Bless the Olympics Channel for showing GYMNASTICS more than once a year. I was able to watch the Cottbus world cup the day after it happened. Actually, I could have watched it live with NBC commentators, but for whatever reason the rebroadcast had a completely different commentator: an older (sounding) British man who had definitely done his research but also clearly wasn’t a gymnastics commentator per se. He had some interesting things to say…
About Flavia Saraiva from Brazil, who is under five feet tall: “Well! She’s a… petite young lady, that’s for sure! She’s…very, very small.”
In response to a fall on vault, with no follow-up: “Noooooo!”
In response to…someone’s vault landing. No, this is not a gymnastics term: “Oh, the…top with the hips.”
Still on men’s vault:
“And just the big bunny jump.”
“And then finishes off with the hips over…very clever.”
“Almost nailed it again…that little bunny hop will annoy him.”
He had some things to say about women’s beam as well:
“Look at those toes working hard.”
“Those little socks…she obviously thinks that they help her…”
And women’s floor:
“That wasn’t very special, was it.”
“Not exactly nailed, were they, those passes?”
Back to Flavia. “You can imagine her as a baby, jumping out of the cot! She’s never really grown up, has she. The thrill of movement!” Come on, guy. She’s 19.
Not to be left out was men’s high bar:
“The crowd trying to boost him again…they’re very sympathetic to failure…Well, it was a solid performance, but a failure nonetheless!”
