Misc. Olympics Observations (no spoilers in OP)

Gabby confirmed my determination to never be videoed chewing gum. It's just not a good look. I have zero issue with the hand over the heart kerfuffle - but she did look like a poor sport when the other teammates stood up to clap Aly and Simone and she stayed seated - or perhaps team player would be more accurate.

I totally felt for Lochte. I wanted him to at least medal. The 100 free was by far the best final of the Olympics - that was a crazy race!

They're diving now and the water looks much better.

ohh good!! Are they competing today or just practing? I'm just getting basketball and badmitton today?Now that the soccer game's done. Then Beach Volleyball later.

Women's 3M Springboard qualifiers are on.

Dressage on the NBC Sports App ... lucky enough to watch at work. To think it all came down to Valegro stutter stepping and it changed medal outcome.

Back in the day before child, I was lucky enough to have a horse. Now I'm older and fatter so I just watch equestrian events and realize how sucky a rider I was !

Michael Phelps - phenom. Hoping he goes into coaching - he needs to share how to do what he does along with handling pressure of everyone having an opinion of what you do and how you do it.

Chinese ladies gymnastics - those children are NOT the minimum age, or even close to it.

Tim Daggett is a lousy judge LOL He always says "oh that won't be more than a .30 deduction" - and boom, they lose 1.6!!
Rowdy Gaines must be friends with the soccer "goal" guy!
Gabby Douglas looked bored to be there last night ... not her best shining moment and SO agree about the gum!

And yes, we'd love to see other countries participate. We seem to see more of our athletes getting congratulated or taking wraps off or yet another pile of commercials that NBC puts in every 3 minutes.

There was one in particular that I started paying a LOT of attention to. She's the one who rotated with the Americans in the individual all-around.

Different camera angles helped to show that she may actually be older than she appears. Apparently, she's been on the scene for some time so I had to guess that her age had been settled before this competition.

Although I do know that in previous Olympics, the only way to prove some of these young girls' ages were from the state records. If they fake their records, what can you do?

Funny, I read an article only a few days ago about the Nigerian U17s soccer team, 26 of the squad failed an age test following a mandatory MRI scan of their wrist plates. I have no medical background so can't explain the science. This test was used to discover if they were older than they said perhaps it can be used the other way too.

 www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/36990537/nigerias-under-17-squad-wiped-out-as-half-are-older-than-17

I know the gymnast you mean - and I'd bet she's definitely not min. age.
While I would hope that the others are legit, most of them have no international exposure and that clouds the issue. China was stripped of their bronze medal in 2000 for lying about ages, and in 2008 there were more rumors. Their internal pressure is to win and only win. I believe they said last night that they want bonuses refunded from the coaches that received them.

Watching our women gymnasts you realize how much Bela & Marta Karolyi have contributed to the way gymnasts train and work. What an incredible legacy to leave behind.

I looked up the Chinese gymnast that was in the All-Around finals. She is 20 years old! If they were going to lie about her age, why make her so old? And I read she comes from an improvished family and has health issues, so that may be why she is so small in stature. Hard to tell with the makeup she had on too.

I remember that! 


Wrong gymnast.

I homeschooled my kids for a while, and we studied the Olympics. We tried to follow one of the Chinese superstar women gymnasts, but we had terrible coverage on TV.   

I was able to learn a lot about these girls and how they leave their families at incredibly young ages to be raised in these.... gymnasiums. They may only see their parents a few days a year. (At least that's the way it was last time I checked into it.) 


Remember, in China, when you're one in a million, there are a thousand more just like you. 


She is barely taller than the vault!

I'm watching on a live feed and it keeps pausing for a second and then picking up right where it stopped.

It was a lot of fun watching these new hover maneuvers the gymnasts suddenly incorporated into their vaults. Not to mention how magically these hovers disappeared during the reruns. I was teasing that these were HarryPotteresque moves. You could just imagine someone from Hogwarts sitting in the stands with their wand out. 

No specific spoilers, but Team GB up into 3rd in the medal table - bring it on!

Many high-level gymansts (and you see this in divers, too, but to a lesser extent) stay tiny and look far younger than their age. Partly this is because their intense training regimen is not allowing them to experience normal puberty. This is particularly true for the Chinese, who more or less torture their high-level atheletes starting at a very young age.

It will be interesting to see if Simone Biles grows once she stops competing; I'm betting she does.

My own daughter went through two separate puberty growth and change spurts. The first was when her periods started at age 13. However none of the other changes occurred at that time, and she looked like a little girl all through her teens. At 19 she finally grew hips, filled out in her thighs, and put on some weight. She still looks younger than she is, but at least now clearly looks post-pubertal.

Don't forget the GB swimmers and divers! I've been watching the pool sports and GB has a fantastic showing this year.

Oh I haven't lefty. The above was just this evening