Post-Team Finals

Well, it's all done and dusted. I'm thrilled for China, surprised but content for the USA (I mean, some disasters there, but still coming out with a medal and behind the home-crowd favourites no less!) and sh*tted off about Romania. Enough said. I'm making my peace with it all.

The Age put a pre-prelims 'audio gallery' up with photos and soundbites from Dasha and P-Liddy.

There is an article here talking about the final standings with a heartbreaking picture of Dasha's bars error at the top of the page. Gut-wrenching.

I am disappointed in Channel 7's coverage. Granted, I should be grateful that they showed the final at all. But they put it on half an hour early, and cut out routines - we saw Anna Pavlova getting ready for floor and they didn't even show the routine, they cut to something else. They showed Sandra Izbasa's floor score when we didn't even see her routine. They compressed the whole lot into less than an hour and it was more than frustrating. The poor editing was quite noticeable. I could hear Australia's floor music in the background, and could glimpse Olivia prepping for bars and found myself yelling "Go there! Go there after this routine, come on!" but of course they didn't. We saw two Australian routines in total and they were two that we'd seen during preliminaries - Georgia's vault and Lauren's beam. They were two phenomenal efforts of course, but it hurt when you'd heard the commentators remarking on their teammates who'd gone before them that we never got to see.

But again - it's done, we can't change it. A big "well done" to the Aussie girls who bettered their Sydney and Athens efforts. Olivia achieved what I'm sure was a PB score on bars, the Waverley girls have come into their own, Lauren overcame her beam troubles... it was an up and down day but for the bulk of it, the girls have every right to be proud of themselves. Bring on the all-around final!

Australia: Team Final AS WE SPEAK!

Scores updated live here. 10:30 a.m. Beijing time. 12:30m here.

Rotation 1 - Beam

12:24 our time - Eeeeeek! It's starting! Hold on to your hats, they're getting ready to march in!

March In: Australia in green-and-gold (the 'glitter spatter' leo from pre-departure photos). America and Brazil in pretty fugly outfits as far as I can tell from fan comments.

12:33 China has already had one vaulter perform. No going back now!

12:35 Shona 15.225 for her routine! WOOOHOOO!

12:37 Ashleigh 15.125! Way to iron out the kinks! Now come on, Lauren! Please, please please, hit! Do it for Dasha!

12: 42 Lauren 15.550, HURRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY!!!! Girls, what a great start! Keep it up!


Rotation 2 - Floor

The major clincher here will be Lauren keeping her piked double arabian INSIDE the floor lines. I've seen her do it only twice this year. She will often hit it but then flub the tucked one that comes after it. Come on Lauren, hopefully you've got it down pat this time!

1:02 France will go first on floor, then us. We alternate, y'see?

dum di dum.... Team USA going great guns on bars...

1:11 France's three are done, it's now time for our girls!


1:14 Blah blah Stephanie Rice is on telly blah blah swimming blah blah... see what I did there? I fulfilled this blog's Obligatory Stephanie Rice Mention daily quota. The end. (Oh wait.... she won... damn, that's another 14 ages of the paper I'll have to skip through tomorrow...) I call the headline: Rice Twice as Nice. There. I called your pun, Herald Sun (and there I am rhyming again.... JEEBUS H CROP CIRCLE, WHERE ARE AUSTRALIA'S FLOOR SCORES!!!???)

1:20 Here we go. Georgia gets a 14.450 on floor. Good effort for G-Bo. Poor Anna Pavlova fell on (I should say 'off') beam. But I love her gymnastics so much, how unlucky for her!

1:21 Ashleigh 14.650 this is looking very promising indeed! C'moooooon Lauren.

1:25 Aaargh crap. 13.675 for Lauren. Bronze is slipping away.


Rotation 3 - Vault

1:31 Georgia B does a Y1.5 for a score of 14.625!

1:33 Lauren a 14.7 for what I assume was a Y1.5. If they don't put Dasha up, I sure hope Shona does her double!

1:35 Shona 14.825, not shabby at all. SV was only 5.5, must have done a 1.5, dammit! But at least it will have been a good one! Her execution scores were in the 9's!


Rotation 4 - Uneven Bars

This is the end, my friend.
They clearly didn't put Dasha up on vault so here's hoping she does do a good effort on bars. I'm praying (in my apathethic Catholic way) for some MIRACLES here. Russia has had a few falls so Romania could be edging them out but my *dream* is for us to snare a bronze with some great bars routines. I'm disgusted with how well Romania have been scoring considering their usual icky execution.


Aaaargh France are going first again. I need a change of pants! I hope Dasha wraps it up with a great routine complete with stuck dismount and relieved expression, a la Test Event.

Holy crap, right now Team USA are having such a tough time on floor! OOB's from Sacramone, Liukin AND Johnson! This is not the night they were hoping for!

2:12 Damn. Shona must've stuffed it big time, 13.800. Not good!

OH EM JEE CHANNEL 7 NOOOOOOOW, PEOPLE!


2:15 Olivia 15.1, that's great! What a personal best and a boost for the team!

