It's My TV….It's My Peanut Butter

It’s an Olympic year. It’s a Summer Olympic year which means that it’s that one year in four when some of you might actually watch gymnastics. As your resident somewhat more than casual gymnastics fan I feel like it’s therefore my duty to keep you informed so that when the Olympics do roll around you can act all knowledgeable when you’re watching with your friends who aren’t informed because they don’t read this blog.

One of the first major competitions of the year took place yesterday: The American Cup. While the commentators always go on and on about what a prestigious competition it is, it only rates as anything at all prestigious if you’re American. If you’re not American it’s sort of a joke. There’s a reason the fan communities on the interwebs refer to it as the “Scamerican Cup” or just “Scam Cup.” Americans are always over scored. For years only C list international competitors were invited; now they invite higher ranked gymnasts, they just don’t come.

Regardless, it does give us our first glimpse at many gymnasts for the season. And perhaps most importantly it gives the online gymnastics communities something to talk about. Because for months they’ve been making conversation about which gymnasts follow each other on Twitter and it’s gotten a little stalkerish.

As for what we learned:

American men tend towards some head case-ish-ness. (Don’t worry, one of them still won after magically coming from behind.)

The American women’s contingent is deep. The top three scorers in the women’s competition were all American. This is especially interesting since each country is only allowed to send two gymnasts.

Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas can both do Amanar vaults (round off on, two and a half twists off). Since conventional wisdom stated that Raisman could not make the team without one, this is big news for her. Also, she does insane tumbling.

Jordyn Weiber is not someone I would like to meet it a dark alley—seriously, girl is ripped. Even for a gymnast.

We need better uneven bars coaches in the US.

The Romanian women are making strides towards erasing the disaster they had at last year’s world championships, but they aren’t there yet.

And yeah… we don’t know much more than we knew last week. As far as who will make the Olympic teams, it’s way too early to tell. At least half the contenders will be injured by then. But message boards will be filled with daily posts of people analyzing the issue, saying who they’d put on their team, etc, etc. Fortunately they won’t have to obsess over this meet for too long as Pacific Rims are in two weeks and it will have much more to obsess over. (Don’t worry, you’ll probably get another blog post around then.)

Longtime readers are more than aware of my fervent gymnastics obsession.  Normally, one of the good and bad things about this is that the sport gets very little air time in the US. Unlike football aficionados who have several games to watch each week during the season, gymnastics fans get to see a handful of meets per year. In a non-Olympic year you generally get the American Cup, Nationals, and highlights from Worlds (I’m not sure why there tends to more coverage of Nationals than Worlds, but I suspect it has to do with what other sports are going on in those seasons). In an Olympic year you also get Olympic trials, and generally a good amount of airtime during the Olympics. Every now and then a random college meet will pop up in a slow sports week. I think if you get those paid sports packages you get a bit more, but… I don’t. This is frustrating because it means you have to get the results of most competitions off the internet. But on the other hand, it means your sports obsession isn’t too time costly.

Until now.

I decided this year I was going to keep up with college gymnastics a bit more. The season was starting right around the time my soap was ending, so I thought maybe it could help fill the void. There are a lot of things I like about college gymnastics versus the elite scene. And I thought it would just mean reading reports and watching some youtube clips here and there, since the broadcast so little.

Well… they broadcast so little on television. Apparently a lot of colleges have live streaming coverage of all home meets and some post the videos on websites afterwards. Which means that for the next few months on any given Saturday or Sunday there are anywhere between one and three meets I can watch.

The end result? Last Saturday and Sunday I got about half the things done I was planning to. I know I don’t have to watch, but knowing it’s out there, so easily clickable… it’s hard to resist. And so it just keeps sucking away my time.

I’ve been good.  I’ve been so good.  I have not blogged about my strange gymnastics obsession once this year!  But I’m jumping off the wagon.

I feel it’s my duty.  After all, the London Olympics are next year, marking that once every four year occasion in which everyone suddenly watches gymnastics.  And if I don’t update you, how will you know what’s going on next year?

General things you need to know:

Remember how in 2008 the scoring system was all weird and the perfect 10 was gone?  And because of the way difficulty is valued it’s possible for someone to fall and still win because they were doing a harder skill?  Yeah, they haven’t fixed that.  They said they were going to fix that.  They’ve done some things aimed at fixing that.  But they haven’t fixed that.

