Uneven Bar Mess

Is there some sort of conspiracy against the American gymnasts in event finals?! I know that's a silly thought, but after last night's uneven bars competition I just had to seriously wonder. In vault finals, Alicia Sacramone deserved the bronze, yet a gymnast who fell on her knees on her landing was awarded the medal instead. On the floor exercise, Shawn Johnson's tumbling, dance, and form appeared superior to the Romanian gymnast, yet she ended up with a silver. Then on uneven bars last night, Nastia Liukin tied He Kexin from China, yet the complicated and seemingly controversial tiebreaking procedure left Liukin with the silver. The NBC announcers and Bela Karolyi were all outraged at this, feeling that Nastia deserved a gold medal, and I completely agree with them.

This brings me to the question: what happened to the days of ties? In the past, if two gymnasts received the same score, those two people both got the same colored medal. For example, in the 1988 Olympics when Nastia's dad tied with his teammate, Vladimir Artemev, for the gold medal on the high bar, BOTH gymnasts received the gold medal. I know that ties were still taking place as late as 1996, and I am not really sure when the rules changed, but I certainly believe that after these Olympic Games, the FIG needs to take a long look at its new scoring and tiebreaking system, because gymnastics purists will agree that the new system is greatly flawed.

On another note, Karl and I were marveling at Michael Phelps' eight gold medals, and we were wondering if another athlete will ever be able to match his feat. I made the point that one of the only other sports in which it would be possible is men's gymnastics. With the team, all around, and six individual events, an athlete could possibly win eight gold medals, although in today's world of gymnastics it seems nearly impossible because of individual event specialists. It is extremely difficulty to be the best, or even close to the best, on all six men's events. I was thinking about this feat, and remembered that one gymnast came very close to achieving it in 1992: Vitaly Scherbo. He won SIX gold medals that year as a member of the Unified Team (former Soviet Union), in the team, all-around, pommel horse, vault, rings, and parallel bars. WOW...

Tonight is the final evening of gymnastics competition and we can look forward to seeing Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin compete on the balance beam, and Jonathan Horton on the high bar. I accidentally already saw the results on USA Today's website but I won't reveal what happened. Just stay off of USA Today's site if you don't want to know!!!