Word: champion
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...skills are, and a second for how well those skills are executed. The total can now range from 10.0 all the way to 17-something. "You have to do a bigger variety of difficult skills now," says Conner, who was in the stadium with his wife, the 1976 Olympic champion Nadia Comaneci, to catch the competition. "In our era, you could do one or two difficult moves, then fill out the rest of your routine with things you are comfortable doing. Now you have to be a freak of nature to be able to do a world-class routine." While...
...Famously without the Hamm twins, Paul and Morgan, both of whom pulled out of the Beijing Games due to nagging injuries that prevented them from performing at their peak (Paul is the defending Olympic all-around champion, and Morgan is a 2004 veteran), working as a cohesive unit was the only way the U.S. was ever going to reach the medal stand. And Tan knew just the way to do that - by keeping his teammates confident and deaf to the doubters. Texan Jonathan Horton, the team's best all-around gymnast who came a few tenths short...
...Joseph Hagerty stepping in to lend his expertise on parallel bars, and Artemev adding the flair of his pommel horse routine into the mix. They also got lucky with the rotation order, pulling one of their strongest events - the still rings - first out of the six. Tan, a national champion on the rings, helped the men to reach third place after that rotation. But it wasn't until they reached the high bars that the U.S. squad found its medal rhythm. Flowing routines by Jonathan Horton and Justin Spring, both of whom landed squarely to punctuate their determination, pushed...
...gymnast against another on all six apparatus. But even then, it's likely that the two won't be competing alone - at least in spirit. "Team is everything," says head coach Kevin Mazeika. "Our mantra is 100% one team, one dream." China's Yang Wei is the current world champion, and expected to avenge his 2004 nightmare, in which he literally fell from medal contention when he lost his grip on the high bars. The drop pushed him out to seventh while gold went to Paul Hamm...
...females aren't the underdogs that the men were thought to be. Trailing the Chinese after the qualifying round by 1.475 points, the slate is wiped clean and, just as with the men, three girls compete on each apparatus and all three scores will count. With the reigning world champion Shawn Johnson and several world medalists on deck, the U.S. women are expected to give China a good tumble for the gold. While the men proved everyone wrong; the women must live up to their expectations...