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nebroadwe(You can find reports of Day One here, Day Two here, and Day Three here.)
I greeted the last day of the trials with a mixture of regret and relief -- regret for it being almost over and relief for same. It felt as if I spent a lot of time just trekking back and forth (I allowed two hours for each one-way trip -- usually it only took an hour, but the day I made all my connections late it lasted an hour-and-a-half, ugh) and when I wasn't at the arena or asleep I was visiting with friends -- eating dinner or dim sum, strolling around the city, or just yakking till late into the evening. Enjoyable, but exhausting. Happily, I found a spot in my old parking lot and zipped down to the subway with nary a hitch in the proceedings. In the southbound car with me this time were a man and a young woman off on a father-daughter sports-bonding event, she leaning against him and he with the tickets peeking out of his breast pocket. Behind us sat a group of coaches spinning conspiracy theories. "They make their own rules," one declared. "I know that for a fact." Another complained about how his proteges were treated in competition: "They came over to the bars and stood there watching our girls with their arms crossed." The scourge of organizations everywhere: They, with a capital THORN.
The souvenir stands seemed to be closed today -- probably sold out -- but the programs were still available ... and still $10. I still gave it a miss. I also gave the last day of the fan festival a miss; I just wasn't up to coping with the crowds. It was difficult enough maneuvering over to my section through all the families attempting to keep together and the clubs hopping about with enthusiasm or texting their friends or the random aggregates of people attempting to reach the head of the food line (or the one for the bathroom). Plenty of folk seemed to be having their dinner at the venue, so that a mixed salt-sweet smell got my salivary glands activated in spite of everything I could do. I ate one of my snacks and tried to ignore the siren scents of popcorn and ice cream and hot dogs and lemonade. I distracted myself by noting that I wasn't the only one keeping records in my section today, though I was the only one doing it manually on anything but a scorecard: two people in the rows below me had laptops out and connected to the local network. No wonder I don't get mistaken for a reporter anymore.
I missed beam practice almost completely again, but caught the end of the floor exercise warm-ups as I settled into my seat. One coach pulled a mat across the corner for her student to land upon; afterward the student had to drag it out of the way of the next gymnast. Soon afterward everyone gravitated over to the vault and the uneven bars, leaving a lone, track-suited gymnast to practice a beam move over and over along one of the white lines laid down across the floor. Another, in purple sparkles, hopped on one foot the width of the podium and back. Blaine Wilson's fangirls cheered him when he briefly became visible. As club names were listed on the big screen and the arena was encouraged to cheer them, someone's dad or coach in the section behind me and to my left led his group in a series of war whoops. No sign of anyone cringing in embarrassment, but it was a lively crowd.
A few minutes before the competition was due to start they cleared the arena of female athletes to bring out the newly chosen men's Olympic squad: Tan, Spring, Horton, Hagerty and the Brothers Hamm, with Durante, Bhavsar and Artemev as alternates. I felt sorry for Bhavsar, twice a bridesmaid now and unlikely to be a bride given his age and skill level, but also for Golden and Tomita, my favorites from the previous night. Still, it looks like a strong team, as long as everybody gets and stays healthy. Then the lights went down and a woman from Cirque du Soleil came out to do a hoop routine involving the kind of flexibility that makes my joints ache in sympathy. People took flash pictures the entire time. Sometimes I despair of my species. Once again the female gymnasts were introduced to the theme from Shrek (?!), with enormous ovations for Johnson, Liukin, Memmel and Sacramone. The blind singer having performed the anthem, we were off!
Tonight's crowd was probably the biggest of the four days and featured an enormous number of people carrying signs. An American flag emblazoned with the legend "We Love Randy Stageberg!" that took four people to wrangle got immediate play on the big screen, as did the Liukin supporters waving her image on the free, Visa-sponsored poster all around me. One of the Steadicam guys was pretty much parked in my section for the entire evening -- I regretted not having brought my own "Hi, Mom!" sign. A group with an equally banal "Show us on camera!" poster got their wish, after all (as did the grammatically-challenged "Your #1!"). MC Macready saved his best schtick for the last day. In the warm-up period midway through the first rotation, he brought two little girls over to the empty beam podium and showed them how to do it -- complete with an exaggerated pratfall that left him clinging to the beam halfway across. Then he let them walk across and jump down to salute; I noted that "little girl #1 is quite professional about it, smile and proper hand position and all." Before the second rotation, he was up in nosebleed, trying to convince us that those were the best seats in the house (nuh-uh) and paradoxically giving away tickets to a pair of seats downstairs. He quizzed a mother-daughter team about the names of the women on the 2003 national team, just inducted into the USAG Hall of Fame -- the entire arena helped them out (I remembered only Chellsie Memmel and Terin Humphrey ... hey, 2003 was a long time ago in dog years!). Later he had three more little girls show us their salutes in exchange for T-shirts -- they were a bit dubious about it, but got more into the spirit of the thing when he asked them to add tears. Macready's coup, however, was bringing two blindfolded small children (whom he claimed had been badgering him for the entire competition to get them on television) up to the box containing the men's squad and then doing a big reveal. You never saw two more cutely overwhelmed young'uns in your life. They were sufficiently blown away that they couldn't name Paul Hamm, sitting to their left, but rose to the challenge to just about remember that the gentleman to their right was, "Mister ... Mister ... Spring?" They relaxed on being high-fived by all the men, who played along charmingly.
