Absolutely devastated for McKayla Maroney. To expect a gold and have EVERYONE in the world ever expecting you to get a gold and then to have that to happen has to be the worst moment of her life. But did she rage and cry? No, and I am sbolutely amazed she didn't cry. She held it together, hugged Sandra and smiled on the podium. WOW. That takes guts, considering this was far more assured than even Komova's gold chances. Komova had at least one fierce contender to deal with, Maroney had none- just a strong fight for silver and bronze below her. Nor was she ungracious about her medal, she stated 'I am not disssapointed with silver, I am dissapointed with my performance'. If anything good comes of this it is that she will be fired up to beat everyone next year and probably to stick a TTY in the process. Ultimate respect for her reaction and quotes.
'OMGZZ she should NOT have gotten silver with a fall, it's disgraceful.'As long as you blame the system, not the gymnast. However, I agree with her silver. She has far and away the best technique not only of her fellow finalists, but in general. Nobody has done the amanar better. We see textbook form and great landings often, but with the rest of her vaults Maroney stands as the best vaulter of all time. This will never happen again, vault scoring is being changed. As it stands now, nobody can touch McKayla for vaulting and it's too bad that Paseka and Berger are too far below her difficulty and execution combined to touch her. Hardly McKayla's fault now is it.
Paseka's 'amanar' was actually a 2.25 yurchenko. Not only was it not fully around, she came OFF the mat and looked like this on her block:
But it doesn't end there! Not only was Paseka's score a disgrace, it edged Janine Berger out of bronze. Janine had two excellent vaults, big steps back but really great vaulting. Janine was devastated and furious, and no wonder. Clearly was not going to challenge for gold or silver with Maroney and Izbasa around, but that WAS a bronze.
Is that it? NO! Elsabeth Black had a nightmare, crashed her first vault and got a zero. It's another controversial zero too. She was injured after that and balked out of doing her second vault, running past the mat. Wise decision, but what a nightmare for her. Even BBC thought she should appeal the first vault.
But wait for it! We were also treated to Yamilet Pena Abreu trying to land her handspring double front. Produnova must rue the day she introduced that vault to WAG (yes she was't the first attempt, a Korean tried..but everyone forgets her) if she cops any of Pena's efforts. Now, because Pena comes from a nonentity of a country in the gymnastics world, it's really not suprising that she attempts the most difficult vault in order to qualify and try to medal. However, her technique is flawed on this and it's hard to watch when you know she has no chance of landing ir properly. What was REALLY wrong with this was the expectation placed on her. Normally after crashing it, she gets up with a smile and a shrug and looks happy to be alive. Not here, she was absolutely gutted. Clearly, far too much pressure was placed on her to medal. Ridiculous.
I AM happy for Sandra Izbasa, who clearly vaulted the best today and was elated with her win. But a vault final featuring the golden favourite sit down a vault, a crash and an injury, a cannonball sit down, a vastly overscored and wrongly credited amanar and devastation on the face of no less than three girls is a nightmare. Scoring has been a letdown in ALL events in London. I am absolutely disgusted and heartbroken at how shoddy this has been.
McKayla is going to continue training apparently. FANTASTIC NEWS. I would have expected her to continue even if she did get gold, but this will hopefully inspire her further. What do I want to see from her? I would like to see her unleash a fabulous floor routine with an unscary third pass and a consistently strong beam routine. IF she continues training bars which I hope she does as she has great potential there- I'd be thrilled if she threw a Def. The height and flight she gets on her geinger is the highest I have ever seen, and the fastest and best twister in the world is probably very capable of a Def. As for vault, I would be thrilled with a TTY and she absolutely deserves a vault named after her (not the amamanr renamed..). Having a TTY would also give her the opportunity to downgrade her second vault. Her Amanar is well capable of more twists. BUT if it's not consistent, keeping the amanar is still enough to keep her ahead of the pack.
To everyone freaking out that Maroney didn't hug Paseka, shut up now. Evidence suggests she was looking so far up that she didn't realise and the camera panned away very fast. Who are you to suggest from a second of footage that Maroney didn't hug her? Who cares anyway? She was in absolute shock. And I'm not a hypocrite- I will absolutely not pass judgement on ANY gymnast regardless of nationality for being in shock/crying instead of smiling like a loon while their dreams crash around them.'Komova's a bitch, Musty is a brat, Maroney is spoilt and ignored Paseka'. Just horrifying to see this ignorance and spite everywhere. Update: McKayla has seen all the fuss about her, and has tweeted about how she hugged both girls, both are her friends, that she was in absolute shock and didn't know what she was doing and that sportmanship is very important to her. Hopefully that will shut everyone up, but I'm gutted she had to see it. Because what you really need after the worst day of your life is to find everyone turning on you for not being thrilled about it. Mustafina had had to ask people to stop contacting her, Vika and Grishina on vkontakte (Russian facebook). Clearly they were getting lowballed too. Disgraceful. I hate people. I have to go back and edit the sl** word out of a mocking post about USAG facebook because it's leading a lot of sick sick people to this blog who are searching 'McKayla Maroney sl** Mckayla Maroney bu** McKayla Maroney as*'. Just vile.
I'll never predict medals or describe anyone as a lock for gold again. Predicting favourites is one thing but this just shows you're never safe from being suprised until you're dead.
And thank you Reddit, I am well aware that this reads like a rant. But what vault final were you watching? The one I watched was a disgrace, and I wrote this right after. It is absolutely rant worthy. I am not professional and am allowed sound like a teenager if I want..especially since it's only a few years since I was one. Also, I am not American. In fact, only a few posts down I mention being Irish.
