Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to follow the Bejing Games as much as I would like.  I have been traveling for work, and haven’t been able to catch the games.  I have been trying to stay up for the late night replays, but have been passing out whenever I see a bed.  I have missed so much of the gymnastics, and I feel out of the loop.  However, here are the observations regarding the little bit I have seen:

The Injured Americans - I honestly believe Alicia Sacramone is injured, but is just the least injured of the team (besides Shawn Johnson and Nastia Lukin.)  Reports out of the Olympic Training Camp last month kept mentioning that Sacramone was favoring feet, tweaking ankles, and heavily wrapping her legs.  When I saw her back in June at the National Championships, her legs were wrapped like a mummy’s.  She’s the least injured of the remainder of the team, given that Bridget Sloan was never 100%, Scrunchie Girl Chellsie Memmel broke her ankle, and who the heck knows what Samantha Pesek did to her ankle exactly.  If they had had the full team, Sacramone would have been able to complete two events, instead of three, and would have placed less impact on her already worn legs.  And why are they all injured up the wazoo? Because of the awful three round selection process, which made this group of gymnast go full out for two months, instead of training whichever way is best for them, which leads me to my next point…

Hi! Ho! The Karoylis Have Got To Go – Well, a centralized training camp with a national team coach may have worked in Communist Romania, and there exists state media who won’t question your team choices and decisions, and you treat gymnasts like goods instead of humans.  But it just will no longer work here in the US.  Marta Karyoli has no understanding of start values and difficulties in the new judging system – lest we forget that even without the mistakes of the US in the team final, they still would have lost because they were barely out-scored in difficulty by the Chinese.  Or, if Marta does possess such an understanding, her gymnasts are so injured that they can’t possibly perform those skills.  Of course, then we had her awful excuses and claims of unfairness after her team won silver.  Oh, that might have worked when your husband was in Romania and walked out of an international meet because of “mis-scoring” of his gymnasts because they were trying to “sabotage” him (detailed in Little Girls in Pretty Boxes), but it’s not going to work here in 2008.  Just suck it up and retire, Marta.  You and your husband need to ride off into the sunset and stop tainting USA Gymnastics.

Despite What Everyone Else Thinks, I Still Love Shawn Johnson’s Floor Ex – Why all the hate, Paul Ziert of International Gymnastics?  Ziert, in his live-blogging of the women’s floor exercise final today, stated: “This music just doesn’t do it for anyone… no place to clap along.”  That may be the lamest excuse ever not to like a piece of music.  That also may be the worst comment ever made about a floor exercise.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, Shawn Johnson’s floor exercise music – from the August Rush soundtrack – is the floor exercise music I would choose if I were a music supervisor for a movie about a gymnast winning the Olympics. It’s an attainable piece of instrumental music, it builds several times, and it matches the gymnast’s personality.  It’s great live and great on TV, and I just can’t watch it enough.  But I think I’m the only one.

The Chinese Gymnast Goes Indian - I heart Jiang Yuyuan’s floor exercise for what it represents.  The Chinese gymnast throws down a darn good floor exercise with actual factual dance elements to Indian music.  It’s rare that you see the Chinese perform on floor with such expression and to ethnic music of another country, no less!  Hate the Chinese if you will, I enjoy the fact that Jiang is actually showing facial expression and carrying arm movements through the tips of her fingers (my biggest pet peeve.)  Jiang Yuyuan, no matter what age you are, you are my Scrunchie Girl of the Olympics thus far.

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As for my hockey note of the day, one of my favorite AHL bloggers/journalists, Jonathan Bombulie of the Citizens Voice of Wilkes-Barre and Times-Tribune of Scranton, reported on Friday that the Penguins organization signed two free agent goalies this past week, but did not make any moves to replace the departed Ty Conklin on the goalie depth chart.  Bombulie believes that this is a vote of confidence in Everyone’s Favorite Goalie, John Curry, to be the number three goalie in the Penguins organization.  He’s the Rudy of ice hockey, that Johnny Curry!  From college walk-on to Hobey Baker finalist to Calder Cup finalist…and now number three behind Marc-Andre Fleury and Dany Sabourin.  If there’s ever a goalie to rally behind, it’s Curry. (And yet this news has not yet made the Terrier Hockey Fan Blog yet, despite their weekend update…when will people catch on?)

And for a fun time, I reccommend listening to WGR Buffalo the afternoon after a Buffalo Bills pre-season win where Trent Edwards looked pretty good.  I did while at work on Friday afternoon, and it was a Bills love-fest, which is always appreciated.  When you need a break from the WEEI’s of the world, listen to the live streaming feed of WGR, where they not only just talk sports, but a wide variety of sports – Friday afternoon was not just a BIlls love-fest, but also had a good discussion on Blue Jay’s pitcher Roy Halliday and a rehashing of the Brian Campbell trade at the trade deadline this past winter by the Sabres.  And who doesn’t enjoy Buffalo radio ads?

But all this trying to maneuver around the system was adverted when they were able to work out a deal with the Chinese Olympic Committee and the Chinese government on Tuesday. Great. Now the alternates can go to China to train and stick pins in voodoo dolls of their teammates. (I kid, I kid…)

Did the men’s Olympic gymnastics team have such a problem? No, because they picked their team and alternates like a normal team would – through their Olympic Trials a month and a half before the Olympics begin.

Really, USA Gymnastics, do these girls need any more drama in their lives at the moment? Why wasn’t the process begun to obtain travel visas for all of the gymnasts invited to the selection camp last weekend? Those names were selected June 22nd. Sure, you would then obtain visas for a handful of girls who would never need them, but then you would have been sure that whoever you ended up choosing as alternates would actually be able to go.

