olympics gymnast~~ all-americaness

These last ten days have been pretty crazy. College shopping took utmost priority AND the Olympics were on so I barely had time to settle down and concentrate on anything else. The fact that I decided I had to brush on my Calc skills (which was kind of left to rust after junior year) also narrowed my free time.

I never realized simply how much...stuff I known. >.> I feel like I’m moving my whole room! I swear, people are going to faint at the sight of how much I’m bringing. It doesn’t exactly help that college is a good +7 hours on the train, even slower via car.

Anyways, I had originally wanted to blog about the Olympics’ opening ceremony but it’s been more than a week since then and it’s kind of stale news. So I’ll move onto womens’ gymnastics, specifically Shawn Johnson. Now, I’ve never been an avid sports fan- I think the only sports (outside of the Olympics events) I enjoy watching are soccer and tennis. Everything else is completely incomprehensible and holds no interest for me whatsoever.

But gymnastics...I simply adore gymnastics. It kind of annoyed me though how this year, many of the gymnasts had to sacrifice artistic flair in their routines for technical difficult. More twists and twirls = higher level of difficult = higher scores. Europeans still manage to retain the artistry in their routines (though it doesn’t exactly help their scores because they’ll do a beautiful pirouette and then fail a jump -_-). From the U.S. team, Nastia Liukin, heavily influenced by Russian style, is all grace and agility. Watching her perform her routine is like watching a hybrid of ballet and acrobatics. She’s lithe and beautiful, very focused and brings an effortless elegance to the screen. Having been crowned the “Queen of Gymnastics” with her gold All-Around Medal, she deserves the title.

Personally, I enjoyed watching Shawn Johnson more. She’s only sixteen and has a sunshine personality. But most of all, I love her gait. XD It’s so endearing as you see her waddle into the auditorium. Both she and Nastia have a distinctive gymnast ‘walk’- hands to their sides swinging in rhythmic motion with pointed toes, almost like a march set to a ballet. From interviews and such, you can tell she’s a dedicated and hard worker but possesses great sportsmanship. I think she had bad luck in certain events, having to perform first (the first scores are generally the lowest and scores escalate as the routines proceed) so I desperately wanted her to win a gold. I think many of the audience also find her more relatable than Nastia. Her family’s a ‘normal family’, as her mother proclaims and she represents the All-Americaness spirit and sportsmanship.

But seriously, I love her gait! She’s so cute! xD