SPOILER - Women's gymnastic team event

It's a really tight competition so far (small mistakes all around)

China is having a terrible competition!

1 ROM 85.534
2 RUS 84.973
3 UKR 84.285
4 ESP 83.848
5 CHN 82.922
6 AUS 81.873

USA and FRA up to finish rotation.

I'm so glad I'm going spoiled. I'd never make it!

These countries are done for the night

1 RUS 113.235
2 AUS 99.660

There had been rumors that Svetlana K. wasn't going to be competing in the team competition. But that's not true. Apparently she did well for the team.

DOH! Troubles on the floor for the US!

But Mo is having an awesome competition by all reports I'm reading. Kupets was sat out of beam for some unknown reason at the last minute. They had Mo step in.

My nails will be non-existent at this point! Nothing left to bite!

1 USA 113.584
2 RUS 113.235
3 ESP 111.572
4 CHN 110.008
5 AUS 108.847
6 FRA 101.309

Romania only has to average 9.3's on floor to win Gold. Looks like silver for USA?

GOLD - Romania

(apparently they pulled a Japanese men style performance on the floor! Literally mopped up! Well deserved).

SILVER - USA (at least the men won't feel overshadowed! Good job ladies! And of course the predictions of the USA leaving themselves open to weaknesses on the floor apparently came true. Will have to wait to see the broadcast before I comment further).

BRONZE - Russia (Sveta must have rocked!)

Poor China! I thought for sure that the men's results would inspire them to rise to the occasion. This 3 up/3 count format IS tough!

hitting the refresh button on the nbc live results page is very stressfull... event though I cant tell what is going on!

Finally - NBC posted the full scores.

1 ROM 114.283
2 USA 113.584
3 RUS 113.235 Surprised, but happy by this result.
4 UKR 112.309 Was hoping they'd pull up to bronze. Ah well
5 ESP 111.572
6 FRA 110.159
7 CHN 110.008
8 AUS 108.847

According to the NBC site, Fan Ye fell badly on her uneven parallel bars dismount (8.537) and Li Ya fell off the beam (8.30) to take China out of medal contention.

Rank Bib NOC/
Name Total
1 ROM 114.283 28.437 (1) 28.136 (5) 28.961 (1) 28.749 (1)
381 BAN Oana 28.136 9.187 9.512 9.437
382 EREMIA Alexandra Georgiana 9.687 9.687
383 PONOR Catalina 28.924 9.412 9.762 9.750
384 ROSU Monica 19.012 9.625 9.387
385 SOFRONIE Nicoleta Daniela 28.524 9.400 9.562 9.562
386 STROESCU Silvia

2 USA 113.584 28.387 (2) 28.524 (1) 28.499 (3) 28.174 (3)
410 BHARDWAJ Mohini 28.225 9.500 9.400 9.325
412 HATCH Annia 9.562 9.562
413 HUMPHREY Terin 19.062 9.575 9.487
414 KUPETS Courtney 18.849 9.662 9.187
415 McCOOL Courtney
416 PATTERSON Carly 37.886 9.325 9.287 9.612 9.662

3 RUS 113.235 28.325 (3) 28.137 (4) 28.511 (2) 28.262 (2)
391 EZHOVA Liudmila 18.874 9.437 9.437
392 KHORKINA Svetlana 38.062 9.375 9.650 9.437 9.600
393 KRIOUTCHKOVA Maria
394 PAVLOVA Anna 28.337 9.425 9.637 9.275
395 ZAMOLODCHIKOVA Elena 18.912 9.525 9.387
396 ZIGANCHINA Natalia 9.050 9.050

4 UKR 112.309 28.099 (6) 28.199 (3) 28.024 (4) 27.987 (4)
401 AKHUNU Mirabella 8.975 8.975
402 KOZICH Alina 38.074 9.362 9.512 9.550 9.650
403 KRASNYNSKA Irina 18.574 9.187 9.387
404 KVASHA Alona 18.724 9.362 9.362
405 SHERBATYKH Olga 9.375 9.375
406 YAROTSKA Irina 18.587 9.500 9.087

5 ESP 111.572 27.599 (7) 28.412 (2) 27.724 (5) 27.837 (5)
341 CAMPOS Laura
342 GENER Tania 18.775 9.275 9.500
343 GOMEZ Elena 37.237 9.187 9.475 9.000 9.575
344 MESALLES Monica 27.249 9.137 9.312 8.800
345 MORENO Patricia 9.462 9.462
346 MORO Sara 18.849 9.437 9.412

6 FRA 110.159 28.162 (4) 27.011 (8) 27.537 (6) 27.449 (6)
351 CHACON Coralie 9.462 9.462
352 CHAOUCH Soraya 17.924 8.937 8.987
353 DEBAUVE Marine 28.187 9.437 9.400 9.350
354 LEPENNEC Emilie 35.924 9.325 8.637 8.850 9.112
355 SCHMUTZ Camille 9.287 9.287
356 SEVERINO Isabelle 9.375 9.375

7 CHN 110.008 28.149 (5) 27.549 (6) 27.224 (7) 27.086 (8)
331 CHENG Fei 19.137 9.475 9.662
332 FAN Ye 17.874 8.537 9.337
333 LI Ya 17.750 9.450 8.300
334 LIN Li 9.562 9.562
335 WANG Tiantian 17.999 9.362 8.637
336 ZHANG Nan 27.686 9.312 9.587 8.787

8 AUS 108.847 27.449 (8) 27.100 (7) 26.974 (8) 27.324 (7)
301 NGUYEN Karen 9.112 9.112
302 MOORHOUSE Stephanie 18.224 9.187 9.037
303 MUNRO Melissa 27.224 9.162 9.150 8.912
304 RUSSO Monette 8.125 8.125
305 SKINNER Lisa 9.425 9.425
306 SLATER Allana 36.737 9.175 9.550 8.637 9.375

Hi All,

Watched this in it's entirety this AM and very exciting it was too! It seems that the 3 up, 3 count rule has really turned up the pressure.

