Wow, do I love the Olympics! I was up last night until after 11:00 (late for me), because I could NOT turn off the men's gymnastics competition. It was just that compelling!
First there was the drama of losing our two top gymnasts, and the team not even really being set until last week. The only names I knew on this team were the Hamm brothers, so I was curious to see how these other young guns would do. The media kept saying they really didn't have a shot at a medal, so I wasn't expecting much, but as an absolute credit to the spirit of those young men, they didn't let the naysayers tell them what they were capable of!
They got out there and just starting nailing *everything*! Jonathan Horton was on FIRE, and Justin Spring was solid as a rock. And they weren't playing it safe doing easy routines. They were doing really stellar stuff and just pounding it! It was like they were feeding off of each other's success. When one would go out and kick butt on a routine, the next one would go out and be like, "Okay, so we're puttin' on a show, then," and he'd go out and just be amazing. It was so exciting!
We fell short on the last apparatus, the pommel horse, except for a beautiful performance by Alexander Artemev, and ended up with bronze instead of silver, but the fact that they medalled, and that they were SO fantastic in their routines leading up to the horse was a real joy to watch. It made me so proud for them and proud to be an American - the can-do spirit! And the makeup of the team is perfect, too - guys from different backgrounds and heritages, all committed to the same goal and working as a team, showing the greatness that is America when we use our diversity to focus on the same thing and make us stronger. I love it!
And to give the devil his due, the Chinese were simply amazing. They really are incredible. It was right that they got the gold because they're just phenomenal. Real perfection.
Well, guys I'm looking forward to individual competition - I expect to see more hardware now that we know what you can do! Tomorrow I'll probably go on and on about Michael Phelps, because, hello, he's freakin' awesome! But today, it's all you, men's gymastics! You ROCK!!
2 comments:
Yeah Baby! U.S.A. U.S.A!
Yeah, I could NOT turn off the tv last night! That was great! Between gymnastics, swimming, that synchonized diving stuff (surprisingly interesting!) and volleyball, I'm LOVING this Olympics.
As for the Chinese, yeah, they won the gymnastics competition, but that's what happens when you are slave-driven by that communist government, dictating what you will do, when you will do it and how you will do it...did you hear that their coaches had to sign contracts stating that they would not allow their students to get hurt? WTF? How in the world do you carry that around on your shoulders???
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