Teams are down to five members this year instead of the six we had last Olympiad and seven we had the last time USA won a gold medal.  The idea is to make it easier for smaller countries to compete.  Every year they seem to institute some new policy aimed at making it easier for smaller (and by “smaller” they really mean countries with less wealthy gymnastics programs—Romania is fairly tiny and is always in the top tier) countries to compete.  I’m not sure any of it helps.  What it does mean is that it’s going to be harder for event specialists to make it onto the team since out of those five at least three have to have good scores on each event.

Team USA:

Half our gymnasts are broken.  The run down: Alicia Sacramone (ruptured Achilles), Chellsie Memmel (bicep surgery), Mackenzie Caquatto (ankle injury), Rebecca Bross (dislocated knee), Bridget Sloan (recently recovered from bicep tear, now nursing a gashed foot that required something like 15 stiches).  And this doesn’t even include all those little injuries gymnasts compete with all the time.  A lot of people are quick to blame Marta Karolyi for the injuries, but I personally place more blame on the code which pushes girls to perform difficult skills even when maybe they shouldn’t.

At present all members of the 2008 women’s team except Samantha Pezcek are planning to try to make the 2012 team.  Chances don’t necessarily look great for any of them.  A-Sac and Memmel are battling bodies that have been doing the sport for a very long time and are consequently falling apart.  Shawn Johnson fell twice on beam at Pan-Americans and seems to be struggling to deal with nerves and old injuries she didn’t have to face so much as a wide-eyed sixteen year old.  Nastia Liukin just announced her comeback and no one’s seen her compete yet, so it’s hard to say.  (I’ll confess that all I care about at this point is that Travis Wall of So You think you Can Dance fame may be choreographing her floor routine)  Sloan seems to be a procrastinator—she barely competed this year and clearly is not in top competitive form at the moment.  On the other hand, no one thought she was going to be ready in 2008 and she was.  She and Liukin are giant question marks.

And probably the biggest obstacle for the ’08 girls is that Team USA just won the 2011 World Title without help from any of them.  That torch may have been passed.  Watch for newly crowned All-around champion Jordyn Weiber.  Her gymnastics might not be as pretty to watch as Liukin’s or the Russians’, but she does a lot of it and does it well.  It’s important to note that USA won the world championships in the last two pre-Olympic years, only to come in second at the Olympics.  Let’s hope the curse does not repeat.

On the men’s side (no, I haven’t been following it as closely.  No, I don’t feel that guilty about it.): The biggest thing to watch for is Yin Alvarez.  No, he’s not an athlete; he’s the coach and step father of US Champion Danell Leyva and his antics are perhaps even more entertaining to watch than Bella Karolyi’s.  The men’s team looks solid over all and poised for a potential medal.  Paul Hamm had announced yet another comeback attempt, but this will likely be hampered by his recent arrest.

Other teams:

Russia looked almost asleep in world team finals (where they came in second), but they were without defending All Around champion Aliya Mustafina (ACL tear).  They also came back for several individual medals, but not the gold in the All Around. (There is some controversy over whether silver medalist Viktoria Komova actually deserved to win—I’ll spare you the details.)  They might be hungry next year.

Speaking of hungry: Romania failed to medal at all at the World Championships.  Expect them to be pissed and out for blood next year.

China’s always one to watch for, but it’s hard to say who will be on their team (I’ll spare you jokes about how next year’s team is still in nursery school).  They have a couple up-and-comers and could be very competitive.

England qualified a women’s team for the Olympics (and men will likely get in at the Olympic test event next year).  They probably won’t challenge for a team medal, but they have several gymnasts who could be in the hunt for individual medals.

Sadly my other team Mexico will not be sending a team to the Olympics, but they have several exciting gymnasts with beautiful, elegant styles.  They’re still a team to watch for, even if it’s not for next year.

It’s Sunday night.  If you’re like me, this means you’re mentally rolling your eyes at yourself and cataloguing all the things you meant to get done this weekend that you didn’t get done.  And you’re dreading tomorrow morning.  I like to believe, although I’m fairly certain it’s not true, you’re also thinking to yourself, “Aren’t the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships going on?  Why hasn’t Kristy updated us?”