Oh well, what do I know? Maybe there is a method to their madness, and jaded me just doesn’t realize it.

Again, I am not the world’s greatest gymnastics writer, but I was there and know just enough about the sport to understand what’s going on. To review the senior competition, I’ll borrow a device from one of my favorite sports writers, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, that I haven’t used in a while: Ten Things I Think I Think.

Ten Things I Think I Think About the 2008 Visa US Championships

1. Shawn Johnson’s floor exercise music has that Olympic quality to it that NBC must adore. That grand, sweeping instrumental, last-person-up, winning-the-gold-medal quality. If you were filming a movie about a gymnast winning the Olympics, that is the music the music supervisor would choose. It was obvious.

2. I wish Nastia Lukin would smile for real. Just once.

3. Only four girls that competed didn’t qualify for the Olympic Trials, and they sat off to the side of the NBC commentators area during the medal ceremony and announcements. I could see them well from my seat high above the arena, and it was depressing to see them. They just sat, cross-legged, as all the other girls got their National Team warmup suits and paraded onto the floor for their presentation. It was just awkward to only have four of them not make it. What was the point of the championships then?

4. One of those four girls was Christa Tranella, who definitely impressed me over both days of the Senior competition. Sure, she wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed her beam and uneven bars routines. There are gymnasts who finished behind her in the all-around who made it to the Olympic Trials, which has to be horribly frustrating to a young gymnast. I thought she showed a lot of spirit and promise.

5. Juniors have much more interesting floor exercises than seniors. I feel like the gymnasts feel that they can take risks that seniors can not with their music and choreography.

6. The program, which was sold for $15, was useless. No biographical information on anyone competing (which would have been helpful for those gymnastics watching novices), and basic articles on the different genres of gymnastics and “Why Your Child Should Do Gymnastics.” No information on the selection process for the Olympic Team, no information on how the competition would work – just a heck of a lot of ads, and useless information. And the WGYM radio – did anyone use those? Did you need to pack them with the program to jack up the price?

7. There could have been a better explanation of how the vault champion would be selected. You need to do two vaults to qualify for a vault medal. Okay. Why not explain this in a graphic or announcement during the half an hour between the start time listed on my ticket and the actual start of the event? Maybe that was what John McCready, jumping around in his orange shirt, was trying to explain this to me. I was unable to discern that inbetween his bad jokes and fast talking. And if medaling in a event meant you were petitioned onto the Olympic Trials, why weren’t more people trying to medal on vault? There were only two gymnasts who were elgible for vault medals, so there was the bronze up for grabs.  I imagine it may have something to do with risking injury, but for some of those girls on the bubble of qualifying, it may have been worth it.

8. Oh, Bela Karoyli. Your introduction of the 1988 US Olympic Team made little to no sense. I think you even forgot one of the poor woman’s names (Chelle Stack). Your three minute preface to their introduction only had a handful of words we could understand: Boston, Olympics, and gym-NASSSS-tics. Those who I was sitting with during this presentation were trying very hard not to laugh. Overall, his speech was painful.

9. A hearty congrats to the Original Scrunchie Girl, Chellsie Memmel for showing up and hitting eight for eight over the two days of competition. She was a rock! She finished third all-around, and finished in the top 4 in every event except vault. After being devastated by injuries for the past two years, it was so good to see her back in fine form.  You could tell she was quite proud and relived that she gave such a statement performance at these Championships.

10. Since I started using the Internet thirteen years ago, one of my favorite things to read were recaps and observations from figure skating and gymnastics championships (during my teenage limited internet years, I would devour as many of these in one half-hour of library internet time as a expert in one of those speed-reading infomercials might.) I wished that someday, I, too, would be able to experience a US Championship in either sport so that I could write my observations online. Well, I finally was able to do so, and it is such a cool feeling! Thank you for reading – i wish I could have done more!

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Big props again to former BU goalie John Curry for making 33 – yes, 33! – saves to lead Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins to a solid win Saturday night against the Chicago Wolves in the Calder Cup Finals. The Penguins have come back from the brink of elimination to make the series 3-2, with Game 6 on Tuesday evening. And despite his heroics, which were dutifully noted by the AHL in their Three Stars of the Night, the commenters on the leading Penguins blog can’t be bothered to give Curry his due – they are obsessed with their retiring enforcer. Oh well- us BU Hockey fans will continue to cheer him on.

And I broke down and purchased a Boston Celtics shirt today. I figure my purchase of a Beat LA shirt now will only help out my future children twenty some-odd years from now, when, if history repeats itself, the two teams meet again.

Yes, your trusty wanna-be sports blogger will be attending the Visa U.S. Championships for women’s gymnastics this week at Agganis Arena in Boston, MA. This is the closest I have ever gotten to attending anything having to do with the Olympics, as this event is the first part of the three-prong Olympic team selection process for the women’s gymnastics team. I am not an official media member, so there will be no fancy live-blogging. But I will be taking notes and blogging after the junior preliminary round and the senior preliminary round on Thursday. Will I give you all the skill by skill breakdown? No, I think International Gymnast does a great job of that. But who else can comment on leotard colors (please, I hope no one breaks out lime green) and any standouts like when I picked out “Scrunchie Girl” (later World Champion Chellsie Memmel) during the 1999 U.S. Classic Child Elite competition. Take note, Junior competitors – if I find a reason to anoint you with a nickname during the competition, then this means only good things for your competitive future.

So I hope that you check back on Thursday for my blog entries about the Visa Championships! I promise to consume enough caffeine that day to finish them all!