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IN THE NEWS
In the news, Uncle Tim, Spencer, and Jessica chat about:
- Please take this super short survey. It helps our podcast host find advertisers to fit your every desire.
- How to watch live on BBC, CBC or NBC (details here).
- Each team’s performances discussed in depth from elated medalists champions Japan, Russia to defeated suicide squad, China.
- Vault judges huge error/cheating 8.7 E score for Chopin. Are they cursed because they switched from Li Ning appare?
- Great Britan: even if Louis hadn’t fallen on pommel horse it would have been close but they would have lost to China even if he had stayed on. They lost the bronze by 1.37 deficit. Every deduction counts. This wasn’t a single gymnasts fault.
- Team USA does the usual Team USA with three major errors.
- Team Brazil performed great but didn’t have the scoring potential to medal and seemed defeated after Sasaki’s knee issues after high bar.
- Germany did great only .062 lower than their prelims score, even without Toba
- Ukraine gave us a collective WTF when they failed to compete 3 people on each event, even though they had four team members capable for doing all-around? We discuss their explanation which left us scratching our heads, possible conspiracy and revenge theories.
- What won today, a huge D (difficulty score) or a sexy, slick E (execution score)?
- China had the highest average D score CHN – 6.622 but Olympic Team Champions Japan had the highest average execution scores: JPN: 8.633
- Worst moment: Al Trautwig tweets about Simone’s biological grandparents who adopted her when she was a toddler,”They may be mom and dad, but they are NOT her parents.”
GYMTERNET NEWS
Round-up of the latest news from Rio includes-
- Women’s prelims follow up – Gabby vs. Aly, what Mihai and Raisman did right where Gabby and Buckeye faltered.
- Brazilian gymternet rumors Flavia will be Galieva’d in all-around finals
- Al Trautwig in trouble with NBC for his anti-adoption comments with a side of veiled racism. Read details here
- NBC has streaming covering and a daily online gymnastics recap show called the Daily Dismount. We are obsessed with how good they are! Jim Watson, Courtney Kupets and Jonathan Horton #Jhortney 4 eva!
Statement from Oleg Verniaiev re Ukranian gymnastics team not fielding a full team during Team Finals.
CONTEST: A winner every other podcast in August!
What: The Bronze Movie Watch Party Kits (gym bag with goodies and the movie), “The End of the Perfect 10” book, a U.S. Olympic Trials T-shirt, or GRAND PRIZE*: A Bronze Movie gym bag filled with real props used in the film and a one-of-a-kind Aliya Mustafina, handmade cross-stitch by Spanny Tampson.
How: Tweet, Instagram, Voicemail or Tumblr tag us and use the hashtag #BronzeContest to tell us which retired gymnast you would want to coach you, The Bronze style, to Olympic glory and why?
Winners Announced: On every other podcast for the entire month of August! Starting with the women’s podium training podcast.
Grand Prize Deadline: August 21st at midnight. Open to Club Gym Nerd members only*
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RELATED EPISODES
Rio Olympic Games
- 212: Rio WAG Olympic Prelims
- 211: Rio Men’s Olympic Prelims & Houry Gebeshian Interview
- Height, Ages and Repeat U.S. Olympic Gymnasts
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- 209: Men’s Podium Training at the Rio Olympic Games
- 208: Rio Olympics Preview
- 2016 Olympic Team and Coaches
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- 161: Women’s Finals Recap with Aimee Boorman and Christian Gallardo
- Episode 77: Aly Raisman
- Episode 41: Laurie Hernandez & Coach Maggie Haney
- 151: Danell Leyva
- Episode 32: Sam Mikulak & 2013 Men’s NCAA Championships
- 2014 Winter Cup: Chris Brooks on Broken Bones, Blaniks, and Rio
- Episode 35: Jake Dalton
- 72: John Orozco
- 187: McKayla Maroney
- 206: The Russian Situation
- 201: Men’s Olympic Trials and P&G Champs Preview
- Gymbuster: Domestic vs. International Scoring
- 200: Alicia Sacramone
- 162: Wrap Up of the 2015 P&G Championships
- 160: PG Championships Women’s Prelims Recap
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- Episode 58: Charlotte Drury, Fall Euro Series & NCAA De-commits
- Episode 31: Elise Ray
- 148: Shannon Miller
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- Episode 55: Worlds Wrap Up & Ferlito-Gate
- Episode 54: Event Finals Recap from 2013 World Championships
- Episode 53: All Around Finals Recap from Antwerp World Championships
- Episode 52: Triumph & Heartbreak Prelims Recap from Antwerp Worlds
- 114: Fallout From Gymnastike’s Handling of Maroney Hack & Tumble Episodes 3 and 4 with special guest Jenni Pinches!