Yeah, I know.  You didn’t know they were going on and you weren’t wondering.  Won’t stop me from updating you.

The first important thing you need to know is that the line up for the US women’s team wound up being exactly what I predicted in my last gymnastics post.  Sadly, this is, in part, because poor Chelsea Davis was injured again and thus became the alternate by default.  (They had traveled with seven girls without specifying which one was the alternate)

The other thing you need to know is I haven’t really gotten to watch much of anything yet.  Sadly, my profs don’t see this as a legitimate reason for not completing my work and my body doesn’t see this as a legitimate reason for not sleeping.  So this coverage is all brought to you second hand, mostly courtesy The Gymnastics Examiner, The Couch Gymnast, Gymnastike and Aunt Joyce’s Ice Cream Stand.

In the team competitions:  The Russian women won the gold medal as they were widely expected to, followed by the United States and China.  Since there were a lot of whispers that the US women wouldn’t even medal this year, they should be pleased if not satisfied.  In the men’s competition China won the gold followed by Japan and Germany.

In the all around:  Russian diva-in-training Aliya Mustafina won the gold (she was so heavily favored that if she hadn’t I think she might have considered emigrating to Ukraine), followed by Jiang Yuyuan of China and Rebecca Bross of the US (give the commentators five minutes and they’ll remind you she seems destined to win the gold in 2012).  Kohei Uchimura of Japan won the men’s gold followed by Philipp Boy of Germany (who wins for best name) and Jonathan Horton of the US (The US’s first men’s all around medal since 2003).

Rather than running through the rest of the medal count from here, I’m just going to focus on a couple of big stories:

Aunt Joyce is declaring that US diva-in-training Mattie Larson’s Olympic dream is over after she made errors which seem to be mostly mental during the team competition.  Though AJ can rattle of stats and facts better than I can, making me hesitant to challenge him, I say it’s a little early for this.  Yes, he’s correct, gymnastics can be an unforgiving sport, except when it’s not (ask Alicia Sacramone:  Marta was done with her in 2004, and begging her to come back by 2009).  Does she now have a lot to prove?  Sure.  Am I ruling her out?  Not yet.  People were starting to say similar things about Nastia Liukin in 2006 and look how that turned out.

Speaking of Queen Nastia, she announced she’s leaning towards a comeback.  My translation is that this means she’s aiming for one, but isn’t going to commit until she sees how her body holds up/adjusts.  She won’t come back publicly unless she thinks she can win.   For this reason I doubt we’ll see her come back as an all arounder.

Speaking of ASac, meet the new World Vault champion!  Kristy’s a happy, shameless fangirl.

In other grown-ups-can-do-women’s-gymnastics news, Britain’s Beth Tweddle, aged 25, won her second gold in uneven bars.

And in one of the other great feel good moments of championships, Lauren Mitchell of Australia won her country’s first gold in women’s gymnastics ever.  She’s also adorable.  I feel that needed to be said.

Jessica Lopez of Venezuela finished tenth in the all around, which I believe is the highest finish for a Venezuelan ever.

Jade Barbosa (who despite what you’d think based on her name is neither a pirate nor a stripper) came back from what was described as a career ending injury to place 15^th in the all around and win the bronze in the vault final.  South America will get there yet!

And that’s it for now.  I won’t promise not to come back with a fashion update after I actually get to watch the coverage.  Which I plan to do next weekend.  I’m going to count it as “studying Russian” since it seems that most of what’s been posted online so far is the Russian coverage.

Yeah, it’s another gymnastics post.  Don’t worry, I’m limiting myself to an absolute maximum of one per week—there are enough gymnastics blogs out there, we don’t need to turn this blog into one.  Also, Cammy’s not really into gymnastics, so that could make things awkward.  Anyway, there’s a reason for this post:  Yesterday USA Gymnastics released the names of the women who have been invited to attend the first World Team Selection Camp.  World and Olympic teams in Ladies competition are now determined not by any particular competition, but by a series of camps which are a combination of training and competition.  The first camp will be 13-18 September and then somewhere between eight and twelve of the women will move on to a second camp 3-6 October which will determine the final team.  The team is chosen by a selection committee headed up by Marta Karolyi.  Going to the first came are:  (courtesy of Gymnastike)

