A fall on the entry!

Another disaster. She cost them .8 of a point on the balance beam and now she fell on the mat. They're already 1 point behind so it's pretty much over.

Sucks for her and the team. I do admire her for refusing to cry. At one point she saw the camera in her face just waiting for her to break down and you could see her steel herself again and refuse to give them what they wanted.

IMO, that's pretty tough for a 20-year-old woman that just went through what she went through in the last 30 minutes.

dola -

And right as I post that she starts to tear up. Still busting her ass to maintain composure, though.

Its not like she really cost them the gold... yet.

Yeah, NBC and their hyper-drama queen announcers love the cry. Love it when a gymnast won't give it to 'em, although I'd rate our overall team body language as "suicidal" at the moment.

Does our team practice on mats that are larger than this? Nobody can keep themselves in bounds.

I can't imagine the pressure they're under. China faltered too on the beam, but their higher difficulty allowed them to keep the one point lead. I do feel bad for her and she's holding it together as best she can.

Incidentally, not to take away from the other events -- but is it just me or is the balance beam 20x harder than anything else they do? I'm completely blown away that any human being can stay on that thing, even a tiny one.

That's the glory and the hell that is the new finals scoring system. before it, was 5 up, throw out your lowest score, top 4 score. Now, with the 3 up, 3 count system, one bad routine at a key moment is IT.

And China's first two mat performances were excellent so the gold is theirs. Can anyone understand what Bela Lugosi is saying? I think he was accusing half of the Chinese team of being under age, but I'm not sure.

This Chinese U12 team is pretty good. When does the varsity team go? ;)

SI

They just interviewed Sacramone and she held it together again when asked question after question about her mistakes. Then they interviewed the team and the reporter kept harping on her falls and Sacramone rolled her eyes. Just give it a rest already!

Michael "Secretariat" Phelps

Currently watching the live online coverage of Canada vs. China in baseball.
The commentator had me lol'ing with this after a Rheal Cormier strikeout: "I have to think it's been an awfully long time since someone fell down swinging at a Rheal Cormier pitch. Has to make the old guy feel pretty good."

My sister was in gymnastics for a few years (12-14, around those ages). One of the things that made her stop was that she was too scared to do the balance beam. They start them off with the board basically on the ground or an inch or two off the mat, but she just couldn't get over her fear of falling off it even with the beam on the ground.

It tickles me to remember that the Reds are still paying him. :banghead:

Someone needs to tell China that you don't get more points for losing 1-0 as opposed to 3-0. They're just sitting back and letting the action come to them against Brazil with no sense of urgency despite being down 1-0 with about 20 mins to go.

SI

Remind me again the reason for the 16 year age minimum?

I don't know if there's a good reason, but it's the rule. Who's to say other countries don't have kickass 12-year-old gymnasts? Breaking the rules is cheating, even if it's a stupid rule.

And I'm officially an Alicia Sacramone fan. She basically gave the bird to the jackass NBC coverage. Very nice. And very American. ;)

I think it's time to take Brian McBride out behind the shed and put him out of our misery

i love how people are saying "the Chinese gymnasts were able to produce passports that proved they weren't younger than 16". the same passports that very well were fabricated by a Chinese government bent on ensuring their best gymnasts that gave them the best odds of gold (regardless of age) went to the Olympics. as if a government itself can't fabricate something like this. most of those girls were not any older than 13. at 1st my wife and i were making fun of their badly overapplied makeup as not being fashion savvy enough, but now it's apparent it was a ruse to try to get the girls to look somewhat older.

i'll be really happy when these girls are stripped of their gold medals years from now when the truth comes out. the chinese are a farce. make believe child opening-ceremony singer. make believe opening-ceremony fireworks. make believe 16 year olds. a farce of a country.

I think we are a week into the Olympics now and Canada still has zero medals. Countries I've never even heard of (Tajikstan?) have won at least a solitary bronze. The other night CBC's announcers were trying to hype the fact that one of the American swimmers, who won a silver, has a parent who was born in the Maritime's. Kind of depressing, hopefully things pick up for us in the next few days.

It's not only "kind of" depressing, it is very depressing. To watch poor Brent Hayden bring the relay team from 5th or 6th to second place in his 200m only to see our fourth swimmer slide back down to 5th place was extremely sad... :(

FM

Hopefully one day Devoe Joseph can do good things for Canadian basketball.

