Word: hamme
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...team can feel the same way. Between the men's and women's squads, American gymnasts earned 10 medals, four fewer than the medal-topping Chinese and one better than the 2004 American squad. But the U.S. team was plagued by injuries from the start, losing Paul and Morgan Hamm on the men's side, and competing with two injured athletes on the women's side. Chellsie Memmel, who limited her competition to the uneven bars after hurting her ankle, revealed after the team event that she had been competing - and landing - on a broken bone. "Right after...
...Indeed, the Chinese ended up earning the highest scores on all apparatuses except floor. The Japanese tried to keep pace but couldn't match their hosts' technical difficulty and skillful execution. Meanwhile, the Americans - who weren't favored for a medal after the withdrawal of twins Morgan and Paul Hamm, two of the team's top gymnasts - found themselves, for a moment, in contention for the silver. But a 12.775 fumble on the pommel horse by Kai Wen Tan cost the U.S. team a possible second-place finish. The team went home with a bronze, and the defending champion Japanese...
...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...
...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...
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...