Rebecca Bross, Plano, Texas/WOGA Gymnastics
Mackenzie Caquatto, Naperville, Ill./Legacy Elite Gymnastics
Chelsea Davis, Lakeway, Texas/Texas Dreams Gymnastics
Kytra Hunter, Frederick, Md./Hill’s Gymnastics
Amanda Jetter, Milford, Ohio/Cincinnati Gymnastics
Mattie Larson, Los Angeles, Calif./All Olympia
Alexandra Raisman, Needham, Mass./Brestyan’s American Gymnastics
Alicia Sacramone, Winchester, Mass./Brestyan’s American Gymnastics
Samantha Shapiro, Los Angeles, Calif./All Olympia
Bridget Sloan, Pittsboro, Ind./Sharp’s Gymnastics Academy
Morgan Smith, Clermont, Fla./Brandy Johnson’s Global Gymnastics
Cassandra Whitcomb, Cincinnati, Ohio/Cincinnati Gymnastics

If you’re wondering why there isn’t a competition to determine the team, look up the shenanigans that went on with the 1992 Olympic team.  And if you’re still not convinced of how problematic competitions are for forming successful teams, go to YouTube and look up Kim Kelly, then ask yourself if that 90 degree split would have scored well in Barcelona.  Current competition format also means that the best team is not necessarily made up of the top six gymnasts.  There are six women to the team, but in team finals only three compete on each event.  So the game is to put together a team made up of six gymnasts that also gives you the top three on each event.  It’s like a logic problem.

Now obviously I’m not an expert, and even more obviously I have no say, but just for fun, I’m giving you my thoughts and predictions on the team.  Keep in mind that World Championships aren’t till 17 October, which leaves plenty of time for someone to get injured (gymnasts are very breakable), so this is all tentative.

Rebecca Bross will definitely be on the team.  She’s the national champion and can easily compete all four events in finals.

Mattie Larson is also looking close to a lock.  She could potentially go up on any event, though she’s had some problems on beam here and there.  She has a glorious divalicous floor and the international look that Marta Karolyi loves (that’s code for “she remembers to point her toes, and she can dance”).  She comes with the Johnny Weir official Diva certification, and at the moment USA Gymnastics needs a little more of that.

Alicia Sacramone looks to be in good position to make the team because they really need her vault.  She’s also been solid on beam and could contribute on both events.  I have doubts about Marta trusting her on beam in another major competition, but she’s seemed positive about her recently.  ASac also brings personality to the team which, let’s face it, they need.

If Bridget Sloan is healthy and ready, she’ll be on the team, and like Bross should be able to go on any event.  Being totally healthy is a big if though—even if she’s on the team she may not have all events back.

I think Raisman has probably done enough to prove her case and will probably be on the team.  The drawbacks for her are that she’s started to look more rattled in competitions and she has terrible lack of toe point.  She could be iffy at this point.

For the final spot I’m going to throw in Mackenzie Caquatto (please note:  if you’re ever stuck for the name of a US gymnast, assume it’s Michaela or Mackenzie—there are a lot of them) as a bars specialist.  She did fall off bars during finals at nationals, but it was on a nothing move and she came back and put up a great (for her) beam set.  That shows a mental “toughness” that Marta seems to really like.

So the team would break down like this:

Vault:  Bross, Sacramone, Raisman

Uneven bars:  Bross, Sloan, Caquatto

Balance beam:  Bross, Sacramone, Raisman

Floor:  Bross, Larson, Raisman

Team:  Bross, Sacramone, Sloan, Larson, Raisman, Caquatto

There’s a lot of wiggle room on this team; both Sloan and Larson could do more events than I have listed for them.  This could be good in the case of a last minute injury.

Other possibilities:  Marta could put Larson in on bars and pick another power gymnast instead of Caquatto.  If so, I would predict that spot going to Kytra Hunter who is a phenomenal tumbler even if she lacks a little in the form and finesse department.  Chelsea Davis could easily take Caquatto’s spot as bars specialist.  If Sloan is out that will probably open things up for Hunter or Davis.  Sam Shapiro also has those pretty “international” lines Marta loves, but she lacks experience and breaks if you breathe on her hard.  But if she does well at camp they could look at this as an opportunity to give her experience.  Cassie Whitcomb could be a possible bars specialist too, but Marta’s had a lot of opportunities to give her assignments in the past and hasn’t.  It all really depends on the camps at this point.

