Tuesday evening, July 30

 at the Women's Team Artistic Gymnastics...

 

Guy asked: "Are we in France or America?"

watching four sports at once: vaulting, balance beam, floor exercises, uneven parallel bars

can you spot the woman on the balance beam?

spotlights on the crowd create a moving pattern

Simon Biles is the superstar

It was definitely a thrill to see the USA women gymnastics team win the gold medal.  Wow, what a show!  It was the only time that we saw people outside the venue with signs up trying to buy tickets.  I doubt they were successful – it was the most popular show in town.  It seemed like the audience was 75% American.  Flags and American-themed outfits dominated.  We had neglected to bring USA logowear ourselves, so we borrowed a flag for a photo!  The arena at Bercy was very nice – I think the best venue we’ve been in.  Comfortable seats, good sight lines, easy in and out. 

The arena is set up so that all four skills are performed at once:  balance beam, vault, parallel bars and floor.  This is a bit confusing to watch as all 4 locations were operating on their own schedule.  Some are starting while others are finishing.  Then they wait until the score is posted, which can take some time, before they let the next person proceed, which is entirely different for each of the four sections.  Vault took less time than the others, so that group always finished first.  Two teams are assigned to each skill, with team members alternating.  Then, when everybody is finished, they have the “rotation” where the teams formally march to the next skill area. So there are four sets of competition.

They show the score for each person once it is posted, but they don’t keep it there long, so we often missed it because we were watching something else happening.  This made it tough to follow along with the results in the arena – those of you watching at home on TV probably had a much better sense of it.  They did show the team score regularly, so we knew that US was in the lead from the beginning.  But the shifting fortunes of the other teams were a bit harder to track. 

Our seats were nearest to the parallel bars so we had a great view of that competition.  We also could see floor exercise very well, but the other two were more distant.  That said, we had brought some small binoculars so enjoyed seeing the other skills through those, and they showed replays on the big screens. 

It was interesting that the various teams were so differently built.  The Japanese were tiny gals, whereas the Americans were much more muscular – the Chinese were in between.  I think that this sport used to be for the small, pre-pubescent girls who could fly through the air but it has evolved to being much more athletic.  All the teams that won were larger and more muscular.  It takes real muscle and strength to do this sport.  Simone Biles, the “greatest of all time”, is very short, but she is sturdy.  It was fun watching her – she smiled quite a bit.  Everywhere she went, there were five or six cameras pointed at her.  When they say someone is in the spotlight, that doesn’t begin to describe what it is like for these gals.  There seemed to be one camera person per athlete given all the media from all the different countries.  We saw media everywhere – in the stands interviewing random people, outside interesting random people, on the floor videoing everybody’s every move.

Canadians and Japanese -- notice the size difference

 
We’ve found that in each event we spend a bit of time “decoding” what is happening.  Where are the judges?  Where are the referees?  Who are those people over there?  How is it scored?  Why did X just happen? How many people advance to the next level?  Do they get multiple tries, and do they average those scores or take the best?  When we figure something out, we feel very pleased with ourselves.  For example, Guy pointed out to me that the judges in gymnastics sat with white screens between them so as to prevent them from being influenced by the judge next to them.  We could spot the 4 different set of judges.  In badminton the other day, we watched the many line referees who sat in a quite specific way with their very specific hand signals to indicate “in” vs. “out” and other faults.  I’ve also noticed how choreographed the whole event is.  Nobody walks anywhere randomly.  People arrive in a specific order, walk at a specific pace, wave and turn simultaneously, and so on.  There is very little that is spontaneous.  I think that’s why the press makes such a big deal out of any spontaneous display of enthusiasm from an athlete.

 It was fun to watch the award ceremony.  First they had to build the podium in front of our eyes – that took a bunch of people.  Then the ceremony itself.  Unfortunately, we were facing the backs of the athletes, but they did turn around a few times to acknowledge the arena.  It seemed like nobody left until after the ceremony. 

All in all, one of the highlights of our Olympics!