2:18 Dasha 14.675, a bit shaky there. (Ooh, the tv's showing Lauren's beam! Martine is so thrilled. Shame we can't see Shona or Ash) Good on Dasha for going through the pain, what a champion.

So I think that leaves us in 6th, our best ever finish! Go girls!

Australia: Team Final

Today marks Part 1 of Australia's 2-part finals participation (TF and AA).

Best of luck to the team, particularly Dasha who will be making a mammoth effort to compete bars and vault (in the back of my mind I had a feeling she would).

I agree with whoever commented that a 'Strug'-like finish would be miraculous to see; Dasha's courageous effort gets us a bronze.

Sorry I've been away. I wasn't able to get near the computer yesterday so I'm still catching up! Big thanks to special agent Nik for posting information from the NBC footage. Channel 7 coverage has been so scant, I am going to try and ring them today to find out what's going on with the final. I have work at 7pm so I'm really ticked off that I will most likely be missing it anyway! I will try and update from webfeeds, but I'd really like to see it on the larger screen, and to record it for posterity!

Our Roster, according the official Olympic website, is:

Beam: Shona -Ash - Lauren

Floor: Georgia - Ash - Lauren (hit that piked arabian, Loz, c'mon!)

Vault: Georgia - Lauren - Dash (shame they're not taking Shona's double)

Bars: Shona - Olivia - Dash

To get you in the mood, here's a screenshot from my telly of the girls, from the brief "Vote for Your Favourite Olympic Moment From Today and Win a Bunch of Shiny Crap From Our Sponsors Who Are Interfering With the Amount of Sports We Get To Show You. In Fact, Isn't It Fist-Eatingly Ironic That Half the Footage You're About To See Didn't Even Get Screened For You BECAUSE of Those Sponsors!?" segment.




ETA - ALERT ALERT! BREAKING NEWS, FANTASTIC NEWS!
I just rang Channel 7 (took me long enough to find their bloody phone number!), the team final will be showing (in Melbourne at least) at approximately 3:08pm AEST today but this is subject to change.

Hurraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Staying Hopeful

Here are some nice things to keep positivity going after the qualification drama.

Dasha Joura is featuring in the Olympic news segments as an 'inspiration' and a courageous performer. Word of her brave efforts are currently doing the rounds.

So my wish is for her, her teammates and her fans to keep their spirits up as the team advances to the team final on Wednesday.

(Injury and all, she got us into the final. Smile on, D!)

(you can't tell when the photo is this size but G-Bo's wearing a big smile)

See a snippet of Georgia's bars and Ashleigh's beam here (excuse the "Australians are [only] good at two things..." remark. I quite like their blog besides the occasional snarkery). You can see part of Dasha's floor here. Ugh, that DLO stumble!

Simon Speaks

Simon Reeve, as we speak, is on the Yum Cha daily Olympics discussion program. Cue shameless "Dancing with the Stars" references from Sonia Kruger.

Oh sweet Jesus, the panellists are stupid.


1. Simon had to explain that there are team AND individual events.
2. They thought AA came after EF.
3. They thought beam was done to music because you always hear floor music in the background
4. One co-host says "oh, watching that little girl crying was cruelty. They're pre-pubescent..." when they saw Dasha. Get some knowledge, idiot. I'm amazed Simon didn't mention Chusovitina there and then.

Yes, they had a montage-y bit at the start, most of it was gymnasts we didn't see yesterday. Jerks. One or two shots were of Dasha crying. God, my heart has dropped and I'm welling up again.

Simon talked about Dasha's injury, we saw a snippet of her beam. Her fall came on her side somi and she remounted very tenderly. She did a single layout dismount and went straight into Olivia's arms, bawling.

Simon talked up Georgia's and Shona's chances, and said the team went from miserable to happy when they learned that they had made the final. They were just confused at first because the scoreboard flashes in Chinese.

He also talked up the USA v China, Shawn v Nastia v the world AA battle. They also, for some reason, showed a Chinese gymnast stuffing a vault really badly. Don't know why. I am just frustrated that they had all this footage (Georgia's beam and floor, Dasha's beam etc) and they didn't show it!

But Simon didn't do a horrible job. He just needed to smack Sonia over the head each time she tried to shamelessly plug her own program and whenever anyone made a reference to the competitors being "little girls".

BRING BACK ROY AND HG, I SAY!


ETA: The women's qualification performance has been nominated as one of the day's/week's most memorable moments from the Games. Keep your eyes on Channel 7 to see the number you can ring or SMS to nominate them and win prizes!

The Age newspaper's online Olympics page has a photo gallery of the girls competing.

This was NOT how I pictured it.

Poor poor Dash. An ankle injury has felled her chances of competing in the Team Final.
Last night on Channel 7 we only saw her vault but we know of her disasterous other performances (save for bars). What a brave young lady to keep going despite the pain.

If you feel like depressing yourself this morning, read here and here.


In the broadcast last night, they showed Lauren's floor, Dasha/Lauren/Georgia's vaults (I think? Can't remember!), Olivia and Shona's bars and Lauren/Shona's beam. Shona looked ACE but I gasped big time at Lauren's falls because I didn't know when to expect them.