I know, I know, most of you are thinking that you don’t need to know anything.

For better or for worse (I would argue “worse”) most Americans only pay attention to gymnastics in an Olympic year.  Which kind of sucks for the athletes who are still working their asses off in the years between.  The US National Championships were held this weekend (and apparently there was a lack of other sporting events this weekend, since parts of it actually got broadcast on NBC) and I thought, in honor of that, it might be a nice time to check in and give you non-fangirls a rundown of what’s happening.  We are at the halfway point in the summer Olympic cycle, which the commentators like to remind you of constantly.  While I’m sure it is true that the athletes all have that in the back of their minds, the reality is that what’s going on now tells you very little about what will be going on then.  At the 2006 World Championships, for example, the ladies all around podium was:  Gold—Vanessa Ferrari (Italy), Silver—Jana Bieger (USA), Bronze—Sandra Izbasa (Romania).  If you just asked “who?”, you just proved my point.

If the extent of your gymnastics following has been my twitter feed, you might be interested in an update of the 2008 Olympic team, so in short:

Nastia Liukin:  Yes, she has boobs now; no, she hasn’t made a decision about returning to competition; her status as Evan Lysacek’s beard is no more clear than it ever was, but seems to be more or less over.

Shawn Johnson:  Officially announced she was coming back after almost two years out of the gym.  She had surgery in February for a torn ACL sustained while skiing; by her own admission she’s never had to deal with a major injury before, so we’ll see how this impacts her come back.  I suspect if she does make it, she’ll be a different gymnast than she was before.

Chellsie Memmel:  After having two Olympics in a row messed up by foot injuries, she is “taking a break”.  Basically she isn’t ruling out another come back, but it really sounds like she’s saying “gymnastics, I think we should see other people.  But I’d like to keep that big comfy sweatshirt you left over here.”

Alicia Sacramone:  ASac is back!  I would try to contain my excitement, but if you follow me on twitter you already know.  Cliché as it is, I cannot deny my love for ASac or my joy at the success of her comeback.  After swearing she was done with gymnastics (the girl had a countdown to her retirement in 2008) she’s back as a beam and vault specialist, and doing quite well at both.  Looking better than in 2008 the experts say.

Samantha Peszek:  Just started at UCLA where she’ll compete as an NCAA gymnast.  Has not ruled out a return to elite, but seems to be having fun with the college life.

Bridget Sloan:  Last year’s national and world all around champion.  Right now suffering from an ankle injury and a pectoral strain (yes, she strained her boob), she only competed beam at this year’s nationals and was clearly not 100%.

Okay, on to the current competitive scene.  Rebecca Bross is our new national champion having finally gotten through a major senior competition without a major nervous error.  Second place went to Mattie Larson who is finally not injured.  Alexandra Raisman who is perhaps better known as Alicia II for her physical and performance resemblance to ASac came in third.

But the really important things you need to take away from these championships (and perhaps more to the point the broadcast on NBC and Universal Sports online):

Mattie Larson is fabulous.  From her smoky eye make up to her exquisitely pointed toes to the divalicious way she tosses her head during her floor exercise choreography.  How fabulous is she?  Johnny Weir loves her.  Yeah.  That’s pretty damn fabulous.

Despite my earlier doubts, I think Rebecca Bross does have a personality.  And I’m fairly certain she’s just as sick as everyone else of being reminded that the last two Olympic all around champions trained in her gym.

Okay, I’m used to bruises.  This past May I got a bruise on my knee so big it left a stretch mark.  But Bridget Sloan’s bruise made me cringe.  Thing goes down to her elbow.  And I remind you that the actual injury is to her chest.  Proving what a bad ass she is, she laughs as she shows it to the camera.  Love it!

Nastia Liukin is staying in shape by wearing six inch heels.  Damn girl!

Apparently Valerie Liukin and Bela Karolyi go hunting together.  When Cammy and I produce the Bela Karolyi reality show, this is totally going to happen at least one episode a season.  Seriously, just picture tiny Valerie learning to use a rifle from big burly Bela!

