gymdork hearts team USA

Day 1 of USA Gymnastics Women's Olympic Team Trials is Friday at 7. It's an interesting group of competitors - am especially interested in Ivana Hong (this Olympiad's Amy Chow?), Corrie Lothrop (fellow adoptee), Shawn Johnson (writer) and of course Nastia Liukin (DOMINANT FORCE - don't pull a Kim Zmeskal, now). This is the first occasion I have ever seriously wished for TiVo - I will miss Day 1 because we have a graduation dinner to attend, and a buffet featuring crab legs family gatherings trump Olympic Trials.

I still remember the edgy excitement of seeing my first actual live gymnastics competition (one I wasn't in, thank you, I would like to wipe all of those falls off the beam from my memory.) I think it was the 2005 Pacific Alliance Invitational, and I remember feeling like an exhilarated kid on a really awesome field trip. From my first cartwheel (learned in a preschool hula class, of all places), to my last high school meet, I've been in love with artistic gymnastics, but I stopped following closely after the Magnificent 7 showed everyone how it was done in Atlanta, '96. I only loosely followed Sydney and Athens. At the PAI event, I was totally out of the loop and found most of the names remotely familiar at best. Still, it was a crazy rush. All events going on at the same time, no cameraman or TV station to decide which events you get to watch (therefore I completely blocked out men's rings and pommel horse). Chaos, but not quite pandemonium. I loved it.

If I can't find someone with a working VCR, I guess I'm going to have to watch the Trials on YouTube.

Before I head off, here's my FAVORITE floor ex of all time: Chusovitina at the 1991 Worlds. Yep, an oldie, but a definite goody.