Okay, I’ll admit it, I have olympic fever. Sorry, it just came over me.
So I’ve been watching the gymnastics a lot and I have a couple of questions/comments.
What happen to the parallel bars that the women use? Didn’t they used to flip over the higher bar and bounce their thighs off the lower bars in what looked like a painful move? Well, unless I’m mistaken, that’s changed. They were swinging around on the high bar tonight and there is no way they could have reached the lower one to bounce any part of their body off of it. What’s up with that?
Is it part of the Olympic code that all gymnastists MUST be heavily dusted with glitter before they can perform? Maybe Maybelline is the official sponsor or something.
IIRC, the Romanians are way ahead of the game in regards to genetic engineering.
They’ve successfully inserted iridescent jellyfish genes into their hopeful gymnasts in the hope that when combined with the right conditioning, low bodyfat, stunted growth, and absense of menses, the resulting gymnasts will excrete glitter instead of sweat.
Apparently, it reflects the flashbulbs and allows them to perform without disturbance.
That glitter shit bugged me when it was first, supposedly, in fashion. A waitress of mine wore that stuff constantly on her cheeks, hair, neck… I couldn’t stand her so I never told her how foolish she looked.
I only saw a few others around town wearing that stuff (In my opinion, they needed to do alot more than splash some glitter on themselves, if ya know what I mean) and hoped it had passed. No siree.
After seeing the gymnast wearing this crap, I have a sinking feeling this will make an unappropriate comeback with the kiddies sometime soon.
Then again, in my days, Zuba’s were all the rage. Thank God there’s no photo’s of me in my neon, paisley, baggy, shorts lurking around in my past.
The only explanation I can think of for it is that they want to look exagerated, it’s like stage make up, you exagerate so that people can see you from far away. Glitter is a bit much, but the blue eyshadow could be trying to bring attention to her eyes. I still find it annoying in an age of TV and close ups but then I’ve never been a fan of gymnasts either.
Can anyone name 5 male gymnasts that you are 100% sure aren’t gay?
Just something from “The Little Book of Stupid Questions”
I remember what you mean, Elbows–that gut-pounding thingy they used to do. Now, they all seem to do the lame stunt of standing on the lower bar to get to the higher one.
The glitter is ridiculous. The Americans seemed to have a light sprinkling of it, but there is one particular Russian who looked like someone had spray painted her hair gold–it looked absurd. And that stuff isn’t easy to wash out, either. I’ve noticed that the Russians tend to overdo the makeup, glitter, etc.; not sure what to make of that.
Meanwhile, watching the American girl bite in on the vault last night was darn painful. Did someone butter the apparati? People were flipping, slipping, and flopping off everything but the floor last night.
I heard on the radio this morning that the vault bar was set five inches too low, causing many of the falls and such. How in the world does that happen? This is the Olympics. Heck, I think I could eyeball that thing and tell you it was too low. Don’t they measure it beforehand?
My wife and I were commenting on that very thing, the lack of “hip circle” moves. We figured they’re all just going for points and the “eye-catching-ness” of big swings and release moves on the higher bar. I don’t think there has been any change in the equipment. AFAIK, they have always been able to adjust the “spread” of the bars (because of height differences in the gymnasts). I bet they are just going for a wider spread to make giant circles and release moves easier. Too bad, I always thought it looked great. Or as we said where I grew up, “wicked pissa”.
I emailed a gymnastics site for the Straight Dope on this…
the uneven parallel bars were moved apart and up a while ago. the idea being that the women could do the type of moves that are done on the high bar on the men’s side. the layout swing, the release moves, and vaults. now the women do a double high bar type routine. in the old days you could walk up and hop right up onto the low bar, now someone has to lift you or you have to spring off a spring board. you couldn’t do the layout swing at the old width and height, you had to pike to get past the low bar. they also changed the thickness of the bar so delicate little gymnast hands could get a better grip.
the vault horse being a “tad” off can really mess with your vault. as we saw by the first gymnast doing a pratice vault, her hands slipped right off the horse. think of walking down the street and the curb not being at the height you expect. you’d stumble about a bit, right? she was very lucky to land on her tush. which i hope was not as glitter dusted as her hair.
I was bummed about the too-low vault since I think you can argue that the gymnasts who messed up on it lost thier confidence (and thier chances at gold) as a result of it. It’s a shame.
As for the glitter…the Russian girls were wearing a bit much. As your friendly neighborhood fashionista, I wore glitter a plenty last year and occasionally wear some now. Like any other cosmetic, there’s a right way and wrong way to wear glitter. But no matter, glitter is mostly out, glow is in this season. I’m sure you’re all thrilled.
As for the blue eyeshadow, it’s actually in style right now…but not while wearing yellow-and-red-and-white and a pink scrunchy. Big no-no.
