Team Competition Quandries

Two thoughts:

For the Sydney Olympics being the "dark horse" for the U.S., as I went back to re-watch this competition, we really didn't do THAT badly. We came in fourth, close to third, which is a lot better than sixth at the 1999 Worlds.

But moreover, I don't care what people say about Bela's role, I just think this was a year that kind of lacked huge talent. Stars come and go and this is an ebb and flow process. I think that with the talent that we HAD during this time, they probably benefited from some "toughening up" from the Karolyis, but I mean, seriously, how much better could they have gotten? I just don't think this was a year of terrific stars. By the same token, several of them went on to do very well in NCAA. And Tasha was the next big star. But just a year later we won the bronze at he Worlds with a basically totally new team? You can't tell me that that was Bela's doing. I think we started to get some new talent, new faces, got a little lucky, even had an individual medalist in Katie Heenan. The same thing happened the following year at the Worlds. I'm not saying that there aren't advantages to the "Karolyi Camp" system, but I'm not sure it should be over-stated, and I also don't think we should give the Sydney team so much flack. They did the best that they could, were under tremendous stress and all things said, did a pretty good job.


Second, as I was re-watching the Sydney team finals...wow... Romania won by two tenths,
ROM 154.608
RUS 154.403

OK that's just not even a convincing victory, but ESPECIALLY when you consider how this was the quad of conveniently overlooking uneven bar form breaks. If judging had occurred how it should have, Russia would have been (and should have been) your winner. It's just sickening.