Word: roundness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...world-class routine." While gymnastics has always been an injury-prone sport, the new hurdles created by the scoring system may be pushing some athletes too far. Peszek strained an ankle earlier this week during a warm-up just minutes before the team marched out for the qualifying round of competition. Memmel, a former world champion who excels on the beam and bars, turned her ankle in training prior to leaving for Beijing and could compete only on the uneven bars. Of course, those injuries could occur under any kind of points system, but the number of mishaps certainly suggests...
...problem for the hard-tumbling U.S. women, who are physically bigger than the Chinese girls, run with more power and therefore favor the tougher tumbling passes to eke out as many points as possible. "We throw some of the hardest skills on the floor," said Johnson after the qualifying round on Sunday. "We are built of the strongest legs in the world, and we love to fly, we love to tumble really hard. Honestly, we do have a problem stepping out of bounds...
...fourth round, the Chinese had found their Olympic groove and never faltered from that moment onward. On the vault, Li Xiaopeng scored a mindboggling 16.775, the highest score of the competition. 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...
...Gymnastics is a punishing sport, and training through injuries is particularly common among Chinese athletes. The high-scoring vaulter Li, for instance, continued competing on the parallel bars in the qualification round even though his arm began bleeding. "My arm bleeds every time I practice," said the athlete, who has also suffered a string of foot and ankle ailments. "It is normal...
...Wednesday it's the ladies' turn, but the 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...