Down where the actual competition was being held, Shawn Johnson was pick of the night pretty much from the get-go -- and my ears will never be the same again. A particularly piercing "C'MON, SHAWN!"er was located right behind me, just a few cycles below dog-whistle territory. Johnson's vault was among the more difficult ones attempted and scored well; her uneven bars routine had, I noted, "just a wee step back" and gave her her lowest score of the evening, a 15.7. When that's your low mark, you're doing pretty well. I caught Bela Karolyi up in the NBC box watching Johnson's beam routine intently, passing an approving comment to the man standing next to him and clapping occasionally; when she finished cleanly, he gave her two thumbs up. In the last rotation Johnson was preceded on floor by the very popular Sacramone, who was encouraged from all over the arena as she took her opening position and was on form throughout, receiving two thumbs up herself from Karolyi and some gestures that might have meant "We need that" from his wife. Nothing daunted, Johnson did some walking on her hands while she waited in the well, and came up onto the podium to the kind of cheer that made me write, "Ow, my ears!" She got a pair of thumbs up from Bela Karolyi for her first pass and another for the conclusion of her routine, with huge applause; Bela also leaned over to say something to Martha Karolyi that made her stop applauding and cover her mouth in the universal sign for, "I can't believe you just said that!" I wonder what he said ...
Liukin, finishing second overall, unfortunately had the draw against her, so that she started on her strongest events and finished on her weakest. Her gigantic bar routine came in the first rotation, and after the enormous cheer that greeted her, it was so quiet in the arena that you could literally hear a soda can drop. Unfortunately, she had two major breaks, hanging herself up on the low bar and losing momentum as she swung to a handstand over the high bar, but she still broke 16 because of the enormous difficulty built into the routine and the quality she brought to the elements she did complete. In the next rotation she had a long wait before she was able to mount the beam, possibly due to a delay in scoring her predecessor Hong (who overrotated her dismount and somersaulted backward to the edge of the mat, oog) or possibly because we were in a commercial break, NBC having picked us up live by that point. When she finally got going, however, she looked assured, taking even her pirouette slowly and only fighting for balance on one of her leaps, when her feet didn't land square. She looked relieved to be done, I thought, though. Beam really is one of the scarier of the women's events -- fortunately, nobody had the kind of problem that Courtney did on the first night, muffing her mount so as to run head-first into the beam. (When she did the trick properly this evening, I saw that it was intended to be a no-hands flip into a horizontal position on the small of her back -- eep! She was a little windmilly throughout but hung on and left the podium just breathing hard, which seemed a reasonable reaction.) Liukin's turn on floor followed Johnson's well-received performance on the beam; unfortunately, she stepped out, one of the few flaws in an otherwise nicely executed routine. Karolyi clapped for her, but offered his companion a "well, that was okay" expression. Her turn on vault followed Johnson's stellar floor exercise -- my eardrums vibrated with all the applause, but in the event she had her lowest score of the night, not even breaking 15. I noted that everyone needs to work on their vault landings; I'm not sure I saw a stick the entire evening.
