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on gymnastics

Women's gymnastics was my favorite sport for a very long time. My sister and I used to follow it diligently in the 95 - 97 timeframe.

When I got back from Ire*land, I started following Nas*tia Liukin. Even though she was about 10, it didn't exactly take a genius to figure out that she was an amazing gymnast. Ever since then, she's been the one I've cheered for when I have the opporuntunity to watch gymnastics, which, of course, is not often.

Anyway, I would have been pleased to see any American win, but I was absolutely delighted to see Nas*tia win. I especially enjoyed her floor routine. She still has dance and graceful elements that seems to have all but disappeared from that apparatus over the last four years.

I watched the finals on CBC, and my brother (on the East Coast) and I shared notes afterwards. It was weird because I hadn't noticed any scoring inconsistencies. I don't like the new scoring system because (a) I think it puts too much emphasis on difficulty and (b) they take off so many points, it's a little difficulty to judge whether a score is fair or reasonable or not. Anyway, the Canadians only give the final score; they don't show the A and B scores. Without knowing the A score, it's basically impossible to parse the score. In addition, they didn't show the standings or make many comments. (Before the floor exercise, I actually assumed Shawn would win because I didn't know the relative point totals and I knew she was better at floor. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Nastia won.) Still, I thought the scoring was consistently annoying, not any better or worse for the American gymnasts. However, apparently NBC complained about the scoring through and through. My brother was actually enraged at the injustice. It was really interesting how the commentary gave us completely different perspectives.

1:08 p.m. - Aug. 15, 2008