Thanks A.H. Can't wait for these Olympics to start!
Thanks A.H. Can't wait for these Olympics to start!
Inside Gymnastics has new and notes already up. It looks like they will be doing live results.
http://www.insidegymnastics.com/eve...als/default.asp
International Gymnast will also have live coverage. You have to register but it's free -
http://www.intlgymnast.com/
USA gymnastics has lots of coverage as well. I linked the news/results page because the main event page takes forever to load.
http://www.2004gymnasticstrials.com/news.html
How many times can they possibly show pamela anderson in the crowd??? Its only an hour of coverage, show me more athletics, not more pam.
ITA re Pam Anderson. Though she's supporting the cool Indian chick so it's all right by me!
Gosh I haven't seen gymnastics in 8 years and I can't believe how the vault has changed. What a freaky looking thing.
The US women still don't have style though. I really miss the old Soviet gymnasts. At least their programs didn't look cookie cutter and they could dance. I've been spoiled by figure skating, I'm used to seeing real choreography.
I think Mohini is AWESOME!!!! I have a new gymnast to root for! :D The Pam thing is cool, especially that she got the money to go to Nats, but they did pan to her quite a few times. Hmm, perhaps appealing to any males watching?
I really hope Mohini makes the team, she could really come in handy with the vault.
I kind of feel bad for Pam just b/c I don't believe she wants to detract from the athletes. Did you notice how the camera kept following Pam to various areas of the arena. It looked like Pam was trying to get away from the camera but they kept finding her. I have to give Pam props for being cooler than I thought.
I hope Mohini and Tasha make the team. They're cool.
It is my pet peeve how the gymnasts take a big wind up with their arms before doing a pirouette on the FX... in my book it doesnt matter that you can do a quad with an advanced leg position when you reach back 2 feet with your upper body. Just a tiny criticism from the ballerina in me, not that I can tumble to save my life, so I still have lots of respect for them.
I have a random idea, and I dont want to be overstepping my bounds because I know I definately dont put in the work that the moderators do. But I am anticipating that there will be tons of threads on the athens games when they open... I know this is a figure skating site, but maybe we could get another folder to keep all the olympics posts together? Or if that is too much work, could we come up with an organized way to keep all the posts together by discipline within le cafe... like have one of the mods create a thread for each discipline and we would post accordingly? Maybe there wont be that much interest, I know that I'm an olympic nut... and I dont want to miss out on the other friendly banter in our cafe because it is flooded with olympic dialouge.
Last edited by Longhornliz; 06-27-2004 at 12:15 AM.
I'm not really impressed with the gymnast's turns/pirouettes on the floor or beam. I was a huge fan of gymnastics in the 80's and early 90's (when the Soviet team was great) and all of those gymnasts were able to enter and exit out of their pirouettes with style and grace. However I hear that the floor has more spring to it now than at that time so that might be why the girls don't have the control that they used to. I notice that the floor exercises by this American team was especially devoid of any dance elements or choreography. Even though Americans don't have a lot of style, I remember Missy Marlowe and Phoebe Mills had quite a few dance elements in their floor exercises and it looked like more than just tumbling runs. I also think the tumbling runs were more spectacular in the old days with Oksana Omelianchik's punch front to another full tumbling run. I don't know, supposedly gymnastics is so much more difficult but I think that the programs in the late 80's and 90's had more variety and style.
Navratilova made the US Olympic Team for Tennis.
She is 47. Should Kwan retire
Joe
I was struck by the hodge-podge of procedures that different sposts are using for their selection processes. As far as I can tell, Navrotalova was put on the team simply because she was selected by Billie Jean King, the team captain.
In ladies gymnastics, they kept making the point that these so-called "Olympic trials" are just a dog and pony show. As the commentators explained, the only thing they decided was that the top two finishers (so far, the two Courtneys) would be guarenteed an invitation to the training camp next month where the real selection takes place, apparently by just the opinion of the American Olympic coach and her staff.
As I understand it, this change in procedures was instituted in the wake of a poor performance by the American team in 2000, and the purpose of the selection procedure is to give the coaching staff the opportunity to seed the team with specialists in particular apparatuses, rather than just go with the top all-arounds.
Commentator Tim Daggert went even farther. One of the girls received a poor mark (9.1) on her vault, and the commentators speculated that the judging panel mistakenly believed that she either vaulted short or too much to the side. Television replays showed that this wasn't the case, so Daggert praised the new selection system form taking the decission-making power out of the hands of the judges, who might make a mistake, and allowing the coaching staff to override the judges marks.
Quite a bt different from figure skating. Except under very unusual circumstances, the top three at U.S. Nationals go to the Olympics, period.
Mathman
It does seem like with gymnastics that it's a bit unfair to even have a Nats and a Trials if they are just going to pick who they want anyway. But what can the girls do?
Mohini Bhardwaj took my beath away! And to think she is 25! I want her to make the team so badly and win an individual Gold.
Do gymnast not do punch fronts on the Floor anymore? Mohini was the only one who had something like a punch front.
Mo Mo Mo Mo Mo!
Most sports rely on the results of the Olympic trials to decide the team (track and swimming etc). However I think that in performance sports it's better to make the selection just before the games. I think Nicole Bobek would have performed better in Nagano had the USFSA kept Tonia Kwiatkowski on the backburner if Nicole's performance fell off. Even though it's unfair to the athletes (esp since they use personal funds for training) , it does keep everyone on their toes. The Karolyis are firm believers in using uncertainty in bringing out the best team performance. I personally think that the panel needs to be bigger but the Karolyis know how to win Olympic Team gold so I guess it doesn't matter whose toes they step on.
I don't get this whole specialist format. As I've said before, I haven't watched gymnastics since 1996 and it's so weird how everyone keeps talking about being a specialist. How are they scoring the team event? I thought the top 5 scores counted so if the US is allowed 6 people, why would they even entertain the thought of having multiple "specialists" on the team. I'd rather have 5 girls who are good in all the events and one spectacular specialist. Other than that girl who did the triple turn mount on the beam, no one struck me as a spectacular specialist.
I was confused by the specialist talk too. Doe each girl on the team get to compete for the individual medals on each apparatus or do they take those who scored highest on each apparatus during the team competition and allow them to compete for the indiviual medals? Also, what is the status of Bela Kyroli? Does he still coach, have any girls being considered for the Olympic team, will he be a member of the U.S. coaching staff? If not, does anyone know why?
Piel, I think Bela Karolyi is officially retired. His wife Marta is now the Olympic team captain. (According to this article Bela now spends his time herding exotic animals on his Texas ranch, LOL.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jun1.html
About specialists, I think the new rule is going to be that only the top three scores count for the team scores. This is especially important in men's this year because the top two American men, Paul Hamm (the favorite for all-around gold) and Sean Townsend are both relatively weak on the rings. So there is an opportunity for someone who is a specialist in that discipline to help the team, even if he is not in the top three in the other aparatuses.
Mathman
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks