The inaugural Pro-Gymnastics Challenge concluded with some high flying skills...and a rope climb.
Yes, the third night started with the rope climb challenge.
It's not the most exciting thing. But it is pretty impressive to watch how damn fast these athletes can climb that rope. Seriously, I think these men and women should be trying out for an stunt double position on the set of the next Spiderman movie.
Team USA won the rope climbing rotation.
Next rotation: Audience All-Around. This is what that is. The gymnasts compete one skill on each event chosen by the audience.
First Rotation The Vault: Jake Dalton and Nathan Gafuik. Jake Dalton stuck the landing, a point to team USA.
Second Rotation: Parallel Bars, the boys, Uneven Bars the girls.
Parallel bars: Paul v. Petrix Barbosa. The skill was a giant swing to double back tuck. Both boys do it with ease. But the point goes to team world.
Uneven bars: J.Lo 2.0 v. Kat Ding. Jess performed a combination Jaeger, shoot to low bar, toe circle to high and double front dismount,
Kat Ding performed an excellent Tkatchev to Pak salto to low bar. With a full layout dismount. Team USA won the point
Then the boys went to the rings and this happened.
Needless to say Eleflthirous Petruonias won the point for team World. He is a bronze medalist on the rings.
On the beam, Catalina Ponor performed a gorgeous full twisting back handspring. Shayla Worely originally won the point for team USA, but after an inquisition by team World, the judges, Dominique Moceanu and Miles Avery awarded the point to team world.
It was a close match, but in the end. Team USA won 4-3 over team World after winning the high bar/ single rail challenge. This was Paul Ruggeri and co's chance to show off their ridiculously high release moves and the girls threw some great release moves on the single high bar.
That's what happened. You can watch the conclusion of the Pro Gymnastics Challenge in all it's glory here:
Yay. So here is my conclusion:
What Rocked: Overall, it was a fun event. It's nice to see adults and not the usual sea of not ready for prime-time jail-bait that fill the wings of gymnastics competitions. The sport is called WOMENS gymnastics and MENS gymnastics but that statement only usually applies to the latter as it seems the average age of the boys are in their early to mid-twenties while for the girls, it's their mid-teens. By 18, you're old in the sport. But that's beside the point.
Love seeing my girl Catalina Ponor out there doing her thing. It's especially nice to see some familiar faces, Anna Pavlova, and Chuso and our girl Chellsie Memmel. Chuso is still going strong and it's good to see her at things like this. I love seeing Chellsie and Anna because they have always been underdogs and after seeing Chellsie plagued with injury and Anna working so hard to get the Russian team a medal in Beijing, this was a great setting to see them out there doing their thing.
Skill for Skill challenge format of the competition is fun and easy to understand and it gives gymnasts who have wicked skills a chance to show them off.
Hot guys going shirtless. Hello eye candy.
The fluff. Fluff can get really annoying, but in this case, it's a great way to bring more background on these gymnasts and their lives. Seeing J.Lo 2.0's fluff showing how she has as much power as a pro-basketball player and enough momentum to clear a horse. The producers put together some excellent bios and human interest pieces. I have to say, I appreciated the fluff on the college athletes and how hard they work day in day out.
I'm not going to lie, I got a little teary eyed watching Jake Dalton talk about his proposal to his fiance, Kayla Nowak and how much she means to him. I admit it. I'm a sappy romantic and I eat crap like that up. I'm all verklempt!
What Sucked: Nastia Liukin showing up with her giant Texas hair yet again. Seriously, take the blow drier away from her. Her attitude was a little on the level of Regina George in Mean Girls. When she was prancing around and acting like a snotty bitch to Svetlana Boguinskaya, that was not cool.
USA versus the fucking world. Really? Really? I'm so sick of that crap. NBC wants us to believe that that's the way it is at every gymnastics competition. Now, ESPN, which is owned by ABC, which subsequently is owned by Disney. Disney already commandeered Star Wars and I'm still pissed about that. Lauren Hopkins of the Couch Gymnast said it perfectly. It's a competition on US soil produced by US corporations and watched by a predominately US audience. Most of whom, are probably parents of little kids who watched the last Olympics and are dazzled by the US sweep of the medals. While Catalina who is the queen of the beam dominates, and Shayla Worley does the same skill slightly half assed, the US audience pulls the tie breaker. That was stupid. I'm sorry. If you ask me who I prefer, I will say Catalina not only for her resume, but because she is so gorgeous on the beam and amazing to watch. I can't say I feel the same about Shayla.