The rotation assignments definitely favored Memmel, on the other hand, who began on vault, her weakest event; she almost sat her landing down, but managed to avoid a deduction. (I noticed more contrast among vault approaches tonight for some reason -- for example, Larsen began hers with a little skip, while Stageberg practically backed off the runway to take her start. For another oddity, Sacramone was the only woman in the entire trials to do a second vault -- she completed the first with a single step back, shrugged at her coach in a "Yeah, okay" way, and received a 16. Then she did it again and landed with the same step back for a slightly lower score. I'm not sure what that was about; sadly, it didn't make the t.v. broadcast.) On bars, I noted that Memmel "needs a good score and if cheers alone can give it to her, she'd have it." A group across the arena from me was lauding her every element with loud squees of approval and she did score well: 16.4. In the next rotation she took to the beam, looking very solid and getting nice height on her leaps. She seemed to pause before her big tricks to think hard about them, but landed both with only a bit of wobble and stuck the landing of her dismount to leave the podium one happy competitor. "Chell-sie rocks!" cheered her supporters. "Chell-sie rocks!" The luck of the draw had her close out the competiton on floor, where she had the audience in her pocket (or would have, if leotards had pockets). Everyone clapped along with her music -- even me! -- cheered her every move, and gave her the kind of standing ovation that raises the roof a few inches. Bela Karolyi not only offered her two thumbs up, but slapped a nearby NBC technician on the back for good measure. What a comeback, eh? I was so pleased to be there to see it.
The arena was briefly cleared of athletes before a lengthy closing ceremony got underway, featuring the head of the USAG giving a speech of minimal interest about how wonderful everyone and everything had been; the presentation of the most recent class inducted into the USAG Hall of Fame; and, at last, the re-introduction of the men's Olympic training squad and the introduction of the women's: Bieger, Davis, Hong, Johnson, Larson, Liukin, Lothrop, Memmel, Peszek, Sacramone, Sloan and Worley. My ears were ringing by that point; I gave up taking notes tried to protect my poor cochleae with my hands. Masses of red, white and blue confetti were shot out of cannons at the corners of the arena, filling the chalk bowls while Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." blared from the speakers (inappropriately, in the case of Liukin -- but again, I seem to be the only person in the world who cares about these things). The gymnasts disappeared from view briefly in the blizzard and I took my fingers out of my ears long enough to note that I wouldn't want to be the one of the janitors cleaning up afterward. The athletes, emerging eventually from the fog, huddled up to cheer and break, then were chivvied into a formal group for photographs.
At that point it was all over bar some residual shouting from the terminally enthusiastic, so I left, having thoroughly enjoyed myself. On the way back through the parking lot, I heard one middle-aged woman ask another, "Wasn't that great?!" Yes, it was, sister. Yes, it was.
I greeted the last day of the trials with a mixture of regret and relief -- regret for it being almost over and relief for same. It felt as if I spent a lot of time just trekking back and forth (I allowed two hours for each one-way trip -- usually it only took an hour, but the day I made all my connections late it lasted an hour-and-a-half, ugh) and when I wasn't at the arena or asleep I was visiting with friends -- eating dinner or dim sum, strolling around the city, or just yakking till late into the evening. Enjoyable, but exhausting. Happily, I found a spot in my old parking lot and zipped down to the subway with nary a hitch in the proceedings. In the southbound car with me this time were a man and a young woman off on a father-daughter sports-bonding event, she leaning against him and he with the tickets peeking out of his breast pocket. Behind us sat a group of coaches spinning conspiracy theories. "They make their own rules," one declared. "I know that for a fact." Another complained about how his proteges were treated in competition: "They came over to the bars and stood there watching our girls with their arms crossed." The scourge of organizations everywhere: They, with a capital THORN.
The souvenir stands seemed to be closed today -- probably sold out -- but the programs were still available ... and still $10. I still gave it a miss. I also gave the last day of the fan festival a miss; I just wasn't up to coping with the crowds. It was difficult enough maneuvering over to my section through all the families attempting to keep together and the clubs hopping about with enthusiasm or texting their friends or the random aggregates of people attempting to reach the head of the food line (or the one for the bathroom). Plenty of folk seemed to be having their dinner at the venue, so that a mixed salt-sweet smell got my salivary glands activated in spite of everything I could do. I ate one of my snacks and tried to ignore the siren scents of popcorn and ice cream and hot dogs and lemonade. I distracted myself by noting that I wasn't the only one keeping records in my section today, though I was the only one doing it manually on anything but a scorecard: two people in the rows below me had laptops out and connected to the local network. No wonder I don't get mistaken for a reporter anymore.
