The Olympic spirit is about sportsmanship, personal sacrifice, and an unyielding will to reach your goals. Another person’s success is no reason
to give up or envy. Instead, it’s a source of motivation
to keep going and try to improve every day.
Will you be watching the #Olympics?
The Full Team USA Gymnastics Schedule
That’s my favorite Olympic sport.
Otherwise For obvious reasons: I will be boycotting NBC Coverage and will
be watching Highlights of the Olympics over the internet. Like everybody I am curious if Simone Biles will nail her two floor exercise moves named “the Biles” and “the Biles II.” And during her balance beam performance her moves named “The Biles.” and “The Biles II ” and in the vault, the Yurchenko double pike that she nailed earlier this year. During practice, she landed a historic high-flying move for the Tokyo Games she hit the move again.
Even though she took a step back in the dismount, it was still stunning as ever.
The slow motion look at it shows how much unbelievable height she got:
Many thanks 4 including moi
Yurchenko double pike vault at U.S. Classic.
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The importance of the Olympic spirit goes far beyond the sports events that take place at their competitions. And it’s not just for professional athletes, either. As you’ll see in this article, it’s about the promotion of certain values. Its goal is to encourage everyone, as people, and as citizens, to incorporate these values into their lives.
The Olympic spirit: the journey is the reward.
It’s not easy to define the Olympic spirit in words. Yet everyone who encounters it probably knows what it means, implicitly. One central element is having the knowledge that the greatest reward isn’t in getting to a particular goal or victory. Instead, the process itself is the greatest reward.
Of course, we’re not trying to suggest that victory means nothing to an athlete or that goals aren’t important. When we speak of personal or professional dreams or goals, we’re aware that reaching the objective is always one’s greatest wish.
Nevertheless, we shouldn’t forget that victory is the result
of a long process. It’s only possible through the effort that leads up to it.
There are no people who are born champions or conquerors. Everyone who manages to gain victory has to travel a long way to get there. And it must necessarily include some failures and disappointments, but must never end with the person giving up.
Let’s take a track and field race as an example – just to keep going along the line of this sports thread. There can only be one winner at the end of every track or trial. But all of the competitors are going to give the best of themselves throughout the competition. And you can expect they’ll continue
to do so just to improve themselves even after the race.
With teamwork and the nurturing of positive emotions, it’s easier
to improve your performance in a sport. Those positive emotions should extend to possible “rivals” as well. In summary, the Olympic spirit promotes collective improvement. It doesn’t just stop with the personal triumphs of the winning athletes.
Sports as a metaphor for life.
Sports can serve as a great metaphor for life itself. What the Olympic spirit is really trying to do is offer you a philosophy that can really inspire you to take on a healthier lifestyle.
Let’s get back to the racing example we brought up before.
Now, though, let’s imagine that these are people trying to reach a goal instead of athletes. Suppose their efforts don’t bring them the victory they want directly. Consider how many people would think about quitting after just a few laps.
Yet if they just look behind them, any of the competitors will realize very quickly that all their efforts weren’t in vain. It’s allowed them to pick up skills, knowledge, and experiences. These have all contributed to their personal and professional development.
Baseball runs parallel to life.
The truth is that other peoples’ success shouldn’t make athletes angry or jealous. It shouldn’t push them into giving up. Quite the opposite, in fact –
it should motivate them to keep going forward because it’s possible to reach
the goals you set for yourself.
That’s why we say the journey is a reward in itself. It’s not, in any case, time wasted. When you really go after your goals, there aren’t any losses. Every step and every attempt improves you so that you can eventually get to the place you want to be.
Citius, Altius, Fortius: always try to be better!
“Citius, Altius, Fortius” is the motto of the Olympics. In English, it means, “faster, higher, stronger.” In practice, this motto sums up what the Olympic spirit is trying to awaken in each of us.
It’s not just something geared toward elite athletes. It’s a call for all of us
to reject contentment and always try to go beyond. Of course, athletes need to push themselves to the limit on a daily basis if they want to get to the top of their sport. But, who among us doesn’t need to improve every day to reach our goals?
