In any competition, winning the gold is the ultimate goal for all the contestants. To have the chance to say that you are "the best" at something statewide, nationwide, or worldwide is what everyone strives for. This is definitely true at the Olympics, a competition where every nation in the world is present to compete for first place in a wide myriad of events. Gymnastics just recently named their best All-Around athletes for both men and women, and it was one of the most dramatic competitions of the Olympics.
For the men, America was looking to make its comeback from their disappointing performance in the team finals. They sent their two best competitors, Danell Leyva and John Orozco, to do battle against the best gymnasts from countries like China, Russia, Japan, and Ukraine. Hopes were high. Could a gold medal be yet in the future of the United States gymnastics team? Unfortunately on the first rotations the US men were already making monumental mistakes. Orozco was unable to finish the pommel horse without separating his feet and faltering with his hand placement. Leyva also made minor mistakes and was considered out of the running due to the unbelievable performance from the Japanese and German contestants. Then, when all was thought to be lost, Leyva performed an amazing high bar and floor routine yielding a bronze medal for the American athlete. Everyone was overcome with delight. I just hope that the American gymnasts can gather themselves for the individual routines and bring home some more medals.
The women's All-Around was filled with drama from the very beginning. The group filled with the leaders and medal hopefuls, including the two Americans and two Russians, began at the vault, the American's best event. The two American gymnasts, Gabby Douglass and Aly Raisman, performed two excellent vault routines putting them in the lead. However, as they moved onto events mastered by the Russians, a 1-2 finish seemed a little less likely. Raisman (US) and Aliya Mustafina (Russia) both faltered on balance beam. Mustafina fell off the beam and had continuous balance checks while Raisman had a huge balance check causing her to grab the beam with her hands. These two errors made the scores very tight going into the final round of floor.
At the final floor routine Douglass cemented her spot as gold medalist with a routine near perfection. The crowd involvement added to the Douglass smile gave her the score necessary to earn the gold. Raisman's floor routine was also good, good enough to tie with Mustafina for third. So why did she not win the bronze medal? Well, the International Federation of Gymnastics regulates that in the event of a tie in the All-Around competition, the judges discard each of the gymnast's lowest score and then add up the three remaining scores. This is done because in the All-Around competition the scores are made up of the gymnasts total scores in four events (vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor). So after the balance beam score for Mustafina and Raisman was discarded, Mustafina ended up with the higher score and the bronze medal.
I know this sucks. In my personal opinion, Raisman deserves a bronze medal too. She worked just as hard as Mustafina and put in a performance equal to that of Mustafina's. However, the rule book wins on this one occasion. And with the drama of the bronze medal resolved, Douglass still ends up taking home the gold and the title of best All-Around gymnast.
After this gymnastics competition, the United States also ends up with the most medals in the Olympics, beating China out by one. The United States must keep up their performance if they want to retain this position, however. Things can change as quickly as 0.001 of a second in the Olympics.
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