Nastia Liukin Wins Women's All Around Gymnastics Gold!

Wow, what a competition in the women's all around artistic gymnastics. So much better than figure skating where the women just fall all over the place. Everyone performed amazing and I was just covering my eyes because I couldn't bear to look. But Nastia Liukin eked out the gold ahead of her teammate Shawn Johnson and Yang Yilin took home the bronze. It was really nice to see how gracious the women were congratulating each other too.

Nastia Liukin is a 19 year old and she was just amazing with her beauty and grace. She had the classic Russian lines and no wonder as she was born in Moscow but grew up in the States. Hard to believe that some had counted her out as too old. 19 is too old? But the heir apparent who came in second place is Shawn Johnson. She's one of those American fireplugs who is reminiscent of Mary-Lou Retton. She's 16 now so maybe she's got another Olympics in her. I keep on mentioning the gymnasts age because of course there was the controversy of underaged Chinese gymnasts. Seriously, the Americans look like beautiful young women but the Chinese look like downright adolescents. Yang Yilin's passport says she's 16 but she looks more like 14. Still before everyone throws stones, I don't think this is the first instance of coverup. I'm Canadian and of course I remember the U.S. Olympic Committee coverup of Carl Lewis' three positive drug tests before Seoul... Just saying...

In any case, good competition from the ladies tonight. I look forward to the event finals if it is going to be as exciting!

Chinese Win Gold in Women's Team Gymnastic

Okay, time to give some love to the home country. The Chinese women won the team event in gymnastics in a head to head battle with the United States. It was an even battle through the first 2 rotations. The Chinese women did leave a crack in the door open on the third event, the beam. However, the Americans couldn't capitalize when one of their members, Alicia Sacramone, fell off the balance beam herself. To make matters worse, she fell again on the final floor exercise while her team mates Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson went out of bounds on their tumbling passages. There were too many mistakes and at the end, the Chinese women just needed to complete their routines with no major mistakes but they still executed them perfectly. so the gold goes to the Chinese, their first in the team event for women.