Such drama on the HB!!!
Such drama on the HB!!!
Just another example of biased commentating. How easily they forgot Paul's ignominous fall on the vault!Originally Posted by soogar
Nice to see Catalina win two golds in the individual events. Why was she not in the all around competition? Did she mess up some events earlier? I was surprised to see there was just one woman gymanst from Romania in the all around competition.
It seems the gymnast that wins the all around seems to level off in the individual apparatus and the 'loser' often does very well (e.g. Ecaterina Szabo in 84, Daniela Silivas in 88, Shanon Miller in 92- I may have the years wrong). A case of being hungry, perhaps for the silver medalist in the all around? The exception may be Vitaly Scherbo among men.
There was supposed to be a 2nd Romanian gymnast in the AA: Oana Ban, but she withdrew due to injury.
My heart sank so low when Daiane Dos Santos of Brazil stepped out of bounds, and I nearly fell of my chair in grief when she got that 9.375. She took a risk in changing up her floor routine to include that Arabian double layout, especially when she's capable of pulling off 9.8s (like when she won the FX EF at Worlds last year) having the double pike instead of that Arabian double layout. She brings such energy and enthusiasm to her routines that I can never help butwhen she's on screen. I suppose she just needs to control that energy consistently. This sounds so cliche, but "it just wasn't her night."
Wow, a 3 1/2 twist by Moreno the Spaniard. What will these girls do next, a quad!
Glad to see a gymnast do a classical-style, attention to detail choreography FX from Chang Fei (sic?). I thought those were long gone after Lilipod retired.
After Dos Santos didn'tdo so well I was hoping Bhardwaj would rock so I wouldn't feel so bad, and she did, IMO, but I suppose if you do an 'easier' FX (relatively speaking of course, lol) you have to be darn near perfect. Bhardwaj has some of the most musical tumbling passes I've ever seen. She looked like she was dancing in the air! Especcially her double layout-punch front.
My respect went up a few notches for Nemov and Paul Hamm after all the HB drama. To nail a HB routine after that ruckus is amazing.
I'm officially fed up with hearing Al Trautwig speak. I just don't get how Paul Hamm "never messing up like that on high bar (like the Korean did in the EF)" has to do with anything. Shut up already! We should be grateful that we have Terry Ganon and not him.
Last edited by kappa_1; 08-24-2004 at 02:42 AM.
[CENTER]On the women's floor, Mohini Bhardwaj should definitely have scored higher. That Dominique Dawes move where you suddenly spring back in the other direction after a tumbling run, is still quite a crowd pleaser. Just my opinion.[/CENTER]
God, wasn't he awful? I hate to have to listen to a commentator voicing his opinions on a sport that he has absolutely no clue what it's all about. I respect Tim Dagget for his place in the sport's history, but for some reason, I was getting more and more annoyed with his voice as the competition progressed. It just seemed to gradually grow higher in pitch and more grating to my ears. I really don't even know why I feel that way. *weird*
Now Nemov, too, is saying that the games were fixed in advance, but of course he isn't getting nearly the beating that Svetlana got over it.Although Nemov performed with a lot of style, he didn't stick the landing. He was very professional about it and even signaled for the cround to be quite and sit down, trying to restore calm. You would think you were at a soccer match.
In my limited understanding of scoring, for Nemov's routine I can see a 1/10 deduction for the bobble in form in one of the handstands/swings and probably 2/10 deduction for the really bad landing (it wasn't just a hop or double bounce). That said, I have no idea whether he could have been awarded extra points for the extreme difficulty of the routine. The Italian fellow who won gold had an even more difficult routine and ended up with an 8.12.
Further, the judges seemed to be fairly in sync. We're not even talking about U.S. judges here--the countries were Malaysia and I think Cuba among others.
RealtorGal, I am actually not suggesting that the results were unfair, I am only pointing to the media's double standard.
Miscellaneous Observations:
I did NOT understand the French guy (Cucherat) getting the exact same score on the parallel bars as Li Xiaopeng, Ivan Ivankov, and Daisuke Nakano, all of whom had much more interesting routines. Then again, I did not understand about 90% of the scoring that went on during the men's events anyway.
I was actually glad that Igor Cassina pulled ahead of Paul Hamm in the high bar; IMO it was questionable enough that Hamm was 2nd ; had he won, there'd be even more rumbling about him being "held up", or whatever you could call this. I think the results should have been Cassina, Nemov, and Yoneda, with Paul H. 4th at best.
Why on earth was there a judge from MALAYSIA in the event?? Does Malaysia even have ONE gymnast competing on this level?? I really have to question how qualified a judge from Malaysia can be on an Olympic level, or even a Worlds one, for that matter. It's kind of like having a judge from Mauritania on the ice-dance panel at the Olympics.....
I also think that Jordan Jovtchev should have won the Rings over the Greek guy, but the crowd was so happy over the victory I'm willing to let that one go....
The Romanian ladies looked terrific on floor and beam; I think one of the reasons they are so succesful is quite simply because they move with more style and grace than anyone else out there; their "in-between" movements are lovely to watch and just have an extra "something" that the others don't. I just wish that Oana Ban hadn't gotten injured; I was really looking forward to seeing her perform again.
And kudos to Emilie Leppennec for her exciting Uneven Bars routine; I think her performance there was one of the highlights of the whole competition. I do find it interesting, however, that equally exciting routines on High Bar by the men were not given the same amount of respect by the judges.
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