In a postgame show Johnny Weir was asked what he would costume Nastia in for her next competition.  He began by indicating it would obviously depend on music.  When she pointed out they don’t use music for every event he assured her she would be changing for every event.  Dear skatenastics gods:  I REALLY want to see this happen.  Please.  I’ve been good!

According to John Rothlisberger, Tim Dagget’s Starbucks order is “swishy”.

I want an alternative commentary feed provided by ASac and Johnny Weir.  Keep Tim and Elfi for the humorless out there, but bring the rest of us the funny and fabulousness.

And since I’ve thus far left the men out:  Jon Horton has beyond huge muscles, Danell Leyva is prettier to watch (and might be a Santerista), and his father is crazy.

So the gymnastics competitive season is kicking into high gear, and has been discussed previously, I’m a big gymnastics fan.  Highlight of my weekend was spending Saturday night watching the Covergirl US Classic and the triumphant return of ASac.  So I thought it would be a good time to discuss coffee with perhaps the most recognizable personality in American gymnastics.  Which is ironic since he’s neither a gymnast nor American (by birth).

Would we drink coffee with Bela Karolyi?

Kristy: Yes!  Now, I know that Bela is a controversial figure in some circles, and while some of the allegations are likely sensationalized, I doubt they’re totally baseless.  If I had a young daughter training as an elite gymnast I don’t know that I would send her to him (assuming he were still coaching).  But I’m neither young nor a gymnast.  And whatever else he may be, he’s amusing as hell.  As loyal reader Teapot has asked, “Why does this man not have his own reality show?”  I think we would all rather watch a show titled Bela Watches Gymnastics than the 40th season of American Idol.  I’m sure that coffee with Bela would be hysterical, though I’m a little concerned about snarfing my coffee.

And beyond the funny, I’m sure he has some interesting tales to tell.  I just recently read a book about the impact of nationalism on his hometown (which was Kolozsvar, Hungary when he was born but is now Cluj-Napoca, Romania).  I’d like to get his take on what the border shifting was like.  I mean the man is ethnically Hungarian but is in many ways father of gymnastics in both Romania and the United States.  And he seems to have become very much a Texan.  That has to result in some good stories.

But I’m bringing someone along to serve as a physical buffer between him and me.  Bela tends to be very physically demonstrative and I bruise easily.

Cammy: I hope Kristy’s not assuming I’ll be the buffer.  I bruise, too.  But I’m not missing coffee with this guy.  Or at least I’m not missing the chance to be in the Spacial Anomaly Coffee Bar and Refueling Station while Kristy and her bodyguard are having a cuppa joe, so I can listen in.  I know nothing of gymnastics (except that it makes me cringe.  A lot).  Although, I’ve been to Hungary, know lots of people who’ve spent excessive amounts of time in Romania….and Texan.  Yeah.  Goes without saying.  So maybe I can get a phrase or two, in there.  But really, I just want to see his reactions.  Maybe we can have another sports commentator come along to be the buffer.  And then show Bela clips of gymnastics and let his boisterous nature take its course.  Hmm, maybe caffeinating him and having hot liquids right there isn’t so smart….

Kristy: So we’ll get Mary to slip him decaf and suggest iced coffee.  I like the idea of another sports commentator as buffer–preferably one of the really annoying ones on the NBC gymnastics team.  I’m thinking either Andrea Joyce or Al Trautwig.

As we’ve alluded to a few times, I’m not easily embarrassed.  Much to Cammy’s chagrin.  I’d like to say I’m like Barney Stinson and have an awesome gland where my shame gland should be, but in reality it’s more like I have a very small shame gland which was unable to develop properly due to my enlarged attention whore gland.  So there’s not a lot of guilt involved in most of my guilty pleasures.  I will tell anyone who wants to know about my soap opera addiction.  I’m open about my love for Degrassi.  But there are some things even I hesitate to admit to watching.  Like Make It Or Break It, for example.  I’m not going to deny that I watch it, and clearly I’m telling the entire internet, but I’m not ever going to bring it up in conversation.

Let’s start by getting one thing clear:  It’s not a good show.  It’s not even a mediocre show.  I mean, in many ways, it’s truly awful.  The fact that it comes on ABC Family probably tells you a lot.  But I can’t stop watching it!

It’s really not that difficult to figure out why I would watch it.  I’m a huge fan of gymnastics; it is, to my knowledge, the only show out there about gymnastics.  I also enjoy teen angst.  And what this show is really about is teen angst.  Win-win.  Sorta.

