Word: floorful
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Something was amiss from the moment the American women's gymnastics team walked onto the floor Sunday afternoon for the team qualification event. Instead of five gymnasts suited up and ready to compete, only four members of the squad marched in outfitted in their leotards. The fifth athlete, Samantha Peszek, walked in wearing her warmup outfit...
...through minutes before the event was due to start, Peszek tweaked her ankle on a tumbling run on the floor exercise. "On the take off, she initiated twisting a little early," says Martha Karolyi, national team coordinator. "It wasn't a fall or anything. But it gave us a tiny disturbance at the last minute - we had to reorganize things, and readdress." It was the women squad's second injury in as many weeks - the first came just days before the Games, when Chellsie Memmel, a contender for the all-around title and a critical part of the U.S. women...
...qualification round for the team finals, each six member team can ask five gymnasts to compete on each event - floor, bars, beam and vault. The lowest score is omitted, and the top eight teams with the highest scores compete in the team finals. The U.S. women are the defending world champions, and are expected to battle with China and defending Olympic team champs Romania for the coveted team gold medal, which the Americans last won in the 1996 Atlanta Games with the Magnificent Seven. But without Peszek, all four of the girls' scores had to count, and thus there...
...four in which the U.S. used all five of its allotted athletes. The shock of Peszek's injury, along with Memmel's, clearly weighed on the remaining team-mates - Johnson, nine-time world medalist Nastia Liukin, Alicia Sacramone and Bridget Sloan, as they took to the first rotation on floor exercise - an event at which the U.S. generally excels. Sacramone, a former world champion on floor, unexpectedly stepped out of bounds, costing her a deduction and lowering her score by enough of a margin to keep her out of the individual event final, in which she was expected to finish...
Ultimately, says Hamm, his sketchy ankle would have prevented him from competing in the floor exercise, one of his stronger events. On Wednesday, during his first run-through at the Olympic venue, Hamm had a rough practice on the floor routine, but shrugged it off to the bounciness of the mat. Today, he acknowledged that "When I came to Beijing, my ankle was not 100%." The ankle injury is the result of bone spurs that dig into Hamm's tibia, or lower leg bone, and causes extreme pain. And while he did not address why he hadn't taken care...