Rewind WEEK SIX 28/10 : 2008 US National Championships

[MaryClare]

So near and yet so far. It seems much closer in time than it was. So much has changed within the sphere of US gymnastics. The open ended code still feels very new. Nastia records a world record score.

Possibly the most accomplished group of US gymnasts ever? The current world AA champion, a previous world AA champion, the next world AA champion and the soon to be Olympic AA champion.

Day 2 here

 

[RedBirdie]

Throw in a world AA silver medalist, a future world beam medalist, and a five-time EF medalist (who would finally win vault gold 2 years later). Even excluding team medals, this group collected just an insane amount of hardware.

 

[MaryClare]

Throw in a world AA silver medalist, a future world beam medalist, and a five-time EF medalist (who would finally win vault gold 2 years later). Even excluding team medals, this group collected just an insane amount of hardware.

Yep. Not to mention Chellsie, Nastia and Shawn were all event world champions too.

 

[MaryClare]

I do wonder what it would be like for a top teenage gymnast today to watch this meet. You’ve competed at the Nastia Liukin cup, Chellsie Memmel and Alicia Sacramone are your national team coordinators and you watch Sam Peszek commentating on NBC. Strange to see them competing together as teenagers

 

[tempest]

Yep. Not to mention Chellsie, Nastia and Shawn were all event world champions too.

Interesting that all of them are at least world/olympic champions on 2 events

 

[MaryClare]

Interesting that all of them are at least world/olympic champions on 2 events

It is really quite unbelievable that this generation of gymnasts lost 2 out 3 team finals that quad

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It is really quite unbelievable that this generation of gymnasts lost 2 out 3 team finals that quad

Marta Karolyi, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[MaryClare]

Marta Karolyi, ladies and gentlemen.

Well partly. But the subsequent 2 quads she was in charge were far more successful. Despite things being a whole lot worse for the gymnasts.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Well partly. But the subsequent 2 quads she was in charge were far more successful. Despite things being a whole lot worse for the gymnasts.

Luck, and factors outside her control.

Those Olympic titles only happened when Marta stopped being allowed to do a post Trials camp. I suspect not even she could've snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Rio, but that London team were carrying a lot of injury between them. Wouldn't have taken much more for Maroney and Wieber to end up like Memmel and Sacramone in the Olympics. The alternates would've been no use either.

Of the other titles, 2011 owes as much to Mustafina's ACL as anything else, then in 2013 she won the lottery with Simone. The competition in the 2010s was usually much weaker than China in 06-08.

 

[irichluck21]

USA came within .202 of team gold in 2010 as well. Would have easily cleared it had it not been for the Mattie Larson errors.

 

[tempest]

USA came within .202 of team gold in 2010 as well. Would have easily cleared it had it not been for the Mattie Larson errors.

very true... it also took 3 falls from Nabz for the US to get that close though

 

[tempest]

Marta Karolyi, ladies and gentlemen.

and some cheating Chinese

 

[IratePanda]

I am sick unto death of the "China cheated" narrative. China wasn't flawless in Beijing TF, but the US succumbed to complacency and overtraining. The US won World TF in 2007. They could have won in 2008. No one pushed Sacramone off the beam or kicked her out of bounds on FX. No one conspired to injure Peszek's and Memmel's ankles.

 

[RichardL]

I am sick unto death of the "China cheated" narrative. China wasn't flawless in Beijing TF, but the US succumbed to complacency and overtraining. The US won World TF in 2007. They could have won in 2008. No one pushed Sacramone off the beam or kicked her out of bounds on FX. No one conspired to injure Peszek's and Memmel's ankles.

Still bizarre to me that they won in 2007 with that beam rotation, but they were just so dominant elsewhere. I hesitate to mention the gymnast whose floor routine cost China the gold, though, for the sake of the thread count on this message board.

 

[CameliasFingerpaint]

I am sick unto death of the "China cheated" narrative. China wasn't flawless in Beijing TF, but the US succumbed to complacency and overtraining. The US won World TF in 2007. They could have won in 2008. No one pushed Sacramone off the beam or kicked her out of bounds on FX. No one conspired to injure Peszek's and Memmel's ankles.

Well, they did cheat. And because they cheated, it rendered Sacromone's mistakes and Memmel's injury irrelevant, because China was essentially unbeatable. Peszek was going to Beijing to complete with Sloan to do a DTY in team finals. Even at 100% Memmel and Sacramone were interchangeable on BB/FX, so at the end of the day Memmel's injury did not really change the game all that much, nor did Peszek's. Their replacements might have gone up instead of them anyway in Team Finals. Even with Sacramone's mistakes, the deficit would not have been made up (and that's with a fall from Cheng Fei). So yes, the cheating was the deciding factor.

 

[Hatsumomo]

Throw in a world AA silver medalist, a future world beam medalist, and a five-time EF medalist (who would finally win vault gold 2 years later). Even excluding team medals, this group collected just an insane amount of hardware.

Definitely insane when considering the 2001-2004 era had so much more depth. Just doing a cursory look at the World medal tables 2001-2003, the USA won 8 WC medals: two team and the individual medals spread among 6 gymnasts (Katie Heenan, Courtney Kupets, Ashley Postell, Carly Patterson, Hollie Vise, and Chellsie). In 2005 alone, Nastia, Chellsie, and Alicia won 9 and that was a year without a team final. And in fact, adding in 2006 and 2007, you have 21 WC medals: 2 team, and the 19 individual medals were won by Nastia, Chellsie, Alicia, Shawn and Jana Bieger.

 

[RichardL]

Definitely insane when considering the 2001-2004 era had so much more depth. Just doing a cursory look at the World medal tables 2001-2003, the USA won 8 WC medals: two team and the individual medals spread among 6 gymnasts (Katie Heenan, Courtney Kupets, Ashley Postell, Carly Patterson, Hollie Vise, and Chellsie). In 2005 alone, Nastia, Chellsie, and Alicia won 9 and that was a year without a team final. And in fact, adding in 2006 and 2007, you have 21 WC medals: 2 team, and the 19 individual medals were won by Nastia, Chellsie, Alicia, Shawn and Jana Bieger.

Sam Sheehan is gasping right now

 

[Hatsumomo]

Sam Sheehan is gasping right now

Whoops, totally missed her looking at the charts. Add one individual medal to the 2001-2003 counts.

 

[MaryClare]

I am sick unto death of the "China cheated" narrative. China wasn't flawless in Beijing TF, but the US succumbed to complacency and overtraining. The US won World TF in 2007. They could have won in 2008. No one pushed Sacramone off the beam or kicked her out of bounds on FX. No one conspired to injure Peszek's and Memmel's ankles.

But they did cheat. He Kexin was underage. Just as they cheated in 2000.

What else would you call it?

 

[Passion]

I think the point is He Kexin's existence doesn't negate Team USA's mismanagement that year. Their loss is sometimes brushed off as "well China cheated so nothing they could do," but China wasn't the reason most of the American team was injured nor was China the reason they had the least amount of depth to choose from that year in the program's history. Marta learned nothing from 2004 and just rinsed and repeated her way to another silver in '08.

In the end, they didn't even need HKX to win. If you left her off the team entirely, don't even bother replacing her with anyone, just send China with a 5 member team, they still win team gold replacing her TF UB score with DLL's 14.725 from qualifications.