Team USA Women Gymnasts Capture Silver Medal at Olympics

After somewhat disappointing performances, Team USA finished 2.375 points behind the gold medal-winning Chinese Team. Romania won bronze.

The Chinese women had very high degree of difficulty routines and ended up stealing the show on their home turf. The crowd went crazy, with loud chanting and cheering for their home team. The Chinese competed strongly in all the events, with a few deductions on beam. Cheng Fei finished off the night with a great floor routine. The Chinese women reveled in the spotlight and appeared to be having fun.

Maybe they were having fun because some of the girls on the Chinese team were said to be under aged, as young as 12. A gymnast must be 16 to compete in the Olympics. The Chinese government issued passports for each of them stating that they were 16. When interviewed, Bela Karolyi was very vocal that some of the girls were definitely underage and it was illegal but there was nothing that could be done about it now. Karolyi said that the younger girls are more fearless and don't feel the pressure as much as the older ones do.

As for the Americans, they came in at a disadvantage. Two gymnasts are injured - Samantha Pescel and Chellsie Memmel. Memmel competed only on bars. Shawn Johnson performed very well. She rose to the challenge and was very solid on her routines. She will be in the hunt for gold at the All Around Final coming up on August 14. Natsia Liukin performed well. She stayed on the bars tonight, unlike at the Qualifying. The judges seemed to struggle with scoring her routine and there was a long delay before they finally produced a score of 16.90ar score of 16.90. She had some minor breaks on the other events and seemed disappointed in her performances, but she seemed more confident tonight than at the Qualifying Event on August 10.

Alicia Sacromone fell off the beam on her front somersault mount, and she also under rotated her Arabian double front tumbling pass on her floor routine, resulting in another fall. Those deductions plus other small errors made by the US women, helped the Chinese team to take the gold. The US women really needed to be almost perfect to beat the Chinese, because the Chinese had higher difficulty routines. Under the new scoring rules, higher difficulty routines mean a higher start value.

Hopefully, the U.S. gymnasts have the kinks worked out and are now used to the equipment and the auditorium. They will have additional chances for glory in these Olympics.

2008 Olympics NBC TV Schedule - Men's and Women's Gymnastics