so a few hours ago i was happily enjoying the women's gymnastic team finals on nbc with my family, watching the US go head to head with China. the routines were great, the tumbling was impressive, the athletes were intense and passionate. the commentary was bullcrap.

i'm not an avant gymnastics viewer, but i know good stuff when i see it due to my experience watching and learning figure skating. and those US commentators are the most bitter, stuck-up people you will ever meet. by the 2nd rotation, they were already making comments about how the Chinese were being given much higher scores than they deserved and how unfair that was, even though the same panel would be judging the US. the event was uneven bars, which China rocks at. their athletes flew through their routines without a hitch and came up with well-deserved scores. however, the obnoxious nbc dude starts running his mouth off about how over-scored they were. i mean seriously, i think the judges are significantly less biased than he is. i don't even think there was a chinese judge.

and then nastia liukin goes and pulls off a stunning performance. it was very nice and impressive, although it was not without it's flaws. anyways, she gets a great score, a 16.900, which is very, very high. i thought it was just right. but of course, it wasn't good enough for the stupid nbc people. they insist that she deserved a 17 or higher. which is cool except for the fact that 17s hardly ever happen in gymnastics. the score is out of 20, but her difficulty level was only a 7.7 and she didn't quite deserve a 9.3 on her execution because her dismount landing was shaky and featured a noticeable step back. and yet they continue to rant about it. and then a chinese girl goes and pulls off a much more technically demanding routine that has just a few minor errors and she receives a similar score. so maybe nastia's performance wasn't quite so godly, eh?

ironically, nastia liukin is russian-born. those gold-winning parents of hers won gold for russia. so the US can't really brag about that. but they still do. go figure. the michael phelps mania is kind of annoying, but his is an impressive, history-making, record-shattering swimmer, so he deserves it.

anyways, china's win was simply considered "convincing" on nbc's website. and of course, team USA immediately jumped onto the excuse train with it's "we made mistakes, they didn't" montage. China made lots of mistakes, but they are so technically advanced that it didn't really matter. in terms of technical capabilities, China is miles ahead, especially in the men's competition. the female athletes just have consistency problems because they are so young.

which brings up another point. i personally don't care if China's girls are 5 years old. it doesn't really matter. the Olympics is about having each country assemble its best. the US's athletes are widely thought of as our absolute best. if you think about it, would we really have made that many changes if there were no age limit? furthermore, as the commentator was so eager to point out, nastia liukin and shawn johnson are the "two best gymnasts in the world". if that were true, then why in the world is he complaining?

the bottom line is, both countries were under a lot of pressure. both tried to do their best but china came out on top. there are no stupid excuses or claims of being cheated out of a gold medal by under-aged athletes or the usual "we are sooooo much better, we just messed up this one little time and we could totally beat them any other day" crap. the Olympics is a celebration of human athleticism and a way to create international unity. so kill your pride for once and sit back and enjoy the show.