I missed beam practice almost completely again, but caught the end of the floor exercise warm-ups as I settled into my seat. One coach pulled a mat across the corner for her student to land upon; afterward the student had to drag it out of the way of the next gymnast. Soon afterward everyone gravitated over to the vault and the uneven bars, leaving a lone, track-suited gymnast to practice a beam move over and over along one of the white lines laid down across the floor. Another, in purple sparkles, hopped on one foot the width of the podium and back. Blaine Wilson's fangirls cheered him when he briefly became visible. As club names were listed on the big screen and the arena was encouraged to cheer them, someone's dad or coach in the section behind me and to my left led his group in a series of war whoops. No sign of anyone cringing in embarrassment, but it was a lively crowd.
A few minutes before the competition was due to start they cleared the arena of female athletes to bring out the newly chosen men's Olympic squad: Tan, Spring, Horton, Hagerty and the Brothers Hamm, with Durante, Bhavsar and Artemev as alternates. I felt sorry for Bhavsar, twice a bridesmaid now and unlikely to be a bride given his age and skill level, but also for Golden and Tomita, my favorites from the previous night. Still, it looks like a strong team, as long as everybody gets and stays healthy. Then the lights went down and a woman from Cirque du Soleil came out to do a hoop routine involving the kind of flexibility that makes my joints ache in sympathy. People took flash pictures the entire time. Sometimes I despair of my species. Once again the female gymnasts were introduced to the theme from Shrek (?!), with enormous ovations for Johnson, Liukin, Memmel and Sacramone. The blind singer having performed the anthem, we were off!
Tonight's crowd was probably the biggest of the four days and featured an enormous number of people carrying signs. An American flag emblazoned with the legend "We Love Randy Stageberg!" that took four people to wrangle got immediate play on the big screen, as did the Liukin supporters waving her image on the free, Visa-sponsored poster all around me. One of the Steadicam guys was pretty much parked in my section for the entire evening -- I regretted not having brought my own "Hi, Mom!" sign. A group with an equally banal "Show us on camera!" poster got their wish, after all (as did the grammatically-challenged "Your #1!"). MC Macready saved his best schtick for the last day. In the warm-up period midway through the first rotation, he brought two little girls over to the empty beam podium and showed them how to do it -- complete with an exaggerated pratfall that left him clinging to the beam halfway across. Then he let them walk across and jump down to salute; I noted that "little girl #1 is quite professional about it, smile and proper hand position and all." Before the second rotation, he was up in nosebleed, trying to convince us that those were the best seats in the house (nuh-uh) and paradoxically giving away tickets to a pair of seats downstairs. He quizzed a mother-daughter team about the names of the women on the 2003 national team, just inducted into the USAG Hall of Fame -- the entire arena helped them out (I remembered only Chellsie Memmel and Terin Humphrey ... hey, 2003 was a long time ago in dog years!). Later he had three more little girls show us their salutes in exchange for T-shirts -- they were a bit dubious about it, but got more into the spirit of the thing when he asked them to add tears. Macready's coup, however, was bringing two blindfolded small children (whom he claimed had been badgering him for the entire competition to get them on television) up to the box containing the men's squad and then doing a big reveal. You never saw two more cutely overwhelmed young'uns in your life. They were sufficiently blown away that they couldn't name Paul Hamm, sitting to their left, but rose to the challenge to just about remember that the gentleman to their right was, "Mister ... Mister ... Spring?" They relaxed on being high-fived by all the men, who played along charmingly.
Down where the actual competition was being held, Shawn Johnson was pick of the night pretty much from the get-go -- and my ears will never be the same again. A particularly piercing "C'MON, SHAWN!"er was located right behind me, just a few cycles below dog-whistle territory. Johnson's vault was among the more difficult ones attempted and scored well; her uneven bars routine had, I noted, "just a wee step back" and gave her her lowest score of the evening, a 15.7. When that's your low mark, you're doing pretty well. I caught Bela Karolyi up in the NBC box watching Johnson's beam routine intently, passing an approving comment to the man standing next to him and clapping occasionally; when she finished cleanly, he gave her two thumbs up. In the last rotation Johnson was preceded on floor by the very popular Sacramone, who was encouraged from all over the arena as she took her opening position and was on form throughout, receiving two thumbs up herself from Karolyi and some gestures that might have meant "We need that" from his wife. Nothing daunted, Johnson did some walking on her hands while she waited in the well, and came up onto the podium to the kind of cheer that made me write, "Ow, my ears!" She got a pair of thumbs up from Bela Karolyi for her first pass and another for the conclusion of her routine, with huge applause; Bela also leaned over to say something to Martha Karolyi that made her stop applauding and cover her mouth in the universal sign for, "I can't believe you just said that!" I wonder what he said ...
