August 19, 2004
A moment he'll never forget...
Is anyone else awake and watching Olympics??????
I am putting the rest of my entry into the "extended entry" category so as not to spoil it for anyone who taped it or whatever and doesn't want to know yet... if that's not you, read on...
After sitting down on the landing of his vault earlier in the evening, Paul Hamm won the gold in men's gymnastics all-around by the smallest margin in history, that being 12 THOUSANDTHS of a point - with a HUGE score for an extraordinarily difficult AND well-executed high bar routine!!! :dance:
I am SO happy for him... I can't believe it worked out that way... but I can't quite decide in my own head if he "deserved" it or not because of the vault. And yet, his high bar routine was SO superior to anything that anyone else did...
What do you all think? Did he still deserve it after "sitting" the vault earlier in the evening? Or should that have precluded him from winning the Gold? Should one totally out of character mistake cost someone a medal? And the really hard question: do you think the judges knew what he needed for Gold and scored him accordingly??? :10:
Posted by Nancy at August 19, 2004 12:01 AMHi Nancy,
I went to bed before the Paul Hamm vault but I read about what happened online. It sounds like one painful fall, he crashed into the judges' table? I wonder if it happened because of his sore shoulder? Anyway, I read that he came back with 2 magnificent programs. He moved up because the other athletes didn't perform as well on their programs. I don't think what happened on the vault should have excluded him from the gold medal if he performed well afterwards. About the judges, I don't think they would collaborate to give him enough points to win. Maybe the other athletes think so ;) :D
Posted by: Cassie at August 19, 2004 10:46 AM