Um... they also showed one of The Wiggles(!) addressing a good luck message to the girls. For some reason.

I really hope the girls pull through for a better team final performance (think France at Euro's this year when Isabelle was out with injury) and I hope something miraculous happens in time for Dasha.

Georgia and Shona are still through to AA finals, so there's some hope!

Australia: Preliminary Round Part 2

Rotation 3 - Bars

Come on, ladies! See it through to the end! Honestly, my heart's going to be in my throat when they go to beam. Germany have already had a hard time of it.
This is Olivia's chance to prove why she's on this team as an event specialist; this could be her only performance. It could, on the other hand, be the performance that spurs the team onto a finals slot.



7: 54 Shona scores a 14.500 (wow, we are getting some sucker punches today)



7:55 Georgia 14.500. Hmm... once again the Waverley girls are scored identically. Something's going on here!

8:00 Ashleigh 13. 700 with a .3 deduction. Uh-oh...

8:01 Olivia 14.925, great effort! Apparently she hit her dismount really well.

8:02 Russia are getting good beam scores, this is getting stressful. Come on Dasha, hit the Comaneci and the dismount, just like in the Test Event bars final!

8:04 Dasha gets a 15.125! What redemption!


Rotation 4 - Beam

*Mez chews madly on fingernails*

Let's see if Lauren (and Ash!) can perform well enough for an event finals placing; let's also see if Dasha can hold on for a top 24 all-around placing as well.

8:14 Woah! A 15.350 for Shona, what an awesome score! What a boost for the team! Oh, I so hope this makes the broadcast. This girl really knows how to hit a beam routine when it counts.

8:18 And it gets better! 15.025 for Georgia! Keep it going, girls, this is a great improvement. John Hart will be so proud.

8:21 Ashleigh 14.150, must've been an unsteady effort. Execution scores in the high 7's, low 8's. (ETA she fell)

8:25 Lauren gets a 14.10! Oh dear. Oh dear. Team finals spot looking VERY dire.

8:28 Dasha gets a 12.475. I don't think any member of this team will be a finallist. In anything.


*goes to have a little cry*

You tried, girls, you tried. See on telly in a little while.


*comes back from having a little cry*

Ok. So. The team IS through to the final, with the only remaining full teams being France and Brazil. We can't get bumped out of the 8. Shona and Georgia are placed competently for AA qualification spots (didn't see that coming!) but Dasha's sitting in 44th. I'm so sad for her. This was HER time, after the disappointments of missing the CWG team and flubbing Worlds last year. She's got one more hance to impress the world so I hope she and the others bounce back for a strong performance in the final and wow everybody, putting all this behind them. There is, after all, a World Championships in the coming year.


ETA: Thus far, Lauren is first reserve for floor, Shona is first reserve for beam and Dasha is second reserve for bars.

Australia: Preliminary Round

Eeeeeeeeeeeeek! Time is ticking away, I believe there are about ten or fifteen minutes to go until our girls march out!

Keep tabs on live scores here: http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/resultsandschedules/rsc=GAW499C01/index.html

and depending on whether or not it shows on telly at a reasonable hour (no doubt after the scheduled soccer, hockey and basketball matches) I will blog during it, or at least after each rotation.

Cross all your humanoid digits, gymfans. This is it.


Rotation 1 - Floor

7:00pm Melbourne time. I only just had dinner. I think I'm about to lose it.

Girls march in, green-and-gold as previously seen. Hurray!


7:05 Russia off to a good start on vault

7:06 Shona 14.525 on floor, hopefully she stood everything up!

7:08 Georgia got an identical score... ditto above remarks!

7:10 Ashleigh 14.625! With B-scores in the high 8's! This is all despite a deducation for a step out of bounds.

7:13 Lauren 14.650 with a .3 deduction... must've gone out of bounds (lemme guess, that damned arabian again?)

7:17 Hallooo? Dasha's floor? Egads, am twisting and un-twisting the bottom of my shirt in anxiety. C'mon Dash!

7:18 NOOOOOOOOOOO 13.45!? Execution in the 7's!? Please tell me this is a mistake! Please don't let her be hurt or anything! I'm going to be sick, I'm going to be sick, I'm going to be sick...


7: 22 I'm still going to be sick. I'm still going to be sick. Hers is the score they're dropping, naturally. This is VERY weird and nobody seems to be able to tell me anything from web feeds. Arrrrrgghhhh!

7:26 They have rotated to vault.

Rotation 2 - Vault

7:28 Shona gets a 14.7, with B-scores in the 9's! Le's hope it was a Y-double!

7:29 A score of 14.85 for Georgia, wooohoo!

7:30 Ashleigh 14.775, more B-scores in the 9's.

7:32 Lauren 14.725, our girls clearly must have some stunning vaults happening (even just in bodyline and form...)

7:33 Dasha scores 15.1! Must've been the double and must've been a good one! (edited to add: I believe it was the double, she just had a big step on the landing)