- Episode 16: Elizabeth Price
- 146: Taylor Rice and The 2015 NCAA Championships
- Episode 9: Chellsie Memmel, Swiss Cup & FIG Presidential Proposals
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MORE WAYS TO LISTEN
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Please do at least half an episode on just the men\’s program detailing, in your opinions, exactly what they need to do to stop the asshatery which is their inconsistency. So much talent but can\’t seem to put it together when it counts. After the success of the women\’s program, why haven\’t the men adopted the same methods or at least the best of Martha\’s methods? Do they have an aversion to pretty medals?
Mark WIlliams said yesterday that they have thought about it but that a semi-centralized program with camps and stuff wouldn’t work because of the number of athletes doing NCAA and the fact that the coaches are also mostly working at colleges. That’s the main difference between the US and other top countries. The talent is clearly there – but the consistency isn’t. I definitely think some things will have to change after these Games though.
I agree with you all about Gabby (and I’m the biggest Gabby fan). Something was off the past 2 years. I kept expecting upgrades (because this is what she said after Worlds), and they never came. Other gymnasts were clearly getting better (i.e. Aly) and Gabby remained the same since 2012 in terms of difficulty and execution. If she had of upgraded at least one of her floor passes and gotten her Amanar back, I think she would have made it interesting in the AA (in terms of qualification with Aly). Her camp did just enough for her to make the team but not enough to defend her title. This broke my heart because she had so much potential after London. Chow clearly made her a better gymnast and Buckeye did not.
The NCAA and USAG have to come together and realize that the NCAA (although producing some of our best gymnasts) isin\’t helping produce our best Olympic gymnasts. Most guys come out of the NCAA and have not trained on all 6 events at a level that is needed for Olympic expecations.
We need (imo) a system very close to what the girls do…. with some exceptions. Guys should have incentive to bypass college for the Olympic experience. They should be paid to go from high school to the OTC and should be held accountable for performance, and medals. In Colorado, there is college education that can be had while athletes are training…..
We need more training camps (more serious training camps), and MANY more competitions. We live close to Canda and Mexico (for starters.) Get the men out there, get them competiting, and while we are at it….get some event specific coaches in there!
If Steve Penny wants the men to close the gap and be as successful as the women, then the resources need to be poured into doing just that.
(And while we are at it, can get someone from the women\’s side to come in and help audit the training camps and planning? Can\’t hurt…..\”
If you’re going to pay male gymnasts to forgo NCAA and go to a men’s Olympic training centre then you have to chance the rules for NCAA women’s gymnastics — gymnasts who go pro should still be eligible to compete, either as a walk-on (if they make millions) or on scholarship or some kine of partial scholarship (if they go pro but don’t end up getting a lot – should be determined like they use a parent’s worth for scholarship money).
In an interview with Weiber she mentioned that Miss Val told her she would challenge the rules if Jordyn wanted to compete. Didn’t happen, but I’d love to see Miss Val get the rules changed so Simone Biles could compete for UCLA. If ever there was a perfect NCAA gymnast it’s Biles.
Curious about y\’all\’s thoughts on last night\’s NBC \”prime time coverage\” (if you can call it that) of the men\’s team final. I\’ve only paid attention to men\’s gymnastics for the last few Olympic cycles, but I seem to remember the team finals for both men and women being a prominently featured event regardless of the USA\’s performance and was VERY surprised when they didn\’t cover it at all until after 11:30 PM EDT. Does this mark the beginning of a new trend where gymnastics only gets air time if the USA dominates?
Still no apology about being downright crappy to Aly in previous podcast. I did appreciate the actual informative part about their routines and difficulty in this one. Much better when you don’t have biased and rude people as guest on the podcast. I surely won’t be listening anytime Stefan is on again.
I’m re-listening to all of the Olympics episodes, and the coverage of Aly is still really upsetting. I know Aly will never have the best form, but that’s actually why she’s my favorite gymnast. I love that she doesn’t have a lot of natural talent relative to other elites, but she WORKS HER ASS OFF to be one of the best in the world. How could you not admire that? Meanwhile, Gabby Douglas has tons of natural talent but simply didn’t put in the work to reach her true potential. Aly made a second Olympic team after no one had done that since 2000, is one of only three female American gymnasts to compete in two Olympic AA finals, and has the second most Olympic medals of any female American gymnast (would be tied if ties were still allowed like they were when Shannon Miller competed). She deserves so much praise! And not just, “Aly built too much of a score advantage on floor and vault for Gabby to overcome.” Actual excitement about Aly’s tremendous achievements in the sport. And she’s consistently said she wants to return for 2020, so she can build up her resume even more. Aly’s strengths on floor and vault will continue to make her a valuable asset on the team, especially since most of the current American elites are strong on bars and beam (when they hit) but relatively weak on vault and floor.
Yes, Gabby at her best could almost certainly beat Aly at her best in the AA, but that certainly didn’t happen. Aly peaked at exactly the right time and was even better the second time around. You certainly can’t say the same for Gabby. I also found Gabby’s gymnastics pretty lackluster during her entire comeback. She went from being one of my favorites in 2012 to a gymnast I really didn’t enjoy watching at all. Her only routine that was worthy of re-watching, in my opinion, was bars.