The US girls looked great up right until the end, however, the Romanian girls were stunning on the Floor. The Australian selector (Liz Chechovic) is our commentator and, as always, she is doing a fantastic job talking thru the routines and explaining the elements in lay terms and pointing out the detail (good and bad) that clueless types like me miss whilst dropping little insider tidbits. Anyways, she mentioned something very interesting at the beginning of the US FX routines in that the US girls start values for FX were not as high as the Romanian girls, who had start values of 10. She also mentioned that the US girls were relying on their dance elements (which they did not perform especially well) to make up their start values while the Romanian girls relied on their tumbling passes (which they did beautifully). For the first two US FX alone, the US girls gave away total .7 of a point in start values against the first two Romanian routines, which is a huge amount at that level, so the US girls would have had to perform their routines absolutely perfectly probably just to stay equal to the Romanians.

Even with their disasters, I still think the Chinese girls are just exquisite on the BB - they are like butterflys.

Khorkina looks to be a shadow of herself and I am thinking Miss Patterson is looking good for AA gold.

Thanks! Great report. Looks like the U.S. ladies really need to work on their musicality.

Well, I have to say that the US girls are extremely impressive technically, however, their dance elements/choreo is not at the same level as the Romanians in FX and I thought the Ukrainians had the best choreo of all. Catalina Ponor (ROM) has an absolute dream of a floor routine that would still be beautiful without the tumbling passes. The only US girl that approached the Romanians on FX was Miss Patterson, IMO.

Did anyone see Cheng Hei (sp?) of China FX to Don Quixote? When the music first started I had a mini-vision of Sarah/Irina, lol....

Great updates "this thing" and "Owen"........can't wait to watch it tonight....congrats to all the ladies, no matter where they placed.........42

Well, hats off to the Romanians. They were wonderful. I was so unhappy for the U.S. team, though. They certainly could have taken that title, but all of those damn little mistakes! I am thrilled for Mohini, Annia and Terin...they upstaged the stars and showed just why it was they were chosen for the Olympic team. I was sort of shocked to see Carly Patterson struggling. Hopefully this will fire her up for the All-Around!

BTW, I agree that Catalina Ponor's FX was beyond brilliant! She didn't even need the tumbling passes to keep the audience (and the judges) captivated. But, Carly did a great FX...and I thought Kupets's FX was nice even with the mistake.

BiG, I so agree: the US girls were spectacular but it's no disgrace whatsoever to come 2nd to the Romanians (did the US coverage show Nadia C doing an uninhibited "happy dance" in the stands upon final confirmation of results?? very cute).

Everyone I know here who watched is seriously ga-ga over Annia Hatch - what a beautiful woman! What height off the vault!!!!!!! And she seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere and all the other performances so much. She is a Goddess!

OwenEvans said:

BiG, I so agree: the US girls were spectacular but it's no disgrace whatsoever to come 2nd to the Romanians (did the US coverage show Nadia C doing an uninhibited "happy dance" in the stands upon final confirmation of results?? very cute).

Everyone I know here who watched is seriously ga-ga over Annia Hatch - what a beautiful woman! What height off the vault!!!!!!! And she seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere and all the other performances so much. She is a Goddess!

Click to expand...

The girl from the US with the Greek music (Kupets, I think) had horrible choreography. It seemed like half the time she wanted to raise the roof...she was thinking of the wrong music...

I give a lot of credit to the judging of these events. The gymnastics bigwigs really worked on getting rid of the hanky panky. And yes, a silver medal is nothing to sneer at for the Americans. As for the 'dance' in the floorwork... well...I just don't see shaking one's bottom to the beat of the music as a big dance step, and that pausing, sometimes two breaths, before a big trick doesn't exactly make the 'dance' any better.

But the Americans could use Lori Nichols or Twyla Tharpe for next year's Worlds. Why not?

Joe

I agree, Joesitz. The US ladies really need to work on those 'dance' moves. They don't dance so much as they just stop tumbling. There's no thought put into it, and it shows.

The Romanians were so much better, as their dance moves were woven into the routine and they went smoothly from dancing to tumbling and back.

I agree as well. Plus I didn't see any sense at all of FEELING the music or even especially coordinating the routine to it. Guess it's the gymnastics version of putting all your mental energy into executing the big tricks and having nothing left for selling "the program".

Actually I'm in favor of getting rid of the music altogether -- for one thing, the men don't have to do it; they're not expected to go out there and be cutesy and shake their thangs and it being 2004, the women shouldn't have to either. Plus it's distracting. I realize that top-level international gymnasts are used to 45 different things going on at once around them while they're doing their routine, but having someone's floor exercise music start right in the middle of one's beam routine is one less thing they would have to put up with.

I swear it's just not in the cards for the US to win on a regular basis. It's usually the Russians or the Romanians that will always win.