Liukin, finishing second overall, unfortunately had the draw against her, so that she started on her strongest events and finished on her weakest. Her gigantic bar routine came in the first rotation, and after the enormous cheer that greeted her, it was so quiet in the arena that you could literally hear a soda can drop. Unfortunately, she had two major breaks, hanging herself up on the low bar and losing momentum as she swung to a handstand over the high bar, but she still broke 16 because of the enormous difficulty built into the routine and the quality she brought to the elements she did complete. In the next rotation she had a long wait before she was able to mount the beam, possibly due to a delay in scoring her predecessor Hong (who overrotated her dismount and somersaulted backward to the edge of the mat, oog) or possibly because we were in a commercial break, NBC having picked us up live by that point. When she finally got going, however, she looked assured, taking even her pirouette slowly and only fighting for balance on one of her leaps, when her feet didn't land square. She looked relieved to be done, I thought, though. Beam really is one of the scarier of the women's events -- fortunately, nobody had the kind of problem that Courtney did on the first night, muffing her mount so as to run head-first into the beam. (When she did the trick properly this evening, I saw that it was intended to be a no-hands flip into a horizontal position on the small of her back -- eep! She was a little windmilly throughout but hung on and left the podium just breathing hard, which seemed a reasonable reaction.) Liukin's turn on floor followed Johnson's well-received performance on the beam; unfortunately, she stepped out, one of the few flaws in an otherwise nicely executed routine. Karolyi clapped for her, but offered his companion a "well, that was okay" expression. Her turn on vault followed Johnson's stellar floor exercise -- my eardrums vibrated with all the applause, but in the event she had her lowest score of the night, not even breaking 15. I noted that everyone needs to work on their vault landings; I'm not sure I saw a stick the entire evening.
The rotation assignments definitely favored Memmel, on the other hand, who began on vault, her weakest event; she almost sat her landing down, but managed to avoid a deduction. (I noticed more contrast among vault approaches tonight for some reason -- for example, Larsen began hers with a little skip, while Stageberg practically backed off the runway to take her start. For another oddity, Sacramone was the only woman in the entire trials to do a second vault -- she completed the first with a single step back, shrugged at her coach in a "Yeah, okay" way, and received a 16. Then she did it again and landed with the same step back for a slightly lower score. I'm not sure what that was about; sadly, it didn't make the t.v. broadcast.) On bars, I noted that Memmel "needs a good score and if cheers alone can give it to her, she'd have it." A group across the arena from me was lauding her every element with loud squees of approval and she did score well: 16.4. In the next rotation she took to the beam, looking very solid and getting nice height on her leaps. She seemed to pause before her big tricks to think hard about them, but landed both with only a bit of wobble and stuck the landing of her dismount to leave the podium one happy competitor. "Chell-sie rocks!" cheered her supporters. "Chell-sie rocks!" The luck of the draw had her close out the competiton on floor, where she had the audience in her pocket (or would have, if leotards had pockets). Everyone clapped along with her music -- even me! -- cheered her every move, and gave her the kind of standing ovation that raises the roof a few inches. Bela Karolyi not only offered her two thumbs up, but slapped a nearby NBC technician on the back for good measure. What a comeback, eh? I was so pleased to be there to see it.
The arena was briefly cleared of athletes before a lengthy closing ceremony got underway, featuring the head of the USAG giving a speech of minimal interest about how wonderful everyone and everything had been; the presentation of the most recent class inducted into the USAG Hall of Fame; and, at last, the re-introduction of the men's Olympic training squad and the introduction of the women's: Bieger, Davis, Hong, Johnson, Larson, Liukin, Lothrop, Memmel, Peszek, Sacramone, Sloan and Worley. My ears were ringing by that point; I gave up taking notes tried to protect my poor cochleae with my hands. Masses of red, white and blue confetti were shot out of cannons at the corners of the arena, filling the chalk bowls while Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." blared from the speakers (inappropriately, in the case of Liukin -- but again, I seem to be the only person in the world who cares about these things). The gymnasts disappeared from view briefly in the blizzard and I took my fingers out of my ears long enough to note that I wouldn't want to be the one of the janitors cleaning up afterward. The athletes, emerging eventually from the fog, huddled up to cheer and break, then were chivvied into a formal group for photographs.
At that point it was all over bar some residual shouting from the terminally enthusiastic, so I left, having thoroughly enjoyed myself. On the way back through the parking lot, I heard one middle-aged woman ask another, "Wasn't that great?!" Yes, it was, sister. Yes, it was.