In team qualifiers China finishes first, then USA, Russia, the young team Romania (in terms of experience), and Australia, France, Brazil, Japan. Top 8 go to team finals (scores not carrying over): Love the new gymnastics coaching style of the Romanian team. 1) China 248.275 2) USA 246.800 3) Russia 244.400 4) Romania 238.425 5) Australia 235.450 6) France 233.875 7) Brazil 233.800 8) Japan 233.175 9) Great Britain 232.425 10) Italy 231.275 Australia's Daria (Dasha) Joura got an ankle injury during her floor routine, USA's Samantha Peszek got an ankle injury 20 minutes before the start of the prelims, USA's Chellsie Memmel hurt her ankle during podium training in Beijing on floor. Dasha did all 4 events for Australia, helped her team qualify for finals. Peszek did just bars, and it was already decided that her teammate Memmel would only be doing bars as well. So, for the USA it was a practice round for the team finals 3 up/3 scores count, as on floor, vault, and beam it was 4 up/4 count. - bad floor in China? more on that and Peszek's ankle injury here: http://www.gymchat.com/messageboards/showthread.php?p=78174&posted=1#post78174 The top 2 on bars - with the highest A difficulty scores - China's He Kexin and USA's Nastia Liukin make mistakes, but still respectable bars routine and score because of their high A score, and gets them in the bars final. He Kexin was too close to the low bar on her pak salto (a mistake Nastia has done before, but lands on the low bar and then goes to kip) - He Kexin slips on her right hand and falls from the bar. Nastia falls on her difficult double front salto half - she held on the rotation too long, and maybe also too long on the high bar and kind of pulled it - so close to the bar then - tried to stick the landing, but then fell on her back, clean fall. He Kexin's double release move on the high bar was awesome. The event finalists: Vault Finals 1) Cheng Fei (China) 2) Hong Un Jong (North Korea) 3) Alicia Sacaramone (USA) 4) Oksana Chusovitina (Germany) 5) Anna Pavlova (Russia) 6) Carlotta Giovannini (Italy) 7) Jade Barbosa (Brazil) 8) Ariella Kaslin (Switzerland) To qualify, gymnasts must do 2 vaults of different type, instead of the 1. Uneven Bars Finals 1) Yang Yilin (China) 16.650 2) Ksenia Semeyonova (Russia) 16.475 3) Anastassia Koval (Ukraine) 16.325 4) Steliana Nistor (Romania) 15.975 5) Nastia Liukin (USA) 15.950 (with fall) 6) He Kexin (China) 15.725 (with fall) 7) Daria Zgoba (Ukraine) 15.675 8) Beth Tweddle (Great Britain) 15.650 (with fall) Beam Finals 1) Li Shanshan (China) 16.125 2) Nastia Liukin (USA) 15.975 3) Shawn Johnson (USA) 15.975 4) Cheng Fei (China) 15.875 5) Anna Pavlova (Russia) 15.825 6) Ksenia Afanasyeva (Russia) 15.775 7) Gabriela Dragoi (Romania) 15.450 8) Koko Tsurumi (Japan) 15.425 2 per country rule, so A-Sac and Semenova are cut from beam finals: 4) Alicia Sacramone (USA) 15.950 Tie 7) Ksenia Semenova (Russia) 15.775 Floor Finals 1) Cheng Fei (China) 15.750 2) Sandra Izbasa (Romania) 15.475 3) Shawn Johnson (USA) 15.425 4) Nastia Liukin (USA) 15.350 5) Daiane Dos Santos (Brazil) 15.275 6) Ekaterina Kramarenko (Russia) 15.150 7) Anna Pavlova (Russia) 15.125 8) Jiang Yuyuan (China) 15.050 Total number of finals / country China - 10 USA - 9 Russia - 9 Romania - 6 Brazil - 5 Japan - 4 Australia - 3 France - 3 Italy - 3 Great Britain - 2 Germany - 2 Switzerland - 2 Ukraine - 2 Canada - 1 Czech Republic - 1 Belarus - 1 North Korea - 1 Nastia Liukin and Anna Pavlova qualify for every final except for vault for Nastia and bars for Pavlova

USA photos, during team qualifiers competition: Shawn Johnson doing overshoot (also called shoot over) Nastia Liukin doing her geinger release move after all those turning elements more here: http://www2.usa-gymnastics.org/events/2008/olympics/photos/Album10.htm

First Cbina's men's gymnastics team wins gold, and now China's women's gymnastics team wins gold too. Women's gymnastics team finals: 1. China 188.900 2. USA 186.525 3. Romania 181.525 Maybe this will break the media coverage of the Chinese breaking under pressure, especially in their home country...could it be easier to handle pressure at a younger age...USA Gymnastics President Steve Penny said bring it on, and they did. Not live coverage on the West coast - they should stop advertising it as that.