The show follows the adventures of a quartet of elite gymnasts as they train and compete and experience the hell known as adolescence.  We have Scrappy!Emily, the daughter of a ne’er do well nail technician who also has a wheel chair bound brother.  Her family has no money and she doesn’t feel like she belongs in an elite gym.  Then there’s Bitchy!Lauren from a broken home, poor little rich girl type.  Super competitive in and out of the gym.  Not above endangering a fellow gymnast’s life by tampering with the vault or sleeping with her friend’s boyfriend.  Then we have Payson who simultaneously manages to be bad ass and boring which is a clear indication how talented she is.  She traded in a personality for work ethic.  Last but not least, Sparkly!Kaylie, whose ex-athlete father is more interested in finding endorsements to parenting and whose mother is more interested in banging the coach.  But she’s cute and has something approaching a personality.

And wackiness ensues!

Wackiness that is generally predictable and yet horribly addictive.

Okay, the first glaring problem with the show is honestly one I will concede them: though the characters are supposed to be some of the top gymnasts in the world, the skills we see them doing are somewhat less than world class.  Though this impacts the realism of the show, there are only a handful of women in the world who can actually do world class gymnastics and most of them are too busy being world class gymnasts to have time to do stunt work for an angsty television show.

Then there’s the soap opera problem of nothing having lasting consequences.  Lauren leaves the gym and comes back.  Carter gets kicked out of the gym but comes back.  Lauren and Kaylie end their friendship over Carter, but they all bond in the end.  I might have been distraught when Payson fell off the bars at Nationals, injuring her spine so that she’d never be able to do gymnastics again.  If I thought it would actually stick.  Sure enough, Counselor Troi showed up and performed a revolutionary surgery, leaving her good as new.  (Incidentally, would you let Counselor Troi operate on your child?  Because I wouldn’t.)

The bigger problem is that they fail to make the characters sympathetic.  Every male under 25 who enters the show seems to fall for Emily, despite her lack of curves, brain and backbone.  And the fact that I want to smack her at least half the time.  Payson was at her least annoying while handicapped and they fixed that.  Lauren is fun with her crazed bitchiness, but at best is the type you love to hate.  There are moments when I like Kaylie, but then I remember she was that obnoxious girl I hated in high school.

All this said?  I’m totally going to be watching the season premiere on Monday (or perhaps whenever they get the episode online since I’ll be working during the initial broadcast).  Because I may not want to, but I eat it all up.  It’s like that can of cream cheese icing in the back of the fridge.  You know that there is nothing to be gained by eating a big old spoonful of it, but that won’t stop you.

Once again, I’m speaking for me, not MTVMPB as a whole.  I’m sure Cammy’s scared of a slightly different list of people.  Most of whom she’d sacrifice me to if it facilitated her escape.

5.  Vladimir Putin. I’m not sure how much this, or any one on this list, requires an explanation.  I mean, the guy worked for the KGB, then went into politics because it gave him the opportunity to be more underhanded and duplicitous.  Then after running one of the most powerful (at least in terms of nuclear arsenals, if not in economic terms any longer) nations for a while decided to step aside and continue running said superpower from a different office.  But there’s so much more to it than that.  There’s the fact that he’s an expert in martial arts, which ensures that even at nearly 60 years of age he could most certainly kick my ass.  The fact that when he clears brush on vacation he does so shirtless just to prove he’s still ripped.  And there’s the undeniable creep factor.  Just look at him.  He oozes, “I’m up to many dark and underhanded things you don’t even want to dream about.”  Speaking of dreaming…

4.  This Guy. Well setting aside for the moment the fact that he looks beyond creepy, the man appears in the dreams of people all over the world who have no real connection.  Let’s say that again.  The man appears in the dreams of people all over the world.  People who have no connection to each other or the super creepy man they’re all dreaming about.  And if I run into him in a dark alley, that means he’s real, not some bizarre part of the universal unconscious (also a bizarre part of the universal unconscious?  Little Richard.)  And if he’s real, that means that there’s a man out there with the ability to enter the dreams of all sorts of random people.  And yet, he’s in a dark alley, running into me.  Which can’t mean anything good.

