Rio Post #1: Women's Gymnastics Individual All-Around

Wow. Just wow. Wow.  That describes the Olympics. That describes the city of Rio. And that especially describes seeing Simone Biles win the gold in the all around and Aly Raisman win the silver.




A few months ago, when Garv told me we got tickets for the all-around, I thought "Cool. That will be a big event."  I have to admit that until the Olympics started, I was completely ignorant about the potential historic dominance of the American team until I started watching the qualifying on TV.  But once I realized how good the US team was, I was really excited to attend because I realized it could be a once-in-a-lifetime type of event.  And Aly and Simone didn't disappoint...they exceeded expectations.

Garv, Lindsay, Me, Paul

Our seats are far left center of this picture. The Raisman's are top center.

Our crew for the Rio Olympics consisted of six of us: Garv and Lindsay; Nick and Jill Gifford, our friends and Garv's co-workers; and our new friend Paul Sellers and a co-worker of Garv and the Gifford's at Principal Financial Group.  One VERY disappointing thing about the all-around was that the Gifford's had their own travel issues because Delta's computer issues on Monday were still causing issues on Wednesday.  So they missed their flight to Rio and weren't able to attend which was dispiriting because Jill was the driving force behind us buying tickets to the indidual all-around.  The other unfortunate thing is that because each country is limited to only two all-around competitors, Gabby Douglas couldn't compete and make it a clean sweep in the medals for the US.  So though it wasn't perfect, it was close.



At the event, we were seated in the second level in "box seats." In the US we would have had suite access.  At the Olympics they were just seats, though they were good seats in a corner near the vault.  Also, because Aly always performed right after Simone, we had plenty of time for beverage runs so we could collect these awesome Olympics cups.

How someone actually jumps off a vault the first time in their life is still mind-blowing.

These were quite the collector's item at all the Olympics events. We'd have even more if the Brazilians knew how to move people through a line...

During the competition, Aly and Simone started with the vault which was right in front of us.  They did okay and I think they were in first and second place.  Then they  moved to the uneven bars.  The Russian who ended up winning the uneven bars gold in the individual apparatus finals had a great score on the bars and was actually in first place after two events while Simone and Aly were in second and third, respectively.  As I said earlier, I was completely ignorant about gymnastics and thought we had some drama with the Russian leading the American favorites.  But the next event was the beam and Simone had a great routine, Aly's was ok, and the Russian's was disastrous. So going into the final event, the floor exercise, Simone and Aly had a nice lead for first and second and the floor exercise is their best event. It would seem that there was very little tension going into the last routine as both Americans could do very poorly and still win gold and silver.  The tension in the building, however, was thick.


Each sport has an inherent tension at the end of the competition that makes it exciting.  In baseball, a single pitch in close game can completely change the game. In football, will the offense score or will the defense stop them?  In basketball, will the shot go in? In gymnastics, will she fall or stumble or execute her routine? Olympics gymnastics seems even more tense and brutal on the nerves because it only comes once every four years and it requires relentless work and practice.  When watching it in person as we were able to do, we could see how much more brutal it was.  Paul had attended men's gymnastics the day before and said that the thing that struck him was how many falls and stumbles he saw in person that aren't seen on TV.  Which makes sense because there were twenty-four competitors in the all-around and NBC only shows the Americans and five or six others near the top.  They never show the girl in 21st place falling off the beam or the 18th place girl biffing it on the vault. And as were watching the 17th place finisher and 23rd place finisher mess up one routine after another, Lindsay speculated that these girls had probably performed their routines or skills perfectly hundreds of times in practice but then faltered under the pressure of the Olympics. 


So going into the floor exercise, though it seemed very likely that Simone and Aly would win gold and silver, I sensed a tension in the building from lots of factors.  Simone and Aly were the favorites and would they meet the pressure of expectations?  Would they conquer the physical difficulties of the sport of gymnastics that so many other competitors had not?  Would they defeat internal pressures such as Simone not being able to compete at the last Olympics since she was too young or Aly thinking she had been screwed over in the 2012 individual all-around?  Would they simply do what they were capable of?


Aly was the second to last competitor on the floor exercise. She nailed it and I think her tears were rolling even before she stuck that last landing.  And I got a little misty, too.  I was misty for most of the next hour or so as I said in this Facebook post.  The electricity in the building was incredible because she dominated a routine under all of that pressure and the flood of emotion from Aly permeated throughout the building.


After returning to Iowa, I've gone back and watched some of the events I saw in person. Here is Aly's floor exercise from the live streaming broadcast (I couldn't find the primetime coverage) from about the 2:01:00-2:03:00 mark.  The emotion that comes through in this broadcast was about 1/1,000,000 of that emotion that I felt in the building.  This video that shows Aly's parents reacting to her routine captures more of the emotion, but it's still not the same.  One of the reasons we felt so much more emotion is that we could watch the Raisman's squirming in their seats. We could feel her parents' nerves, their relief, and then their excitement. We could feel Aly's emotion as years and years and years of work paid off.  And in person, the building was so much louder. The chants of USA were so much prouder. The flashes from cameras were so much brighter. The flags waved more vigorously. The electricity crackled more powerfully in the arena.  But the competition was not over.


Simone was the next on the floor exercise and she was the last performer of the competition with the gold medal within her reach.  The building quieted as the pressure was now placed on her.    And she also nailed it.  I remained misty.  The tears rolled. There was lots of hugging. The cheers were even louder. The chants of USA were even prouder. The flashes from the camera were even brighter. The flags waved even more vigorously. And the electricity crackled even more sharply.


The National Anthem that played as Simone and Aly and the Russian were on the medal stand was one of the most powerful and emotional I've stood during.  Simone and Aly were favored. They were supposed to win.  They could have stumbled and bumbled and performed mediocrely on the floor exercise and still won gold and silver.  Instead, they dominated.  They met expectations when it mattered most.  They performed their best under the most intense pressure.   And I was fortunate enough to witness and FEEL the emotion of athletic greatness.

On the medal stand

Results on the jumbotron

Wow. Just wow. Wow.