I have the greatest respect for the men’s gymnastics selection committee and am very confident they did the best job they could.
But 11hrs of deliberation means the decisions were not unanimous:
… The three alternates are Raj Bhavsar – who missed automatically qualifying on Saturday by 0.09 of a point – Alexander Artemev, and New Jersey’s David Durante.
Sean Golden, the Camden resident who competed in only three events but totaled the highest scores in two of them Saturday, missed out.
“I was disappointed, but it was what it was,” said Golden. “In a way [performing so well on Saturday] made it easier because I knew I competed as hard as a I could. I have full condfidence that the selection committee picked the best team they possibly could.”
…
“Paul’s hand is still up in the air,” said Bhavsar, who also was an alternate in 2004 and who likely would replace Hamm should America’s top male gymnast be unable to go. “My job is to stay ready.”
Perhaps the most surprising choice was Morgan Hamm. Since tearing a pectoral muscle several months ago, he hasn’t fully regained his form. On Saturday, he was subpar in everything but the high bar.
What saved Morgan Hamm, officials hinted, was his skill on the pommel horse, the Americans’ weakest event.
“I’ll probably be spending twice as much time on that now,” Morgan Hamm said. …
U.S. Men’s Gymnastics team named – Philadelphia Inquirer
Click PLAY or watch Morgan’s Day 1 Pommel Horse routine on YouTube.
Solid. But not brilliant.
Morgan is the weak link on the A Team right now.
4 comments ↓
As shown on gymblog, this team is not the optimal one. Replacing Spring with Sasha gives us almost 4 tenths improvement, even WITH Sasha’s misses. There may be even better teams than that. This thing really is a tricky puzzle. However, we can say for sure (if you like my math and I do) that this team is not optimal.
WRT Golden, I’m going to do a substitution analysis for him.
http://gymblog.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/us-mens-team-is/#comments (disregard the first post)
Morgan and Paul together are very popular and always have been, but I’ve always thought Morgan has been one step back, maybe a half step. Living in the shadow n’ all. I think there is something to this during the selection. We’ll have to see.
I liked the idea of making Morgan an alternate if he did not justify his pick otherwise. So he could still support Paul. However, my (very limited) calcs of alternate teams is not showing that Morgan should be left behind. Even averaging all his spotty performances and saying that’s what you’ll get, he still benefits the team on PH and on HB significantly, basically 0.4 better than the next guy on the team for each of those events.
I feel bad for Raj. Poor guy always does well all around, but gets screwed when it matters to him most.
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