Wrap Up: The 2012 Olympic Games

Hello again, today I wanted to talk about one of the most exciting events all year, the Olympics. Now I know I'm a little bit late and everyone else and their mom has written at least one of these blog posts, but I thought it would be a good start to my first official blog. So I will be giving my thoughts and an overview of each competition and event that happened in gymnastics at the 2012 London Olympics.

Prelims: 
To be honest, prelims were hard to watch a second time because of everything that went on. I definitely expected and hoped that Aly and Jordyn would qualify for AA finals. Why? I know Gabby Douglas is a phenomenal gymnast she is just plain fun to watch, but there was just something about her that I wasn't so fond of. Maybe it was the fact I've followed Jo and Aly longer, I really don't know but something just didn't click with her. Though in the back of my mind I knew that if she didn't qualify to AA it obviously wouldn't have been a fair battle, but hold that thought. Besides the AA finals situation, I was quite pleased with the performances and results, although I would have liked to see Jordyn in beam finals.

Team Finals:
This was the highlight of gymnastics at this Olympics for me. Everyone from Team USA was spot on! Mckayla's vault, GORGEOUS! After the vault rotation I was pretty convinced that we had it in the bag, and we did. When I saw the line ups for Team final I was disappointed in two things; Viktoria Komova not on floor and Jordyn not on beam. I love love love Komova's floor (although I'm not too fond of her), and I feel like she could have helped Russia a lot more because I assume she would have gone second instead of Grishina. After Grishina's disaster on floor I felt like they just gave up, they didn't fight for it. As for Jordyn not competing on beam I was a little mad because I felt like she deserved to compete on all four events. Jo was so classy in the way she handled everything and in my opinion it wouldn't have been a risk to put her on beam. But Jordyn really did go out there and redeem herself, and I'm so proud of her! I also think that it wasn't a good idea for Gabby to compete AA in team finals because she had competed AA in prelims, then had the All Around final and on top of that two event finals! She could have very well medaled on at least beam but I think she just ran out of gas. Overall this night was my favorite event at the Olympics all together. 

All Around Finals:
This event was definitely not as exciting to watch than I anticipated. Probably by now you kind of have an idea that I'm a Wieber fan and you are probably thinking "shut up about the whole situation," but Jordyn was not the only one to not qualify because of the two gymnast per country rule. Someone who I expected to do extremely well and possibly even medal in this final was Yao Jinnan. Yes, I know she qualified 22nd but she still qualifed, on a horrible day for her and she was fighting an injury. Also, Anastasia Grishina didn't get to compete and she qualified 12th, also had a bad day. FIG better change some of their rules and quick. It isn't fair to those who didn't get a chance to qualify to any final just because their country is dominate in the sport. It should be the best of the best and it wasn't. All three AA gymnasts from China, Russia and USA deserved that chance, end of story. Getting back to the actual competition, overall it went well. I saw who I expected to be on the podium except Aly, though I knew Aliya could take it from her. I'm so happy for Gabby, she obviously deserved it and I'm even more so happy for Chow. He's an amazing coach and he is proof that you don't have to be so harsh on your gymnasts for them to be successful.

Vault Finals:
All I can say is that I was in complete shock that Mckayla fell. I do not recall her ever falling or really even messing up on vault ever! With that being said I think she is right, she didn't deserve the gold with that performance, and based on all of the vaults competed, Sandra Izbasa deserved to win. Even though Mckayla didn't win, there is no doubt she is the best vaulter in the world, I think what happened was simply a fluke and I hope she continues for 2016. I also really wanted Pena to at least land her handspring double front, but I guess not :(

Bar Finals: 
I'm extremely happy with these results, there wasn't anything I didn't like about this event final. Aliya won, He Kexin took silver and Beth Tweddle took the bronze. I actually didn't think Aliya would win here, I thought it would be a battle between He and Beth, but I'm happy Aliya won! I've never been a fan of jam packed bar routines, yeah its quite exciting to watch and probably very hard to do but I've always preferred more fluid routines. I think that if you can incorporate difficult elements into a bar routine while making it look easy and pretty is what makes you a true bar worker, and that is exactly what Aliya is. 

Beam Finals: 
I was a little bit disappointed with this final just because so many girls fell. Its always exciting to watch a beam final and really any final when everyone hits. With Gabby's score on beam during the competitions leading up to this final I thought she could potentially challenge the Chinese, but with her fall on beam and Deng's and Sui's flawless performances, that ended my hopes of her third medal. Again, I think Gabby was over competed, or however you would like to put it, and she just ran out of gas. As for Aly's bronze medal, I am most definitely happy for her! Although she could have had a better routine, I'm so glad she medaled! Moving on to Komova, I was pretty much mad. As much as I dislike her, I love her gymnastics, and with her previous beam scores she could have gotten a silver or bronze, but oh no, she just gave up like she always does. No big shocker there. 

Floor Finals:
The last final. I was nervous for this one, and to add to that I wasn't able to watch it because I was shopping. All I can remember was refreshing my twitter feed every five second and then ranting about what was going on to the poor lady who was at the register. I thought that Jordyn could medal, of course that would mean a flawless routine and maybe someone to mess up a little, but I knew it was possible. Reading that her routine wasn't near as good as I expected was hard because I wanted her to at least get an individual medal but I quickly forgot about it and focused on Aly. I read she had a great performance and was nearly perfect and I thought she had it on lock, until I saw how amazing Catalina Ponor did also. That was just a little nerve wracking for me, and then I found out Izbasa still had to go.... But in the end Aly won, Catalina took the silver and Aliya took bronze! I was very pleased with that because I used to hate Aliya, she was a bit like Komova, or Komova is a bit like her, but after her knee injury she became more humble and proved herself to be a good sport! 

Overall these Olympics were full of drama and excitement, but at the same time everything happens for a reason. I believe that something good has to come out of the bad things in life, and if it weren't for the tears and heartache, I wouldn't have grown to love and respect some of the athletes I do now. You can be the best of the best at whatever you do, but the reality is that if you aren't humble and respectable, what good does it do?

Welcome!

Hello!

  My name is Emily, and I wanted to create this blog simply because I love to write and I love the sport of gymnastics. I am a gymnast and have been for the past year. I did gymnastics for 5 years before I quit due to the decision I had to make between gymnastics and basketball. Obviously at the time I chose basketball. Even though I wasn't involved with gymnastics physically for a while, I always payed close attention to the sport and dreamed of one day starting again. Last year, my Sophomore year of high school, I decided to pick it back up and it has been a hard journey, but I love it more than anything. Anyway, on this blog I will be giving you updates on what is going on in the world we call the "Gymternet." I will be giving you the latest on competitions, training of our elite athletes, and many other topics involved with this beautiful sport. 

   Sincerely, 
       Emily, your newest blogger.


      p.s. bare with me as I get this blog up and going, I'm new to this (: