Friday, August 31, 2012

History Lesson



A few routines from the Americans of '72 by Cathy Rigby and Joan Moore (Jeana Rice's mother.) The Americans were regularly lowballed back in the early '70s. It is amazing that the Americans competed at 8:30 a.m. during those Olympic Games. How times have changed.




Cathy tied for the final spot in beam finals with an East German but was denied a spot in the finals due to a tie breaker. Back then, only six girls competed in event finals.


Team USA on vault and bars.



Joan Moore became the first female gymnast to perform a double full on floor and was grossly underscored.


Cathy Rigby was labeled a failure by ABC Sports. Cathy said it took twenty years to get over the humiliation.



Cathy did her aerial in AA Finals, yet her score failed to go up and ABC continued to harp on her being a failure.



Uneven Bar Finals


Balance Beam Finals


Floor Exercise  (Lazakovitch is thought to have deserved the gold. When she saw Tourischeva move ahead of her, she fled the arena in tears.)

4 comments:

  1. Ugh - please, for the love of all that is tastefully-muted - go back to the burgundy background, or something similarly dark. So much of the Internet is already using glaring white - that reading this blog was like a rest for the eyes. Be different - let us cool off our retinas a bit as we read your acerbic prose. Besides - white is fattening.

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  2. Not agreed! Go back to the blue & white, please!

    Nice to know that sportscasters were as cruel in 1972 as they are now. >:(

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  3. I enjoyed this. And I didn't know Joan was the first to do the double full.

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