More Surprises

Oregon State once again toppled the competition (Ohio State University, with whom they evidently juggle initials-honours), with Aussies Olivia Vivian and Melanie Jones hitting nice routines to help them do so. Olivia, I should mention, was sustained a finger injury in bars warm-up and thus didn't compete her pet event, but went on to perform on beam and floor!

"I'm really very proud of this team. They really fought through a lot of adversity losing two competitors at the beginning of warm-ups," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "Nothing is easy in this sport and each gymnast has to fight for each score. It was great to have Olivia fight through her injury and come back on the floor and beam."

See Mel and Liv on beam in the video below. Mel puts injury and last week's errors behind her to complete a steady routine for the Beavers (9.775 score). Listen out for a team-mate calling her "Jonesy"! Olivia's routine (9.650) may not be astronomically difficult when you look at the routines put together by higher-ranked schools, but by gosh, I like that Y-scale! And yes, one of her nicknames is "Olive".




You can catch Olivia's live-wire floor routine again in the video below (9.700) The audio's better this time around, and look out for that collegiate gymnastics staple: team-mates on the sidelines imitating the choregraphy!