What struck me the most about this year's Olympics was not a testosterone-laden performance of a man who wants to out-swim and out-class everyone else. Neither was it another man who smugly DOES NOT run his best and yet beats everyone else who do. Nor that the Chinese were sweeping so many Gold medals. What mesmerised me most was a short little girl who did her utmost and kept smiling through the toughest of events, with no hint of frustration on her face, even when gold kept eluding after so manymanyMANY rounds and days of crazy competition.



Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images




So when i saw Shawn Johnson finally FINALLY deservedly win the Gold medal at the very last women's gymnastics final today, i cried. With actual streaming i'm-so-proud-of-her tears. She had been winning Silvers in all her other 3 events- which really is an achievement in itself. Winning a medal is no mean feat. Plus, she had been the most consistent of performers. Also, i loved that she displayed so much maturity beyond her 16years- took everything in stride, always putting up such a gracious face, even though she kept being edged out: first at the teams event (where she performed spectacularly under so much pressure. oh Nastia Liukin too. i think it was the other American gymnasts who didn't do their part & let the team down), at the individual all-round (i think both Liukin, who won, and Johnson did amazing together. But i think Liukin felt that she needed to win to prove to herself & the American gymnastics world that she's no mere second fiddle to Johnson.) and at the floor yesterday.



Really la. Such a good conclusion to gymnastics. I feel incredibly satisfied after investing so many days watching the event. hahahh.



Photo by LLUIS GENE/AFP/Getty Images

Oh and I love this picture. I think it portrays the three best gymnasts in the entire games. Shawn Johnson (of course). Nastia Liukin (left) is such a graceful gymnast that it's like watching a ballet performance, expecially on the floor. It was incredibly unfortunate though that during the parallel bars she was denied of a Gold even though her scores tied with an (unknown) China girl, only because of a mere annoying technicality. Oh and on the right, arguably the most talented, and most un-robotic of the Chinese athletes, Fei Cheng, who is so raw in her performances. Not like her other Chinese teamates who did their routines so 'perfectly' with no hint of emotion, that they were insanely boring to watch. Gymnastics really gets better with every Olympics. The calibre of athletes this year is simply world-class.



ladida. i feel inspired. :D





and to end it all off, a very worthy news article:



Finally, gold
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports



BEIJING – Shawn Johnson had spent a week smiling her way through the gymnastics hall. No close defeat, no age controversy, no puzzled judges score could stop her. Where human nature said her face should relay some of her internal emotions – disappointment, frustration – she just kept smiling.

Tuesday she beamed after beam.

On her fourth and final chance, Johnson won her gold medal with a nearly flawless routine on balance beam, outpacing teammate Nastia Liukin and China’s Cheng Fei.

At the end she unleashed a smile as big as Beijing itself, a glorious conclusion to a competition that never got her down and only taught her more about herself as she came to appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

“I kept saying, ‘finally’ a lot,” Johnson laughed. “I made it. I finally won a gold medal.
I can’t stop smiling. I’m so excited.”

The 4-foot-9 powerhouse from Iowa had won over the fans here with her strong performance and profound grace. You can’t call an Olympics a disappointment when you win three silvers. Johnson came here for gold, however. She was the favorite, the best in the world. And she kept losing by the slimmest and most frustrating of ways.

There was an age controversy and a teammate’s foibles that overshadowed the team competition. She lost to Liukin, who she routinely defeated in the States, in the all-around. She had the floor gold wrapped up only to lose on the very last performance.

Throughout, the belief was that Johnson wasn’t receiving her customary high marks because the Olympic judges preferred taller, lankier, more graceful gymnasts to her stocky power. It is the unfair twist of gymnastics. It isn’t just how many flips you can do, it’s how you look doing them.
Johnson couldn’t get taller or leaner, she could only get tougher.

“The first time it did hurt a little,” she said. “But I go by, everything happens for a reason and for some reason the judges were giving me scores I’m not used to. But they had a reason.
“It did upset me a little, but I thought about it and I decided, I was at the Olympic Games, I was having the time of my life and I’m winning medals.”

What she decided was she wouldn’t pout. What did she have to complain about anyway? The truth was she hadn’t been perfect. She could be better.

Johnson is unique in high-level gymnastics because of the way she got here. She attends her local public school, Valley High in West Des Moines, while many competitors are home-schooled or part of a government athletic program.

She trains just four hours a day, about half as much as others. She is about as normal as it gets, as typical an American teen as a world-class athlete can be. This is no gymnastics robot.
In the end, that regular world perspective paid off.

She kept looking at her silvers and appreciating what they meant. She began drawing a greater value in coming close than actually finishing it off. The lesson was more valuable than the medal.
“When you do get (silver) you feel different emotions, but I looked back and appreciated that I had a medal,” she said. “If it were gold, it might feel differently. I don’t know how to explain it. I definitely came to appreciate it. I wouldn’t trade my silver medals for anything in the world. Not even gold.”

None of which means she didn’t want gold. She was so focused on winning the beam she did seven practice routines, an abnormally high number, despite being physically exhausted. On each one she kept making mistakes.

“The more mistakes you make in practice, the more you worry.”

She sat down and spent a minute in quiet contemplation. She decided to forget about the gold, the silver, the anything. She wanted to go out and deliver on the final performance of her Olympics. No, this hadn’t gone how she expected. No, she wouldn’t let that influence her.

“I wanted to do my best routine. I didn’t want to leave the Olympics thinking I could do better.”
If the judges liked it, they liked it.
“The eighth time was the charm,” she smiled.

She received huge hugs from her coaches. “I’m totally, fantastically happy,” said Martha Karolyi. “She needed that.” She was cheered on by Liukin. “Now we both are Olympic champions.” Competitors around the globe came over to congratulate her. The mostly Chinese crowd roared like one of their own had prevailed.

Johnson’s smile had won everyone over. And now it was bigger and brighter than ever, golden indeed.



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