverage is live (so they'll refuse to edit things down to just the routines), if they started the men's coverage now, they'd be able to show about 5 routines. Very uncool.

Edited to add: just saw for myself that NBC is starting the coverage now. By airing 5 minutes of the athletes walking into the stadium and milling about, even though this is tape delayed by hours and totally superfluous. Oy. Thank god I don't have to rely on NBC for my Olympics coverage. But most Americans do, and this is some pretty major disrespect to the gymnasts.
 
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Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I prefer to think of it as making people wait for the premier sport of the night! They will almost certainly devote a longish time to it for the remaining two hours of primetime coverage.

I too am glad that you don't rely on NBC for gymnastics coverage, though, because you are our Explainier-in-Chief this week. I'm learning a lot by reading your helpful analyses.

Currently, Leyva is doing his floor exercise. Splendid! It's astonishing to realize that these folks have the same bones and muscles as I do, and they do such stuff with it all.
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
I am watching the coverage now. I am bemused and to be frank, a bit peeved that Tim Daggett pronounced Kohei Uchimura's name as "Ko-hee". Daggett used to be a gymnast, comments on gymnastics events constantly, how can he not know how to pronounce the name of the most relevant gymnast of the last few years? And shouldn't he know how to pronounce a bit of Japanese names, given that so many gymnastics moves are named after Japanese gymnasts? Al Trautwig is the one who got his name right.

And oh god, ANOTHER fluff piece? With basically the same theme as the first one? When you're trimming the coverage of an entire event of 168 routines to an hour + 45 minutes (provided the rest of the night is all gymnastics) of coverage, do we really have time for fluff?
 
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ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
I have worked in the TV industry, and I will offer an alternate theory as to why NBC started to air men's gymnastics tonight only after 10 pm.

I think that every four years, gymnastics is one of the most popular Olympic sports for TV audiences. To take advantage of that popularity (and to enhance its overall Olympic ratings), I daresay that NBC did not show gymnastics at an earlier hour because it is relying on gymnastic fans to tune in at the beginning of the night and stick with NBC even as it shows other sports first.

In other words, it is exactly because Americans ARE interested in gymnastics that I think NBC makes them wait to see the gymnasts compete. I would not call it disrespect -- to the contrary, it is a reflection of what a big draw the gymnasts are! :yes:
 

Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
I considered that too. But past instances of how NBC covered gymnastics at the Olympics belie that. They'd start the broadcast with a bit of gymnastics, maybe a few routines from the first rotation, then cut to another event, then eventually come back to gymnastics. That way, the gymnastics fans, even casual ones, may stop at the NBC broadcast and stay for other events. They're doing none of that tonight. The first time they showed actual gymnastics competition is at around 10:15. They're deeming this yet another event "not tailored to a US audience".

And oh my god, NBC is doing just that now. They're cutting off their already scarce gymnastics coverage to go back to swimming. So they're very determined to just show the routines of the two American gymnasts (John Orozco's routines really aren't worth seeing) and, if the American audience is lucky, a few routines from the eventual winner "Kohee". Disrespect.
 

100yen

You can't explain witchcraft
Medalist
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
And oh my god, NBC is doing just that now. They're cutting off their already scarce gymnastics coverage to go back to swimming.

twitch

Yep this coverage has officially made me loose my mind :party2::party2::party2: PS. LET'S SWIM FOREVER AND EVERRRRR!!!
 
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Serious Business

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 7, 2011
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