I wonder what the point spread is on Michael Phelps vs Canada? And I'm not talking Gold's (he's gonna smoke us), but in total medals? I think we might be hard pressed to come away in double digits this year.

Not sure if you were serious but just in case, here is my guess.

I think the "official" reason seems to be the desire to keep gymnasts in the sport for a longer period of time. I mean it is called the woman's gymnastics team. It would probably be nice to have women on the team as opposed to girls. YMMV on what age they become women.

I think there are many more unofficial reasons though.

I was being serious. Thanks for the response. All I've heard is that they aren't 16, and that's the rule, but nothing about why that rule exists.

Is there an advantage to having under 16 athletes? Other than the fact that someone might have had a great competitor under 16 at home, do younger gymnasts have some advantage. All I've seen is this (on CNNSI), which sounds like a load of crap to me:

i'm not sure how much of an advantage it is, but the rules are the rules, and just b/c China is China doesn't mean they should be excepted from them

hopefully the chinese get stripped at some point in the future and the US girls get the gold

i assumed the advantage to having younger girls is that they're lighter (in theory) than older girls, being able to do flips and whatnot more easily than someone more "developed" (ie, more developed breasts, more muscle mass, etc). one article made a point of showing how one of the chinese girls weighs less than 80 lbs, it might've even said she was about 70 lbs. i took that to mean weight, or lack thereof, is a key element to success.

Better to send younger girls than the old-fashion way of just drugging them to delay puberty.

Well this may be a slippery path to go down but what the hell. There are certain things a 14 year old female body can do that a 17,18,19,20 year old female body can not. I can't speak from experience but I assume it is easier to control a 68 pound body while flipping through the air than a 100 pound body.

Is that rule new though? I don't follow gymnastics but watch it at the Olympics, and I thought that typically there were 12-14 year olds competing in the events. When did they institute the age limit?

And yes, I agree, I think the sport emphasizes young girls because they're lighter and more flexible. It's a sport that maturing doesn't really help in.

I believe ligaments are generally looser in younger girls as well, so it's easier to contort the body. That's why in a Chinese acrobatic show the most difficult tricks were done by pre-teen or early-teen girls.

The rule, though, is really more like a child labor law and I don't think the Chinese are following the intent of the law whether or not pre-sixteen girls are competing.

Source

Shows you how long it's been since I've paid attention, eh? Actually since I've had television reception.

this must be more rampant than we think it is.

here's a blurb about one of the chinese gymnasts, named He:

In the last day I have read in some places from females that were gymnasts that puberty threw their balance way out of whack. Not surprising, and that makes using underage gymnasts a huge advantage.

I mean, let's be completely honest and try not to be pervs. One can easily imagine that it is much easier to keep the first example below balanced on a 4" wide beam than the second example:

the one on the top looks exactly like what a tweener (too old to be a child, too young to be a teen, think the 10-13 age range) looks like when they put on too much makeup to look older.

i hope someone blows up China's spot. this is just atrocious.

No way that that Chinese gymnast is 16.

By the way, Alicia is pretty attractive in that picture. Attractive in a completely heterosexual way of course. :)

Is the age limit rule for all gymnasts or just the females? Also is gymnastics the only sport where there is such an age limit?

I know there were some 14 or 15 year old divers the other night.

For those that think weightlifting is a glamorous sport...........

I'd rather Peter Nowak, Bob Bradley and 90% of the US Soccer braintrust is leading the way to the firing line.

shawn johnson, alicia sacramone, samantha peszak, and even nastia liukin all have the potential to grow up to be beautiful young women (in a few years)

then again, alicia is already what...20? so she is a beautiful young woman already - when she's done stunting her body via training i think that will be even more apparent

and Phelps was 15 in Australia 8 years ago... It might be a gymnastics things.

FM

she was born in December 1987 (per wikipedia) so yeah, 20. And I agree, she is very nice to look at.

FM

Anyone inspired to up their work out routine after watching the Olympics?

I've got to admit, after hearing that Michael Phelps trains for 5 hours a day, I decided that I'm going to try to work out for 2 hours a day.

When someone pays me to work out that much, I'll work out that much. I don't have a 2 hour block to workout in between work, kids, eating, and sleeping.

