Thanks to Shana for posting her observations from the first night of the women’s competition in Philadelphia. Great commentary.
–The announcer couldn’t get Jana Bieger’s hometown right to save his life. Add that to “Olivia Courtney” flashing on the monitors as it showed her preparing for her vault, and I’d be upset if I were her.
–During warm-ups for UB, Shayla Worley hit some nice handstands that had me going “who IS that?” seeing as how I knew Nastia was starting out on vault. Unfortunately, the skills that she practiced in her warm-up looked a lot better from way up where I was sitting than did her actual routine. And her beam came across as somewhat boring.
–Nastia did not try her UB dismount during warm-ups. I wonder whether actually doing a test run would have made for a better landing when the time came to compete. I was in my seat pretty early (around 6:30), and she was running through bits and pieces of her floor when I got there. I thought I had her picked out from the crowd of girls out there and was assured when I saw her dance elements. She never ceases to amaze me with those. Oddly enough, I couldn’t spot Valeri anywhere at that point…but when Nastia did her vault warm-ups, he was right there with something to say after every attempt. Her beam was good but definitely not the best I’ve seen her do it. Oh, and it was fun watching her kick her head (really, her foot went BEHIND her head) while she was stretching and keeping warm between bars and beam.
–Shawn Johnson had the crowd going wild every time she so much as went NEAR an apparatus. She’s so good, but the way everyone gushes over her annoys me. Yes, I get it, she’s FABULOUS. Get over it. I love the music for her floor exercise as well as the movie, but there’s something to be said for good choreographers, which she apparently doesn’t have. The “dance elements” don’t connect so well with the music, and she’s doing huge tumbling during some of the more mellow parts of the piece. Not to mention, whoever cut that music should be shot. Either stick to the intro or the main theme, not some pathetic combo of both, please. With that being said, everything that she does is just SICK (and I mean that in the totally awesome, omg can’t believe she goes there sort of way). Shawn was particularly entertaining before her vault. Throughout the 4th rotation, while others were competing, Shawn Johnson was running, running, running. And she even threw in a few cartwheels of all things. A LOT. Talk about getting rid of excess energy…
–The crowd was in love with Chellsie Memmel. I’m pretty sure I saw at least 30 people with “Chellsie rocks” tshirts, with “M&M Gymnastics” on the back when I was hunting for free stuff at the Visa fan fest thing. Her support was well-deserved. I imagine quite a few people are kicking themselves for counting her out. Actually, some of the sports writers around here are now calling her the “third lock” for the US team behind Nastia and Shawn. It amuses me, considering they had been writing that about Alicia Sacramone before last night’s meet.
–Speaking of bad sports news, the Philadelphia Inquirer had a misleading headline on the front page today, something about Nastia and Shawn “securing” their spots on the team…what about day 2, ya’ll? Then, there were the bad photos. The “Daily News” or something like that had a picture of Nastia in a rare ugly position as part of their spread, alongside a not-so-great shot of Shawn on bars. The Philly Inquirer also included a shot of Shawn’s bars…don’t they know that’s NOT her best event?
Oh, and the merch stand was selling $15 radios to be able to hear commentary from Shannon Miller and someone else during the meet. No thanks, I’ll save my money and watch the commentary on tv…so I can spend $15 on a soda and pretzel instead.