And the thing is, there’s a little bit of this athletic tendency in all
of us. You’re always struggling against stress, deadlines, the climate, and the tendency to be content with what you have because it’s “too much effort” to improve. Yet what victories will you taste if you limit yourself? For any worthwhile goal, life will have obstacles.
We once again come back to the idea that being better doesn’t necessarily involve competing against another person. It could be
a matter of competing against yourself. It could be against your own fears.
For example, if you want to fly higher, dream bigger, and feel stronger, you need to overcome those fears that make you back away from challenges.
The Olympic spirit speaks to all of us. It speaks with a voice that inspires you
to keep going forward with your head held up high and your mind open.
Every new challenge is a new unique opportunity to become a better version of yourself.
PHILADELPHIA – Alicia Sacramone was eight years old, sprawled out on
the floor of her parent’s home in Winchester, Mass., as she marveled at the magic flickering from the television. She was into dance then, not gymnastics, but as she watched the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, watched America’s “Magnificent Seven” gymnasts become the first non-Eastern bloc team to win the gold medal since 1950, the dream was planted.
“I was like, ‘I want to do that,'” Sacramone said.
Her parents soon relented to her badgering and said they’d sign her up for gymnastics in the morning. She was so excited she couldn’t wait. “I started flipping around the house,” she said. “I just remember being in awe and so amazed. That is definitely what inspired me to get into elite gymnastics,
the 1996 team.” The enduring image of that championship was Kerri Strug landing a genius vault despite a badly sprained ankle and then being carried away by her coach, Bela Karolyi.
The enduring legacy could be found here Sunday at the U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Team Trials, where a next-generation squad continued in the lengthy competition for the six spots on the U.S. team that will head to Beijing in August. Once inspired as little girls by a legendary group, they will now enter these Olympics with the highest of praise and the biggest of expectations –
not just a shot at team gold, but the belief by many that this squad may be even better than the 1996 one.
“They just have so much talent,” said Dominique Dawes, a member of the
1996 and 2000 U.S. teams. “If they won, I would say their feat would be more impressive because it is off of American soil. Not that my team couldn’t have done it, but (the Olympics) were in Atlanta.” Sunday two spots were secured, the no-surprise selections of superstars Shawn Johnson of Iowa and Nastia Liukin of Texas. Both threats to follow the path of 2004’s Carly Patterson,
the first American to win individual all-around gold in a non-boycott year.
The four other spots will be picked next month after a final, high-pressure session at the secluded training camp of Bela and Martha Karolyi outside of New Waverly, Tex. Martha is the national team coach, taking over for her now-retired husband who led the team in 1996. “I don’t like to compare because it is always different situations,” Martha Karolyi said, “But this will be a guaranteed extremely strong team.”
Romania‘s Nadia Comaneci series of perfect 10s inspired American girls in 1976, which helped lead to Mary Lou Retton winning the first all-around gold for the U.S. in 1984, which was part of the motivation for the Magnificent Seven in 1996, who, like ripples across a pond, now find a team full of talented gymnasts eager to duplicate their accomplishment.
The U.S. has become a year in, year out powerhouse, but perhaps never before have they enjoyed this depth of quality. The Americans finished fourth in 2000 and won silver in 2004. After narrowly defeating the Chinese for the world championships last year, however, the goal is clear. “We all have the same dream in mind,” Liukin said. “We hope to bring that title back that we had in ’96. It was an amazing moment.”
While some of the gymnasts were too young to remember – Johnson was just four – even the youngest of them have watched the replays and heard the legend. Earlier this year all seven from that team – Dawes, Strug, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Amanda Borden, Amy Chow and Jaycie Phelps – were inducted into the USOC Hall of Fame.
It’s not just their physical talents that resonate, but the mental and emotional toughness that allowed them to persevere. Strug’s one-legged vault is spoken of in revered tones. “You just have to take their drive and determination,” Sacramone said. “Nothing was stopping them. They had injuries, they had all these things go against them and they pushed through and came out on top. More than anything that is what we have to do.”