I'm doing it whenever I can. Like today I worked out for 1 1/2 hours at the Y (I put the kids in child care while I was working out) so I need to do another half hour tonight at home.

So in your quest to be half as good as an Olympic athlete you deprived your children (and yourself) of an hour and a half of quality family time? Interesting...

I think that Alicia is married.

I'm pretty sure figure skating also has an age limit.

damnit! she has that sexy italian face thing that the first girl i ever fell for had too - the oval face and olive skin...mmmm

No, I'm a much better mother when I get an hour and a half without my children. It's essential for my sanity and theirs. Besides, it's summer, I'm with them every one of their waking hours except for the 1 1/2 hours I go to the gym.

But then, your situation hardly applies to many of us who have to be at a woprkplace for 8 hours during the day. Note I didn't say you didn't work, cause I know taking care of your kids is a lot of work, but then you were able to be without them for 90 minutes to work out. I cannot leave my work for 90 minutes to go work out although today will be a good day for that getting some kind of work out cause I play soccer tonight.

What I'm trying to say is that for me, saying I will work out 2 hours EVERY day is simply unpossible...

FM

Exactly.

When I posted, I had no idea clemsonfan was
a) a stay at home parent; and
b) female (not that its relevant, just a new insight).

If I was at home with kids all day I'd be killing to drop 'em off somewhere for a couple hours too :)

No, I understand it's pretty impossible for a lot of people to work out for hours each day. I was just curious if anyone else was inspired to work out more in response to watching the Olympics.

Thinking about this last night, I realized two huge flaws. First, they only have 4 events in womens, compared to 6 for the men. More importantly, the 3 up, 3 down format. There's only 12 scores total, and all of them count. That doesn't encourage difficulty - it punishes mistakes (which would seem to fall under the perfection is what gymnastics is about argument someone (SI?) made).

The X Games, for being something performed by borderline retarded/insane people and probably has the same group in charge, gets the scoring right. Everyone gets multiple runs to try crazy new things, and in the end it's almost always the most impressive person/run who wins. Even the NBA Dunk Contest and Home Run Derby fuck up their scoring and have the wrong "winner" most years.

I picked up on that last page when she said Alicia Sacramone was attractive "in a completely heterosexual way". I thought all of us in this thread were attracted to her in a heterosexual way. :D

You must of missed the "random calls from strangers" thread.

I'm pretty sure I did, although my memory is extremely spotty. For all I know I posted in it!

Just a thought:

According to the Chinese government, the above female is legal in over half the states in the USA. With that in mind, is there anyone that believes she is actually 16 years old? According to China, she's actually over 16-1/2 years old.

i want Alicia to balance on my beam

I go to the gym at noon everyday - but the Olympics doesn't have much to do with it (other than making me feel inadequate as a man :D ). Then again,. I'm a single 25 year old guy - I work late, and I'm okay with that.

Have any good track and field people? Just like swimming, it's one of those sports where you can rack up multiple medals in a hurry.

SI

I heard somewhere he was also powered by 12K calories per day. I don't think anyone should try that "work out", tho ;)

SI

I know the British had a 14 year old diver. I would suspect this is a gymnastics (and maybe figure skating) thing for the reason posted about 30 ago where basically it came down to which pre-pubescent kid could not stumble. Then again, my next post will be about this, too...

SI

There was someone talking about this exact thing this morning on NPR. She said that the average Chinese gymnast weighed under 70 lbs while the Americans were over 100. Having to balance that extra weight takes more skill. Also, she was talking as if this was fact and that the NY Times had a bunch of documentation to prove it in a story yesterday or today.

Oh, and there's the whole gymastics as a creepy pedophile's dream thing that someone mentioned earlier. But I don't think that factors into their decision.

For men, it's a bit different. You don't see the young guys because it's to their advantage to develop some more muscle mass. Just think about a 12 year old guy on the rings- not at able to do what some of the older guys were doing the other night.

SI

Actually you try to get the couple of hours to avoid killing anything ;)

I would not be so sure that the pedophile thing is not a factor. Maybe not the biggest factor but I am sure someone on the ruling body is bothered by the idea of 12 year old girls rolling around on the floor in tight clothing. Especially in a "To Catch a Predator" world.