China's women's gymnastics team had a good A "difficulty" score - 2 points higher than USA, and win gold by 2.375 over USA. 1 fall on China's team, 2 falls on USA's team and out of bounds, and overscoring on China's beam. On the 3rd rotation on beam, China's Cheng Fei had a fall on beam (tucked full). USA's Alicia Sacramone fell on beam (piked front mount) that she was going to connect to a back tuck, and on floor (Arabian double front) - the tumbling pass she landed totally out of bounds on the team prelims. All 3 of the USA gymnasts went out of bounds on the floor team final. Alicia Sacramone did a good vault (she has event finals on vault coming up). Shawn Johnson did all 4 events, Nastia Liukin did 3, skipping vault - Bridget Sloan filling in there. He Kexin's double release move awesome again! Good job on the Chinese team beefing up their bars and vault events. Especially bars. Just the toe on low bar to high bar catch to kip is kind of muscle through - Shawn Johnson does a good one with flow. Good job on Nastia Liukin and He Kexin fixing their bars mistakes on the team final (Nastia on her bars dismount, He on her pak salto). Next for the women's gymnastics competition is the all-around - Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson will be competing that for the USA.

Martha Karolyi blames officials: http://gymchat.com/messageboards/showthread.php?t=74569 http://gymchat.com/messageboards/showthread.php?t=74655

Paul Hamm had a really really long wait before his high bar routine at the Athens 2004 Olympics - it was after the crowd's booing of the judges' scroing of Alexei Nemov's high bar routine. Paul went on to hit his high bar routine, and won the all-around. You can't control when it will be your turn to go and when the judges are ready for you, you learn that from when you compete compulsory. Alicia Sacramone was nervous and let it get to her - too much pressure. She admitted she let her nerves get to her. Anyways, there are good competition days and bad competition days. Interestingly, the NBC coverage said the bar lineup for team finals for USA was Chellsie Memmel, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, instead of Memmel second, because in qualifiers Memmel fell because she had too much time to overthink her routine, and usually she would think of her other routines, but she was only competing bars here. [QUOTE]She also discussed Sunday's qualifying, when an official on the floor spoke to Shawn Johnson as she was ready to vault: "They never should talk to the gymnast, and they are obliged to do it right."[/QUOTE] What did the official say to Shawn?

Some people forget sometimes that this is a sport. A sport with humans, not robots. Like Shawn Johnson's coach Chow said once when he was being interviewed on one of Shawn's performances (it's in one of the articles quoted on Gym Chat), Shawn isn't a robot, people make mistakes.

USA women's gymnastics team wins silver: Women

Nastia Liukin wins the AA!! She is the 2nd WOGA gymnast in a row to win the Olympic all-around title (Carly Patterson in 2004 Athens Olympics). Nastia's teammate Shawn Johnson wins the silver, and China's Yang Yilin wins the bronze. Nastia was amazing - she stuck her 1.5 yurchenko vault (where did the execution b score deductions come from?!), stuck her beam (same on the b score?!) and stuck her tumbling on floor with awesome dance and split leaps. Awesome!! Shawn had a great meet too. Great job for USA going 1-2 gold and silver. Beam scoring weird again....deductions not taken for the balance checks bobbles?! Russia's Ksenia Semenova finished 4th - she had a pretty floor routine, and a great bars routine. Her teammate Anna Pavlova had a pretty floor routine too (7th) and is a lot like Ukraine's gymnast Lilia Podkopayeva (aka Lilly Pod) in dance/style.

1 Nastia Liukin (USA) 63.325 2 Shawn Johnson (USA) 62.725 3 Yang Yilin (China) 62.650 4 Ksenia Semenova (Russia) 61.925 5 Steliana Nistor (Romania) 61.050 6 Jiang Yuyuan (China) 60.900 7 Anna Pavlova (Russia) 60.825 8 Sandra Izbasa (Romania) 60.750 9 Oksana Chusovitiba (Germany) 60.125 10 Jade Barbosa (Brazil) 59.550 11 Vanessa Ferrari (Italy) 59.450 12 Becky Downie (Great Britain) 59.450 more detailed results at: http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/CIS/GA/GAW024101.shtml#GAW024101