Yes, the third night started with the rope climb challenge.
It's not the most exciting thing. But it is pretty impressive to watch how damn fast these athletes can climb that rope. Seriously, I think these men and women should be trying out for an stunt double position on the set of the next Spiderman movie.
Team USA won the rope climbing rotation.
Next rotation: Audience All-Around. This is what that is. The gymnasts compete one skill on each event chosen by the audience.
First Rotation The Vault: Jake Dalton and Nathan Gafuik. Jake Dalton stuck the landing, a point to team USA.
Second Rotation: Parallel Bars, the boys, Uneven Bars the girls.
Parallel bars: Paul v. Petrix Barbosa. The skill was a giant swing to double back tuck. Both boys do it with ease. But the point goes to team world.
Uneven bars: J.Lo 2.0 v. Kat Ding. Jess performed a combination Jaeger, shoot to low bar, toe circle to high and double front dismount,
Kat Ding performed an excellent Tkatchev to Pak salto to low bar. With a full layout dismount. Team USA won the point
Then the boys went to the rings and this happened.
Needless to say Eleflthirous Petruonias won the point for team World. He is a bronze medalist on the rings.
On the beam, Catalina Ponor performed a gorgeous full twisting back handspring. Shayla Worely originally won the point for team USA, but after an inquisition by team World, the judges, Dominique Moceanu and Miles Avery awarded the point to team world.
It was a close match, but in the end. Team USA won 4-3 over team World after winning the high bar/ single rail challenge. This was Paul Ruggeri and co's chance to show off their ridiculously high release moves and the girls threw some great release moves on the single high bar.
That's what happened. You can watch the conclusion of the Pro Gymnastics Challenge in all it's glory here:
Yay. So here is my conclusion:
What Rocked: Overall, it was a fun event. It's nice to see adults and not the usual sea of not ready for prime-time jail-bait that fill the wings of gymnastics competitions. The sport is called WOMENS gymnastics and MENS gymnastics but that statement only usually applies to the latter as it seems the average age of the boys are in their early to mid-twenties while for the girls, it's their mid-teens. By 18, you're old in the sport. But that's beside the point.
Love seeing my girl Catalina Ponor out there doing her thing. It's especially nice to see some familiar faces, Anna Pavlova, and Chuso and our girl Chellsie Memmel. Chuso is still going strong and it's good to see her at things like this. I love seeing Chellsie and Anna because they have always been underdogs and after seeing Chellsie plagued with injury and Anna working so hard to get the Russian team a medal in Beijing, this was a great setting to see them out there doing their thing.
Skill for Skill challenge format of the competition is fun and easy to understand and it gives gymnasts who have wicked skills a chance to show them off.
Hot guys going shirtless. Hello eye candy.
The fluff. Fluff can get really annoying, but in this case, it's a great way to bring more background on these gymnasts and their lives. Seeing J.Lo 2.0's fluff showing how she has as much power as a pro-basketball player and enough momentum to clear a horse. The producers put together some excellent bios and human interest pieces. I have to say, I appreciated the fluff on the college athletes and how hard they work day in day out.
I'm not going to lie, I got a little teary eyed watching Jake Dalton talk about his proposal to his fiance, Kayla Nowak and how much she means to him. I admit it. I'm a sappy romantic and I eat crap like that up. I'm all verklempt!
What Sucked: Nastia Liukin showing up with her giant Texas hair yet again. Seriously, take the blow drier away from her. Her attitude was a little on the level of Regina George in Mean Girls. When she was prancing around and acting like a snotty bitch to Svetlana Boguinskaya, that was not cool.
USA versus the fucking world. Really? Really? I'm so sick of that crap. NBC wants us to believe that that's the way it is at every gymnastics competition. Now, ESPN, which is owned by ABC, which subsequently is owned by Disney. Disney already commandeered Star Wars and I'm still pissed about that. Lauren Hopkins of the Couch Gymnast said it perfectly. It's a competition on US soil produced by US corporations and watched by a predominately US audience. Most of whom, are probably parents of little kids who watched the last Olympics and are dazzled by the US sweep of the medals. While Catalina who is the queen of the beam dominates, and Shayla Worley does the same skill slightly half assed, the US audience pulls the tie breaker. That was stupid. I'm sorry. If you ask me who I prefer, I will say Catalina not only for her resume, but because she is so gorgeous on the beam and amazing to watch. I can't say I feel the same about Shayla.
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