Gymnastics Coaching.com

International Gymnast is reporting that:

… 2005 world champion Hiroyuki Tomita will replace one of his teammates to compete in the all-around final in Beijing, Japanese head coach Koji Gushiken said. …

Koki Sakamoto who qualified 5th AA will be replaced by Tomita who finished 6th. (Tomita fell on Vault.)

But is this “right”?

Fair?

How does Sakamoto feel about it?

… My personal opinion is that it is fair. It is right. It is ethical.

Coaches in sport are responsible to put up the best players at game time. Not easy, sure. But that is the coach’s job.

In the past the replaced athlete was required to announce they were “injured”. That deception always bothered me. I assume coaches no longer have to live that lie.

And I’m looking forward to Tomita challenging for an AA medal!

I feel Andrew Thornton is the top “pundit” when it comes to International Gymnastics.

Here are his predictions posted after the preliminary competitions:

Click through to Gymnast.com to read his rationale.

Not a lot of surprises here. After prelims, more are predicting Nastia Liukin will will the AA. I’m still calling Shawn Johnson. But it will be closer than I expected. Nastia is doing much better on Floor and Vault than I expected.

Andrew is calling the USA to be victorious over China in the pressure packed Team competition. Despite the injury to Peszek.

I agree.

… Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs was good yesterday, good enough to qualify for the all-around final in 14th position and a shot at Canada’s best ever result in the event.

But her ultimate goal had been to reach the podium on the balance beam, the event in which she became the first Canadian woman ever to win a world championship medal. She had trouble on her mount and on her planned three-move sequence – where she’s supposed to do an aerial, layout, layout – she stopped after the second trick because she could feel she was about to fall.

It comes down to the finest detail at this level, and on this day, Hopfner-Hibbs was missing some key elements and ranked 20th on the beam – only the top eight advance.

“It was a good day, but it wasn’t her best and it wasn’t good enough,” said Orchard, her long-time coach.

“That was painful. She certainly is beautiful in that event. All the judges said she was so unique, really classy. I’m very proud of her.”

Uneven day for Canadian gymnastics dynamo – The Star

Elyse goes to UCLA after the Games. Coach Carol-Angela Orchard is getting married.

Congratulations to both for all the many good years on the Canadian National Team.

One of the best decisions ever made by F.I.G. was to go to the sudden victory, 3-up, 3-count Team Final format. Talk about thrilling!

The Women’s showdown between China and the USA will be awesome. But I’m looking forward even more to the Men’s Team Final. With the guys, anything can happen.

Jonathan Horton will have a busy day today in the Men’s Team Finals. He will be competing in every event except for pommel horse. Here is the lineup:

* Floor: Justin Spring, Joey Hagerty, Jonathan Horton
* Pommel horse: Kevin Tan, Raj Bhavsar, Sasha Artemev
* Rings: Raj Bhavsar, Jonathan Horton, Kevin Tan
* Vault: Raj Bhavsar, Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring
* Parallel bars: Raj Bhavsar, Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring
* High bar: Joey Hagerty, Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring

read more – Stick It Media

more excellent Jon Horton photos on NBCOlympics

Congratulations to coach Paul Hall and everyone in the U.K.

… Louis Smith, 19, and Daniel Keating, only 17 and the youngest male gymnast in Beijing, brought Britain into the men’s gymnastic finals for the first time since 1920. This is all the more remarkable for their ages; Keating still competes in junior competitions back home. Both young men were being groomed for the home games in 2012, but impressive results at last year’s Worlds helped to fast-track them to Beijing.

Smith qualified to be in the pommel horse finals, finishing fifth in that event. Keating not only squeezed into the all-around competition as 24th of 24 qualifying men, but made the finals for pommel horse as well.

Stick It Media

That’s going to be the most exciting Final, I expect. Along with Vault.

We lost the “perfect 10” because the Men’s judges in Athens 2004 bungled that competition in front of a worldwide audience of millions.

But is this NEW scoring system working?

NBC commentator Tim Daggett doesn’t think so:

… Daggett felt compelled to go on the air with this statement on NBC that he feels there is something amiss with the way the men’s routines are being judged in Beijing. He appears to be saying that each routine is not only evaluated by judges on the floor but that behind the scenes, judges are in front of screens possibly watching slow motion playbacks of each routine. He is intimating that there is too much micromanaging of the scoring from the top down, and that for the sake of athletes who trained their whole lives for this moment, this changing rules in the middle of competition has to stop.

We await more news on why the judging in Beijing has provoked this kind of serious critique after only one day of gymnastic competition.

Tim Daggett Questions Fairness of New Olympic Judging – Stick It Media

See the Daggett interview for yourself on NBC video.

I’ve not spoken with any of the Olympic judges yet. But it sounds really, really bad.

The Canadian coaches were furious about the judging. Rings Supervisor Alvaro Carvalho de Sousa was even called out. Accused of manipulating the scoring to eliminate the Canadians in the Team competition.

And is the women’s judging any better?

Bela Karolyi ranted on NBC that Shawn Johnson was scored 8.8 on Beam in prelims by one B-panel judge. Did you see that routine? Where are those deductions?

That’s an impossible score.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this code. The B-panel judges are not getting it right. They are too severe on the best routines. Too lenient on the worst routines. Playing it “safe” in order not to be too far out of range.

UPDATE: Read the comments. Very interesting. Many disagree with me.

Mais oui.

Michael Phelps celebrates after the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team won the gold medal, breaking the world record with a time of 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds. Phelps’ teammate Jason Lezak came from behind in the anchor leg, catching France’s Alain Bernard to win by eight-hundredths of a second. Before the race Bernard had said that France would “smash” the Americans. (Getty Images / August 11, 2008)

Phelps won his second Gold medal with this world record. This astonishing race was the biggest highlight of the Olympics so far for me, after the Opening Ceremony.

Hey, Alain Bernard. Learn the golden rule of sport. Do not motivate your competition by talking trash about them.

Rawles posted a full list with commentary:

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)

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 [w/ fall]
6) He Kexin (China) 15.725 [w/ fall]
7) Daria Zgoba (Ukraine) 15.675
8) Beth Tweddle (Great Britain) 15.650 [w/ 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

Two-Per-Country Victims (Balance Beam)

4) Alicia Sacramone (USA) 15.950
8) 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

FINALS BERTH TOTALS BY 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

AND Nastia Liukin and Anna Pavlova are tied with the most finals berths (5) of any individual gymnast. Pavlova having qualified to every final but bars and Nastia having qualified to every final but vault.

read more from – Rawles

The final is a completely different ball game.

Commenter TCO and Andrew Thornton on Gymnast.com have both calculated the Finals Team Score based on the Preliminary performances:

read more – Meet Analysis – Women’s Team Prelims – Gymnast.com

The medal winning teams almost certainly are Russia (Bronze), USA and China fighting it out for the Gold.

I’m still confident the Americans will win. Though I have to praise China. Their less experienced team looked very relaxed in Prelims. And I was impressed they were using “visualization” prior to routines.

It’s going to be exciting.

USA Athletes Qualifying to Finals:

* All-Around: Shawn Johnson & Nastia Liukin
* Vault: Alicia Sacramone
* Uneven Bars: Nastia Liukin
* Balance Beam: Shawn Johnson & Nastia Liukin
* Floor Exercise: Shawn Johnson & Nastia Liukin

Shame Shawn did not do a second vault. She would have a good chance to medal if she had one.

(via Steve McCain on Gymnast.com)