Athens 2004 gymnastics update

being the gymnastics fanatic that i am, here are the results thus far:

MEN"S TEAM

1. japan
2. usa
3. romania

MEN"S AA

1. paul hamm (USA
2. KOR
3. KOR (sorry cant remember the names heh)

WOMEN"S TEAM

1. romania
2. usa
3. russia

MEN"S TEAM: final part of the competition was a real nail biter. the japanese were last up and had to make sure that every one of the three men did well on the high bar - which they did, with plenty of marks to spare. all three men stuck their landing beautifully and had scores above 9.725! this must be the happiest 3 teams to medal in men's gymnastics - plenty of firsts for all 3 teams :)

MEN"S INDIVIDUAL AA: didnt catch this one cuz i woke up late =( but anyways, heard that the judging was a little biased, but Hamm was great on the high bar, doing multiple releases. high bars this year was not as exciting to watch as few men did multiple releases and the only man to do 5 releases in the qualifications was alexei nemov of russia.. most of the other men seemed to prefer pirouettes =/

WOMEN"S TEAM: exciting competition with splendid showing by the romanian team, which managed to defend the team title won in the sydney 2000 olympics even with an entirely fresh team. this certainly upset the americans who, although good, was no match for the romanians in terms of form and precision. i think mccool peaked too early for olympics, having underperformed for the preliminaries on the beam and floor. i thought her routines were lovely back during the american cup. kudos to bhardwaj, who completed her routines cleanly the entire night. the chinese performed dismally, ranking only a 5th in team competition after 2 falls on beam and uneven parallel bars.. quite disappointing to say the least. khorkina's bar routine, altho good enough for a 9.600, was far short of her best performance - hope she does better in the event finals of what will almost certainly be her last olympics. ponor of romania performed gloriously under pressure to finish off team competition and to earn a spot for herself in the apparatus finals. wished she was in the running for AA tho - she's certainly in good form... not to mention the fact that she's simply gorgeous :P