By: Shannon Tesser

Popular gymnastics blogger Spanny Tampson summed up the women’s qualification round perfectly when she tweeted, “I am just in shock. Happy for Aly, upset for gymnastics.”

In case you missed it, there was a twist that no one saw coming during the women’s qualification round on Sunday.  Even though Jordyn Wieber, the reigning World Champion had the fourth best all around score during day one of the women’s competition, she failed to qualify for the Olympic All Around finals due to the two per country rule. Wieber was the favorite to win the all around title, but now it is up to her teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman to bring home the gold for USA. 

USA’s“Fab Five” was up first among the teams expected to challenge for the gold.  Starting on vault, they were off to a big start.  The US are the undisputed leaders in the vaulting field, with all four girls competing Amanars.  Next they moved on to uneven bars, their weakest event.  With a few missed handstands, and a couple shaky landings they got through it and moved on to balance beam.  Beam is where you can make or break a team in the finals, with the three up three count scoring system a team would have to count a fall.  On day one the US didn’t have any major breaks, but there were wobbles, missed connections and steps on dismounts.  USA performed well, but left room for improvement.

Next was perhaps the worst event for Team USA, the floor exercise.  Three out of four gymnasts stepped out of bounds during the routines.  Going in to the fourth and final rotation Gabby Douglas was leading USA in the all around, followed by Wieber in second and Raisman in third.  Douglas was up second for the US and had a huge step out of bounds, but was able to finish strong with a high enough score to secure her a place in the all around.  Next up was Wieber, she also stepped out of bounds, but didn’t make any major mistakes.  Her coach, John Geddart, believes she was unfairly judged and didn’t receive credit for all her skills.  Bela Karolyi believed that had she been up last for the US she would have received the higher score and would have been in the all around.  But she wasn’t the anchor for the US on floor, Aly Raisman was, and she certainly lived up to the expectations that comes with being the National Champion on floor exercise.  She had clean tumbling, fantastic dance, and even had the entire crowd clapping along with her “Hava Nagila” music.  When all was said and done she and Jordyn Wieber were both shocked, and both started sobbing, but for completely different reasons.  Yes Jordyn Wieber is the all around World Champion, yes she was expected to make the all around final, and yes she was expected to bring home a medal.  But on the day she needed to hit she didn’t, and her teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas did.

The next sub group featured Russia and China.  Russia, as expected, performed well, lead by world all around silver medalist, Viktoria Komova, who is now the favorite to win gold.  China’s team is not as sharp nor has the level of difficulty that the team had when they won gold in Beijing.  They fell off beam, had low difficulty vaults and poor tumbling.  However the leader of their team Deng Linlin performed well enough to secure her spot in the all around final.  

The last sub group of the day featured Romania. They were expected to challenge the US and Russia for the top spot.  But after several mistakes from Catalina Ponor, the veteran of the team, and their best hope for an all around medal, Larisa Iordache, Romania qualified in fourth. 

On Tuesday the American women will go into the team final in first place, but their scores from Sunday will not matter.  Everyone starts from a clean slate.  With the three gymnasts compete, all three scores count rule, there is no room for error.  One fall can be the difference in gold or no medal at all.  If all teams compete to the best of their ability, then there is no question that the US will win gold.  When you combine their level of difficulty on all four events, they beat out Russia and Romania. 

TEAM
1. USA
2. Russia
3. China
4. Romania
5. Great Britain
6. Japan
7. Italy
8. Canada

ALL-AROUND
1. Viktoria Komova, Russia
2. Aly Raisman, United States
3. Gabby Douglas, United States
4. Aliya Mustafina, Russia
5. Deng Linlin, China
6. Vanessa Ferrari, Italy
7. Asuka Teramoto, Japan
8. Larisa Iordache, Romania
9. Huang Qiushuang, China
10. Sandra Izbasa, Romania
11. Jessica Lopez, Venezuela
12. Elisabeth Seitz, Germany
13. Rebecca Tunney, Great Britain
14. Ana Sofia Gomez Porras, Guatemala
15. Hannah Whelan, Great Britain
16. Dominique Pegg, Canada
17. Celine van Gerner, Netherlands
18. Carlotta Ferlito, Italy
19. Giulia Steingruber, Switzerland
20. Emily Little, Australia
21. Aurelie Malaussena, France
22. Marta Pihan-Kulesza, Poland
23. Rie Tanaka, Japan
24. Ashleigh Brennan, Australia

VAULT
1. McKayla Maroney, USA
2. Sandra Izbasa, Romania
3. Maria Paseka, Russia
4. Oksana Chusovitina, Germany
5. Yamilet Pena, Dominican Republic
6. Janine Berger, Germany
7. Brittany Rogers, Canada
8. Elsabeth Black, Canada

BARS
1. Beth Tweddle, Great Britain
2. He Kexin, China
3. Viktoria Komova, Russia
4. Yao Jinnan, China
5. Aliya Mustafina, Russia
6. Gabby Douglas, USA
7. Elisabeth Seitz, Germany
8. Koko Tsurumi, Japan

BALANCE BEAM
1. Sui Lu, China
2. Viktoria Komova, Russia
3. Gabby Douglas, USA
4. Deng Linlin, China
5. Aly Raisman, USA
6. Ksenia Afanasyeva, Russia
7. Catalina Ponor, Romania
8. Diana Bulimar, Romania

FLOOR
1. Aly Raisman, USA
2. Sandra Izbasa, Romania
3. Vanessa Ferrari, Italy
4. Ksenia Afanasyeva, Russia
5. Lauren Mitchell, Australia
6. Jordyn Wieber, USA
7. Catalina Ponor, Romania
8. Aliya Mustafina, Russia

Raisman hit all four of her events, and qualified first for the US, and only second to Russia’s Viktoria Komova. While Raisman was having the meet of her life, her teammates left room for improvement in the Team Finals (on Tuesday). McKayla Maroney, reigning World Champion on vault, had a bit too much power and needed to take a giant step on her landing.