The U.S.A Women's Gymnastics Team is Playing a Cruel Trick on Us

Something is up.

Blame it on the dirty air in Beijing. Point fingers at the horrendous gymnastic costumes. Question the Chinese women gymnasts who are clearly no older than 9-years-old and probably casting some voodoo ancient Chinese spells because other than that, there is no explanation for the U.S.A Women’s Gymnastic Team’s performance at these Olympic games so far.

No there is an explanation. U.S.A has clearly been switched with Romania’s lackluster team in some sort of Freaky Friday gone wrong experiment. How else can you explain the injuries? Rookie mistakes? Falls?

Or maybe it is just bad luck.

Nah not America, we are supposed to dominate the Olympic games, especially gymnastics.

But something went horribly wrong Sunday in Beijing. The team went into the qualifying round on Sunday already down a gymnast. Chellsie Memmel, who has to have the worst luck in the history of any sports plus the most confusing spelling of the name “Chelsea”, came into the games with an injured ankle and her only chance to compete coming to her in the uneven bars. Then, Sam Peszek hurt her ankle during warm ups which put Bridget Sloan into her spot who has the most nervous competition face I have ever seen. Loosen up girl!

Despite all of these injuries, I was still feeling pretty positive. I mean, we’re U.S.A! We have the most sparkly, muscled, tiny girls around! Nothing can go wrong.

Oh but they did. They went very, very wrong.

Chellsie Memmel. Picture from flicker.com

U.S.A started on the floor where going out of bounds is basically a mortal sin. Well, our team is clearly full of sinners or they were trying to play a game called “How many different ways can we touch outside of that little white line?” Things weren’t looking too good.

But then they moved onto vault and things got a little better. A few hops on the dismount here and there but they scored higher than China, U.S.A's biggest competitor.

Then it was time for the bars where U.S.A basically owns and finally Sam and Chellsie had a chance to compete. Sam started off with a solid performance considering she had a busted ankle but Chellsie didn’t fair so well. And there is nothing worse/better for my blog than seeing someone completely blow it in his or her only event at the Olympic games. Coming off a move that can only be described as “she tried to jump from the big bar to the little bar” (I’m clearly up on my gymnastics lingo) Chellsie’s right hand slipped and she fell right off. And I’m telling you, myself and the rest of the world gasped as her Olympic career finished as quickly as it started and I even felt a stab of pain in the empty icebox where my heart should be for her.

Nastia Lukin. Picture from flickr.com

But I quickly got over it because Nastia was next! I mean her name is Nastia she has to rock it! Well if rock it means almost cracking your face on the bar and managing to fall under the mat below bars and not on the actual landing mat, then yes, she rocked it.

It didn’t get much better after that but thankfully the U.S.A still managed to qualify for finals, second behind team China (the other teams must have really bit it). And the women’s team managed to put on their happy faces and gather around for a tight, personal, private, post tournament huddle, which was naturally captured and televised by NBC. You couldn’t make out anything that was being said because, like any good young American girls, they were all talking over each other.

After the huddle the team probably all headed back to their separate rooms. Bridget to practice her scared TV face, Sam to face her overanxious mom and explain why she can’t just tough it out like that little Kerri Strug did 12 years ago, Alicia to discover new ways to pull her ponytail back so tight that it gives her a mini face lift, Chellsie Memmel to, well cry, Shawn Johnson to gloat over the fact that she is the only teammate not biting it, and Nastia to face her Olympic gold medaling father who will most likely shout at her in angry Russian, take a shot of Stoli, and then go on to paddle her with a balance beam (I don’t think that is physically possible but he is Russian after all).

So hopefully after a good night’s sleep, the women’s team will awaken, rejuvenated, add an extra barrette in the hair, a little more glittery eye shadow, some extra hairspray to keep the suit from riding up their butts (they are having some issues with that, not that I think most men would mind but then again most grown men could go to jail for checking out most of those girls), and go out there, make America proud, and win gold. Because let’s be honest, if the color of the medal isn’t gold and the Star Spangled Banner isn’t playing during the medal presentation ceremony, than it just isn’t good enough.