StinkyLemsky: A Child of the 80s Grows Up

And they're old enough to drive too!

I cried during last night’s all-around competition; big ole alligator tears. I was so proud of both Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson. (In case you weren't watching, Nastia won gold, Shawn silver). I wish they could have shared the gold medal - but I also feel Nastia deserved to win. Her style of gymnastics is just so beautiful and artistic, and the international judges seemed to relate more to her flexibility and ballerina-esque routines. I felt Shawn was underscored on both balance beam and uneven bars (which; of course my opinion doesn’t count but when the announcers – who have competed in the Olympics themselves – start to reiterate the same points, that’s got to say something). Regardless, both women pulled out four amazing performances and should be able to walk away with zero regret. Last night was an example of truly incredible Olympic competition. It was the kind of night that kept me up until 1:00am, glued to the television screen, wide awake and watching in awe. From Nastia’s stuck landing on the vault to Shawn’s incredibly challenging and risky floor routine, last night was something to remember.

 

    

I’ll be on vacation for the majority of the remainder of the Olympic competition, but don’t worry – I’ve already mapped out the important events. Here’s a preview of the upcoming broadcast schedule, and our team’s final chances to show what they’re made of.

 

            Friday (tonight) – No gymnastics, but Michael Phelps swims in the 100m fly for a chance to win his seventh gold medal of the games (tying the record).

 

            Saturday – Again, no gymnastics, but if Phelps succeeds Friday he’ll have his last gold medal opportunity here in the 4x100 relay - to set Olympic history with an astonishing eight gold medals. Also, watch out for Dara Torres in the women’s 50. She had the third fastest time in the qualifying heats and swims in the semi-finals tonight for placement in this final race.

 

            Sunday – Finally! Gymnastics again! Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin go head-to head again on the floor exercise. They qualified third and fourth respectively, but I’m hoping Shawn gets a chance to take home the gold. She’ll have to overtake China’s Fei Cheng, however, who scored the highest in the preliminaries. Alicia Sacramone has a chance at some redemption; she’ll be competing on vault. She scored third in the preliminaries, but has gold medal potential if she sticks her landing.

 

           Monday – Only one women’s event final – the uneven bars. Nastia is the only US team member in this event (due to Chellsie Memmel's uncharacteristic fall in the preliminaries. By the way, did you know Chellsie actually had a broken ankle when she peformed? Amazing). Nastia scored fifth in the preliminaries, but I am hoping she is buoyed from her all-around gold medal win and has the set of her life to win the gold.

 

          Tuesday – The final day of women’s artistic gymnastics in these Olympics. The US will be sending three women to compete on the balance beam. Will they be able to sweep the event? It would be just amazing if they did – but don’t count China out. The Chinese women have been scored generously on beam; Shanshan Li scored a 16.1 in the preliminaries (with the Americans not far behind with scores right at 15.975). I don't know if any of the event finals can compare to last night's competition, but I can't wait to find out!

It just wasn't our night

9:00pm CST: Well, here I am, thirty minutes before the beginning of the women’s gymnastics team final competition. I thought I’d try something different tonight and do my own version of live blogging. Rather than using something like Twitter, I’m just going to put all my thoughts into this one post and publish it tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have some exciting material to write about… 

And what’s happened so far? Well, not much really. I watched the women’s 10m platform synchro diving finals - an event which my sister’s friend and diving teammate was almost chosen to compete in. My sister, Beth, the one natural athlete among us girls, was an extremely successful high school diver, so I feel a little bit of a “six degrees of separation” thing with the diving team. Of course, the Chinese won the gold medal (with the US women coming in fifth). It’s crazy – just when you’re trying to convince yourself that the task of being completely in synch with another human being while jumping off a three story building to perform a perfect dive, the Chinese women come along and make it look completely natural. They’re just astonishingly perfect.

Okay – swimming has started – gotta run.

9:01pm CST: Ooooh – there’s going to be a ‘family edition’ of Biggest Loser. Should be cool.

9:04pm CST: Gah – I can’t take it. Semifinals of swimming aren’t successfully keeping my mind off of women’s gymnastics. I mean, tonight is just the night for women’s gymnastics. Of course I’ll be excited for the all-around competition and the event finals later this week, but this is really where the excitement is. The format is cruel – three up, three count – and it certainly doesn’t help my nerves to remember the 2000 Olympics when Carly Patterson couldn’t put it together for the team competition and went on to win the all-around against Svetlana Horkina. Will Shawn and Nastia pull through for us? Okay, commercials over…

9:05pm CST: What’s going on with Garret Weber-Gale’s eye? Looks like a contact lens malfunction –a semi-final race is not a good time to lose your vision!

9:11pm CST: Mitch is snoring.

9:12pm CST: Oh – Katie Hoff is swimming in a final event – I hope she wins.

9:16pm CST: What a bummer – fourth place has to be the worst – especially when the top three swimmers beat the world record time.

9:18pm CST: Michael Phelps is up next… will he make Olympic history? Ten lifetime gold medals? Only a few more minutes and the world will know…

9:24pm CST: HE DID IT!! And broke his own world record in the process! Don’t even tell me he was disappointed with that time and performance. I know he’s a perfectionist and all, but would it kill him to smile?

            Edited to add – in a later interview Michael explained that his goggles had filled with water during the race and that’s why he was frustrated. Okay, that makes sense.