Anyone know how that thing on Walsh's shoulder works? I assume it is some sort of brace, but I have no idea how it is physically providing support with the shape of it. My wife asked me about it, and I don't have a good answer for her. Ok, now I just got a good shot of it, and I guess I can see where it might provide some support. Still, one of the oddest braces I've ever seen.

They mentioned the "venom" thing a couple of nights ago- something about increased blood flow but I wasn't really paying attention.

SI

I think it also is supposed to increase circlation in that area too.

Canada only got two medals in the World Championships a year ago, so I doubt it.

I think they'll just have to wait until the Winter games to beat Phelps. I hear he's not much of a speed skater.

hxxp://machochip.com/2008/08/paraguayan-javelin-thrower-ler.php

Dang!

So.. what time is Phelps's final tonight?



Wait.. what do you mean he's not in a final tonight?

You're kidding right?

Uh oh.. withdrawl symptoms...

Are you sure your other name isn't "NBC"? ;)

Nah, just making fun of the fact that NBC's basically turned their primetime programming into the Phelpslympics from Beijjing :)

(I wish I could get NBC Olympics.com to work... (win2k machine at work), the women's team sabre is on.. wanna see them win another gold :D

No problem, just watch NBC's replay of last night's final!

Speaking of Women's Team Sabre, I see their first round match is complete, and the USA basically destroys South Africa 45-8. They'd need to lose both of their remaining bouts to not get a medal

I think we have a good rower or something.

*hangs head*

It was someone else, but I was thinking about this earlier today again. I actually kindof take exception to the statement made with gymnastics being about perfection. If that was the case, then you might as well just go with the easy routine, score 9.5-10 on your execution and, to go back to the BCS example, it explains why very few teams want to play good non-conference games since there's no reward for the risk.

I'm actually glad for the new system- it should work better in theory. I'd rather, for instance, a harder dismount with a big step than an easy jump off the bar that's stuck. The problem is that the judges need to adjust their thoughts of execution- they still score like it's the old system.

SI

This just in- pommel horse difficulty scoring is stupid. The American who was break dancing on it for a good 30 seconds (had to count as lots of elements) gets less than 1 point more than the guys who just kindof swing around on it and then get off.

SI

Man, I'd kill for legs like the pic where she's looking out the window... jeez, what a body.

Just wait until next week when Ben Johnson represents Canada.




Too soon? :confused: Pommel horse as a whole is stupid for 95% of the guys. Then there are maybe 2 or 3 (Arshavin included) who make you stand up and say wow. Yet they get at best .5 better. Bring the balance beam back for the guys. I know the urban legend stories about why they don't do it, but it would at least provide some fantastic viral youtube videos.

Michael Phelps has inspired me to eat more chocolate chip pancakes. I know that much.

What does the different color jersey signify in team volleyball? One player on each team has a different color completely. Just curious, since they didn't seem to be anything special other than I never noticed any of them serving ever.

USA vs. Greece, men's basketball... on-going.

We'll see if the USA can avenge the World Championships.

I know that they call the person the Libero. I think they can go anywhere on the court and are not required to stay in the back or front line.

They seem to always be almost the smallest or the smallest person on the court is something else I noticed.

And Yang Wei smokes the field in men's individual gymnastics. One of the medals that moved China to #1 in the medal count and a stunning 22 Gold Medals (that's 12 more than 2nd place US)

I think they are the player designated as the setter.

That's because it's illegal for them to set the ball in the front court, or block/spike the ball if it's above net level. Basically they're the defensive specialist whose job is to dig out all the opponent spikes.

Or just make it worthwhile for those guys who can do the awesome stuff. They talk about how elements are worth 0.1 up to 0.7 based on whether they are A-F difficulty. Just swinging around on the pommel horse should be at most a 0.2 or 0.3 while what he does is 0.7. The score is based on the top 10 elements so if the most the bad ones get is 3.0 (0.3 x 10) while the good ones can get the "usual" 5-7 for starting value and I think a lot more people would try to do good stuff.

SI

Wow. That was an insane 1st half for the US Basketball team against Greece. 3rd quarter, and they're in control.

so you're saying phelps has like half of the US gold medals? :D

And that was with Kobe shooting bricks

Kobe and Lebron are the defensive heart and soul of this team. Wade is the offensive beast.