Tuesday, August 10, 2010

History Lesson: 1999 Worlds Event Finals


Back when compulsories were initially dropped, the 1997-2000 Quad appeared to be the worst of times. Perhaps it was just because we were living through the reign of Kristen Maloney and an overabundance of wolf jumps? Looking back, while the level of gymnastics was sorrowful in the USofA, it was superb around the globe.

The personalities alone in the sport were superb. Alexei Nemov. Elena Produnova. Viktoria Karpenko. Svetlana Khorkina. Leonid Arkayev. Belu and Bitang.

And then there was Alexei Bonarenko. So cute. So lovely. And such a Sasha Cohen. Total sadness.

The CBC actually sent cameras to the event, so I've decided to post their feed. They showed far more routines than the ESPN coverage, which relied on the smoggy world feed. If you've ever seen the ESPN coverage, it looks like downtown Beijing in the arena.

God Bless the Ukrainian Team. Sometimes, I like to imagine that Ling Jie will show up competing in that tangerine leotard.



And because they weren't shown:

6 comments:

  1. Just curious -- is there any era in which you don't think USA Gymnastics was "sorrowful?"

    ReplyDelete
  2. yvonne tousek's choreography...hahaha.. i love it!

    ReplyDelete
  3. The bar final was ridiculous for 2 reasons:

    1-Ling Jie did not finish. She was arguably better than Khorkina but clearly better than Huang Mandan WTF.

    2- The presence of Maria Olaru.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alanna Slater should've had Olaru's spot in the bar final...or at least another Ukrainian. That was nuts.

    I'd say that most of the last twenty years have been good for USAG. '85-'88 was a bit rough when Bela wasn't at competitions (incl 87 Worlds) and that 97-00 was the other major rough patch. '77-84 was quite decent as the US really started to ascend the ranks of international gymnastics. '83 Worlds was rough for the women because Bela kept the top two AAers in the country at home in order to protect their reputations because he didn't feel they were ready to challenge the Soviets and Romanians at full strength.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CBC has great coverage for a newbie gymn fans.
    NBC should take note

    ReplyDelete
  6. There angle analysis was quite good, even though CA's voice gets extremely grating after a while.

    ReplyDelete