After reading a detailed and insightful post (see below) raving for Alicia Sacramone (What’s not to love? She’s wonderful!) I’ve subscribed to the GymBlog: “News and analysis of men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics”.
But it’s Sacramone who is being widely touted as the force behind the U.S.’s recapturing the world team title, which it wrought back from a young Chinese team 184.4-183.45. The Chinese women won its first world team championship in 2006 over a seemingly stupified group of Americans, who won it from an equally stunned group of Romanians back in 2003.
At this world championships, Romania displayed its usual consistency to take a distant third with 178.1. The surprise exception to all that consistency came from all-around leader Steliana Nistor, who reportedly fell on balance beam (14.8) and had severe problems on floor exercise (13.95, the second-lowest Romanian score of the day).
Back to the real story here. As a gymnast, Sacramone falls somewhere between graceful Liukin and powerful Johnson. Her tumbling is on par with Johnson’s, but she moves far more fluidly than the short, muscular 15-year-old from Iowa and has enough sass to ignite a building with a single look.
Sacramone, like Svetlana Khorkina, doesn’t just do a floor routine — she performs. But for the first time at a world championships, she showed the steadiness of a team leader. She nailed balance beam on both days, fighting not to give small tenths away with wobbles (her front pike mount on day one could have been a much bigger problem than she let it be) and being first in line to cheer and congratulate her teammates.
This is pretty typical Alicia Sacramone, actually. The difference is that this is arguably the biggest competiton before next summer’s Olympic Games, and she remained rock solid while everyone else was a little, well, rocky. …
Here’s the Floor routine that sealed the deal, securing the win for the USA in Team competition.
Click PLAY or watch Alicia rock her Floor routine in Team Finals on YouTube.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 