9:28pm CST: Gymnastics are getting ready to start so this whole ‘live’ thing will have to take a backseat. I need to give this my complete attention – sorry Internet.

            p.s. Visa already has a ‘congratulations’ commercial for Michael Phelps ready to air? Nice timing. Okay, really signing off now – more tomorrow.

Epilogue: Well, I have to admit I’m disappointed. I really thought team USA had a shot at winning the gold medal. Especially after their first two rotations were solid. I feel sorry for Alicia Sacramone; she just couldn’t handle the pressure. Before her beam routine she looked absolutely terrified and it showed in her mount. She was just way too rattled to pull it together for the floor exercise, not that it really would have mattered at that point. Here’s a graphical representation of my emotions last night…

 

To be honest, I’m still kind of bummed out about the whole thing. The fact of the matter is this: we just didn’t have a gold-medal performance. Hopefully there will be some redemption in the all-around and event finals – in the meantime, I’m going to have some coffee. Maybe that will perk me up.

I can't help but wonder what I'd eat with 10,000 calories a day...

Did you watch last night? Oh my goodness, it was a great night of competition for team USA! Michael Phelps made it look easy when he won another gold medal (his third) in the 200m freestyle. Not only is he right on track to be the most decorated swimmer in Olympic history, he continues to break world records on a daily basis in the process. He's incredible! Did you see the montage they ran on him earlier in the evening? He eats 8,000 – 10,000 calories per day to fuel his body for training. Wow. Just, wow. There were some other incredible swimmers last night too – Aaron Piersol and Natalie Coughlin both won gold medals in 100m backstroke. (Piersol broke the world record and made it look easy; though I'm a little annoyed with the announcers' constant need to comment on his 'breezy Californian lifestyle').

And then, of course, the men’s gymnastics competition was much more exciting than it was expected to be. What a dramatic evening – the team was jubilant after four solid rotations, but started to falter on floor exercise. Jonathon Horton had the meet of his life to keep the US in contention for a medal. For a few rotations, it looked like they might even win silver!  Their last event was pommel horse – described by the announcers as the ‘Achilles heel’ of the team. I couldn’t stand the suspense as the hopes of the entire competition hung on the balance of Alexander Artemev’s performance. When he completed his routine successfully I was shouting, cheering, clapping, and just thrilled that he had clinched the bronze medal! Of course, Mitch was not quite so impressed – he had fallen asleep on the couch - let’s just say he’s not quite as interested in gymnastics as I am.

Now, women’s sand volleyball on the other hand – that he has no problem staying awake for. Is it just me, or do Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh have the most perfect bodies on the face of the earth? I couldn’t wear a white two-piece swimsuit and look that good in a million years, even with a contingent of personal trainers and nutritionists. They looked amazing and kept their gold medal hopes alive by breezing through the match. Did you see the opening broadcast? Where they showed the meeting between Kerri and the volunteer who found her wedding ring in the sand? He looked like he was dazzled to be in her presence, it was adorable!

 

Now, tonight, you just have to watch and cheer on the female gymnasts. I so hope they do well... This is my Superbowl, my Oscars, my Grammys. I'm not quite sure how I’m going to handle the excitement. The coverage of the women’s team final won’t be on until later in the evening - so you’ll have a chance to catch up on Project Runway if you’re not interested in any other Olympic events. Personally, I’ll be watching to see if Michael Phelps can become the only USA athlete ever to win more than nine medals in their career. (He’s racing in two event finals tonight).

This weekend: Olympics in a nutshell

Did you watch the Olympics this weekend? There’s so much coverage; I think “Olympic Games Watching” should be considered my part-time job at this point. Thanks to my trusty DVR, I was able to view the lengthy Opening Ceremonies coverage in approximately one hour (actual duration = 5 hours). Let me just say – WOW. I thought it was incredible. There were over 15,000 performers in the Bird’s Nest for that one event. Can you even imagine the logistics of putting that together? I think my favorite part of the show was when they revealed that it wasn’t a computer synchronizing the “wave” action on stage, but hundreds of people working in perfect harmony to create the illusions. Truly incredible.

So far, these games haven’t disappointed in the excitement factor. There’ve already been some memorable moments. Were you watching last night when the men’s relay won (by 8 hundredths of a second), upsetting the highly favored French team? It was amazing. Let’s hope that performance gives the entire team a boost of confidence – I’d love to see Katie Hoff and Dara Torres with golds too!

The men’s gymnastics team performed well enough to give them a slot in the team finals (broadcasting tonight). They’re a long shot for a medal, considering they placed fifth in preliminaries. But, with some more stuck landings and repeats of their standout stellar performances (Alexander Artemev on pommel horse for example); they may have a shot at the podium.

I was a nervous wreck watching the women’s gymnastics team preliminary competition. Before the event even started, our team suffered a setback when Samantha Pescek, an all-around solid performer, hurt her ankle during the warm up. Since she was only healthy enough to compete on uneven bars, our team was unable to send four members to each apparatus – and every score counted. I think it’s a testament to the incredible talent of the team that (even with some disappointing performances and unexpected mistakes), we were still able to finish in second place. Shawn Johnson was just as solid as ever, with only slight errors on floor and uneven bars – her beam routine was amazing and (in my opinion) underscored. I can’t help but feel sorry for Alicia Sacramone and Chellsie Memmel, whose errors put them out of contention for event medals. Let’s just hope they can rally for the team finals later this week!

Coming up tonight: Men’s gymnastics team final, Michael Phelps swims for his third potential gold medal, the chance to watch Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh extend their sand volleyball winning streak, and men’s platform synchronized diving.

Do you plan on watching?