So, Day Two of the Gymnastics Olympic Trials was a smoother affair for me. I got up to Philadelphia with no traffic troubles at all. Of course, when I got there I didn’t make the turn into the parking lot and I believe a baseball game was letting out, so it took me fifteen minutes to go around the block and get into the parking lot.
My seat was terrible. It was the very highest row in the entire damn arena, right at the top of the steps so that the handrail was right in front of me blocking my view of the floor. There were several open seats in the rows below me, so I jumped up and sat in one of them. I was lucky to find one of the few seats that either wasn’t sold or hovia Centerwas bought by a no-show. I had a way better view from there.
So, my reactions were pretty much like the first night. Chellsie Memmel blows my mind, she really does. After a very weak vault, she rocked bars, beam, then floor. Nastia definitely had some issues, especially on bars. That was a fluke, though, because everyone knows that Nastia can do bars. Shawn Johnson, of course, ran away with it. She’s amazing. So solid. Like someone on a gymnastics messageboard said, it’s almost getting boring! But what was really exciting were those last two spots not locked up by the aforementioned three and Alicia Sacramone. Sam Peszek was such a rock that she basically locked up her spot, barring something remarkable. As for that final spot, which has to go to a bars worker . . . who knows? Right now, to me, the spot goes to Jana Bieger. Bridget Sloan is out because she showed that she can’t hit under pressure. And Shayla did not look great. If she improves a ton, then she might overtake Jana for that last spot.
And lots of people have been bitching about Shawn Johnson not getting her twisting skills around and getting credited for them. They say she’s going to get killed in Beijing. I just don’t believe it. First of all, her landings are questionable. Given how fast it is and how close she comes, I don’t think it would be unreasonable for judges to give her credit for the skills. Secondly, it’s been shown in the past that Shawn’s kind of gymnastics is rewarded. Third, she’s a world champion, and world champions get the benefit of the doubt. It isn’t always fair, but that happens. Fourth . . . for some reason everyone thinks that the judges in Beijing are going to be hammering everyone and that everyone’s scores are going to be radically lower. Even if the judges are hard, they are going to be hard on everyone if they’re doing their job, so it doesn’t really matter. And what makes everyone think scores will be so very different from what we saw in Stuttgart? I’d say that’s about the scores we should look for.
Some people also don’t want Jana Bieger on the team because her gymnastics isn’t pretty enough for them. I frankly think some of her gymnastics is very ugly. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t a good gymnast, just that she has problem areas, like Nastia’s gross bars dismount. Get over it, folks. If she can get the score because of her dynamism instead of her beautiful lines, then so be it. A good score is a good score. In 200, the Romanians took a boring route to get their scores; in 2008 Jana is taking a similar solid-as-a-rock approach. Deal.
