The Olympic Trials will be simulstreamed on NBCOlympics.com, beginning with live coverage of the men’s second day on the afternoon of Saturday, June 21 (4:30p) and continuing the women’s first day (8p). The women’s second day will be live on Sunday, June 22 (7p), all times ET. The competitions will be archived in their entirety on NBCOlympics.com so fans can re-watch the action online, and video clips will be posted of top competitors.
I assume those videos will be available only to fans in the U.S.A.
The rest of the world — including me in Canada — will have to wait for the highlight routines to make their way to YouTube and other video sharing sites.
Much as I am irked with NBC over this restriction and their lousy website video interface, their article previewing trials is a quality overview of the meet coming up:
For Johnson and Liukin, it’s going to come down to execution
As far as the Olympics are concerned, placement isn’t so important for this pair. Barring a disaster, they’ll be the top two finishers at Trials. And, like Nationals, Trials could serve as a preview of the women’s all-around final in Beijing. They could finish in either order.
Clearly two of the top (if not the top two) gymnasts in the world, Liukin and Johnson impress in distinctly different ways: Johnson with big skills, including her two and a half-twisting Yurchenko vault, and Liukin with an intricate pirouetting sequence ending in a release move on uneven bars.
It’s those events, uneven bars and vault, where each has a distinct advantage over the other, but their total difficulty scores (what their routines are worth) are almost equal.
A breakdown of their difficulty scores:
read the entire article – NBC Olympics
Shawn should have the better B-scores. And will win IF they both hit.
original photo – Getty
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