Show of hands, how many of you took gymnastics as kids?

I not only took it myself, but I was also a youth girls gymnastics groupie. My sister got pretty good as a kid, so as a result, my little brother and I were forced to follow the weekend road warrior gymnastics circuit all across the state Michigan. Nothing ever sucked so bad.

In my case, the acrobatic career ended before it ever began. I never liked it to begin and to this day I do not know why that was so common back then to enroll boys in gymnastics. Girls are into dancing, dig the costumes, and graceful, so it makes a little sense. Boys are a recipe for disaster.

At the age of six, I found myself at a random gym for one of these lousy girls' competitions with an excellent foam pit. That was the one highlight, the giant pools full of cushy foam to jump into either via trampoline or balance beam. In this case, we must have thought this pit was extra stellar, because I ran down the beam and dove head first. To make a long story short, I ended up on muscle relaxers, the career was over, and my sister switched to diving. I never made it beyond the Roundoff.

Thankfully, there's still the Olympics. I totally think the women are gonna win it all this year. The hometown Chinese are already under the microscope for slavery or something, so top competition will likely be tossed before we ever get under way. Our best chance for a Mary Lou Retton (or a Kippy) like blowout this year is probably Shawn Johnson, but personally, I hope they take a team approach this time around though. I wonder if they have any good human interest stories?

Broadly speaking, it's a noticeably less ugly team than usual. They have a nice batch of first names like Samantha, Bridget, Alicia (pictured), Chellsie, and Shawn. At first I figured Shawn was gonna look like a black man, but she is actually pretty cute (relatively speaking). Alicia ain't too bad either, eh?

Who is the underdog to cheer on to win a medal? Get ready for this; there's a girl called Nastia. If you think I'm passing up the opportunity to root for an athlete called Nastia, you need to pay closer attention in general. That's fucking basass.

There is one piece of bunk news this year that I just learned in Sports Illustrated; gymnasts can no longer score a perfect 10. Now, they plan to combine two scores, one for difficulty and one for pointing toes and not crying. Apparently, a good score is now in the 16 to 17 range. This is a bit disappointing there was something fun about a chance at the perfect 10. A very strong 16.5 doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Well, good luck to the ladies. Bring us home some gold. And would it kill ya to make American Anthem 2. We haven't seen enough of Janet Gretzky lately.Subscribe to us