3.  Yelena Produnova. I’m fairly certain that at this moment at least half of you went, “Who?”  Wikipedia it.  Or better?  YouTube it.  No, I’m not afraid of Russians in general; it’s pure coincidence that two of them made my list.   Please note that I find the under five foot tall, 85 pound chick scarier than the former KGB operative.  But we’re talking about a woman who could basically walk into a double front flip.  Like for serious.  Add to that an incredible bitch face.  And because apparently that wasn’t enough, she shaved stripes into her eyebrows to make herself look more like a warrior.  And I have a totally unsubstantiated thought that being from Rostov-on-Don makes her even more of a badass, but I’m not sure why.  If you are still not convinced, track down the footage of her taking off her silver medal in disgust after the team medal ceremony in Sydney.  Unsportswomanlike?  Perhaps.  But watch that and tell me you wouldn’t soil yourself if you saw that expression coming towards you in a darkened alley.

2.  Edward James Olmos. So yeah, we touched on this one already.  Here it’s much less biographical and really just a matter of the aura he conveys.  The pitted complexion, the smoky eyes.  The raspy voice.  The posture.  I love the man and yet I find him more than a little terrifying.  Can’t help it.  Perhaps we can work this out over the aforementioned cup of coffee.

1.  Christopher Lee. Um… are you kidding me?  If you need me to explain this one, it is clearly because you don’t know who Christopher Lee is.  It used to be like EJO, he just scared me because of his intimidating aura.  The deep, accented voice.  The gnarled fingers.  The CRAZY eyes!  And then I watched the extras on the Lord of the Rings DVDs.  And found out he has intimate knowledge of the way people react when stabbed in the back.  For reasons he chose not to elaborate on.  I don’t give a damn what the reasons are:  there are no reasons for knowing what a person does when stabbed in the back that would make me more okay with the idea of running into this man in a darkened alley.  None at all.  And the fact that he is almost 90 doesn’t make me feel better in the slightest.  I just hope that if I ever do run into him, I’m with Edward James Olmos or Yelena Produnova and they’re on my side.

In today’s time vampire is in a little different vein.  It’s not a game or a vast compendium of knowledge or humor or lists.  It’s a blog.  A blog that is a times a vast compendium of knowledge, humor, and lists.  And where I have lost a lot of time

The blog in question is The Couch Gymnast.  At one point the tag line for the blog read: “Gymnastics and Lists:  Two of my favorite things” (paraphrased from memory).  It just so happens that Gymnastics and lists are also two of my favorite things, so clearly me and the blog are like *this*.  (The new tag line is  “Where the rant never ends” which is delightful, but slightly less descriptive of me.  Maybe.)  I used to describe my love of gymnastics as “my strange fascination with gymnastics” since it struck many people as odd that I am so borderline obsessive about a sport I never participated in.  Then it occurred to me that many football fans have never participated in football and Cammy’s fixated on biathlon though as far as I know she’s never even put on a pair of skis.  So I refuse to apologize for my love of gymnastics anymore.

Anyway, back to the time vampire at hand… It is a blog about gymnastics by a fellow non-former gymnast who is also a fellow graduate student.  She hails from Australia and I believe her name is Bridget.  She is not the Bridget who occasionally comments here; that’s my former roommate.  Unless my Bridget has been hiding the fact that she’s secretly an Australian gymnastics blogger, which would be weird.

I follow a couple gymnastics blogs, but Couchy is my favorite by far, largely because she brings the funny.  And because of a few features she rotates through on a somewhat regular basis.  By far my favorite, and I’d guess the one she might be best known for, is her “World’s Worst Leotard” contest.  Seriously, I thought that team USA’s hot pink concoction in Beijing were bad.  Couch Gymnast has shown me they could be SOOO much worse.  My second favorite feature is a sort of “what are they thinking” kind of thing where she captions what gymnasts/coaches are really thinking in photos, with high-larious results.  (example )  Then she does this “Cartwheels in…” feature where she explores gymnastics programs in countries that never make it to television.  This reminds us that there are girls who work their tushies off (literally) for years and years without the chance of making it onto a Wheaties box.  And that Couch Gymnast is just as big a nerd as I am.

So anyway, check her out.  I don’t think you have to know a thing about gymnastics to understand how hysterically ugly some leotards are.