It’s one reason Martha Karolyi has turned this selection process into a marathon of challenges. There is no shortage of American girls with the skill and physical ability to compete at the Olympic level. The question is whether they can deliver in the lonely moments of the Games, in this case, competing in China against China. “A person who can’t handle pressure has no place on this team,” Karolyi said. “That is why in this selection process we set so many tests and tests.”
To find out who is the strongest mentally.
Physically you can be fantastic, but if you are shaky when the pressure
is on then you don’t help the team. “There will be a lot of pressure in China,” Karolyi continued. “If they can not stand up to the pressure then they should not be there.”The athletes agree. The process has been long, the competition fierce and nothing has been promised. The two stars are in, but everyone else is still trying, no room for error next month in Texas.
They’d have it no other way. They know the history, understand the challenge. “I think it would be pretty much epic if we won in China when they are our toughest competitors,” Sacramone said. “It would be huge (to) bring home the gold a second time.” And inspire another wave of little girls watching on TV, begging their parents for lessons, crashing around living rooms with round
offs and somersaults as they begin dreaming their own biggest of dreams.
The Karolyi Ranch, where U.S. women’s gymnastics gold was forged —
at a price (espn.com)
Kerri Strug Now: 1996 Olympics & Ankle Injury + Life After Gymnastics | Fanbuzz
IT’S BEEN 25 YEARS SINCE THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN WON THEIR GOLD MEDALS AT THE 1996 SUMMER OLYMPICS.
Kerri Strug’s Heroic Vault Was 25 Years Ago. See Her Now.
‘Magnificent Seven’ gymnastics team recalls Olympic glory 20 years later.
.
One of the most memorable moments in United States Olympic history is
when Kerri Strug took to the vault at the 1996 Atlanta games. This was during the group final, and it was the last event for the U.S. women’s team. If Strug nailed her vault, the team would win. Strug landed badly on her first attempt, tearing two ligaments in her ankle. But she went ahead with her second attempt anyway, sticking the landing and then immediately propping herself up on only one foot. Later, she was famously carried to the medal podium by team coach Béla Károlyi. Team USA took the gold and will forever be known
as the Magnificent Seven.
The entire team has reunited a few times over the years, including for a
Today show interview in 2016. Now, 25 years have passed since their big win, and with the 2021 Tokyo Olympics starting up, we’re checking in with this legendary group once again. Here’s what Strug and the rest of the 1996 U.S. The Olympic Women’s Gymnastics Team are up to today.
Bela Karolyi carries Kerri Strug at the 1996 Summer Olympics
David Madison/Getty Images
Strug competed in the 1992 and 1996 Olympics. In 1992, she won a bronze medal as part of the team competition and upgraded to the gold four years later. Kerri Strug tore ligaments in her ankle during her vault and was carried to the podium by coach Béla Károlyi.AP
Kerri Strug: Now
After her Olympic career ended when she was 18 years old, Strug attended college—first at UCLA, then Stanford, and graduated with a masters degree
in psychology. Strug, now 43, worked as an elementary school teacher before taking a job in the White House Office of Presidential Student Correspondence under president George W. Bush. As of 2008, she was a program manager in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, according to an interview with Sports Illustrated.
While Strug is no longer working in gymnastics, she has been a guest correspondent on occasion, including the Athens games in 2004. As for her personal life, like most of her teammates, Strug shares updates on Instagram. She and her husband Robert Fischer have two young children.
Olympic flashback: The Magnificent Seven after their 1996 gold medal
The “Magnificent Seven” U.S. gymnastics team that captured a historic gold medal at the 1996 Olympics reunited on TODAY 20 years after their inspiring feat. It’s been 20 years since the “Magnificent Seven” became the first U.S. women’s gymnastics team to win Olympic gold in a performance that still reverberates all these years later. The team of Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes, Dominique Moceanu, Amy Chow, Amanda Borden, Jaycie Phelps and Kerri Strug became part of Olympic lore with a heart-stopping win over Russia in 1996 in Atlanta.
The group that laid the foundation for a U.S. women’s gymnastics team that has since become an international powerhouse spoke with Natalie Morales on Tuesday as part of TODAY’s “Where Are They Now?” series. “I think that gold medal really changed the trajectory of all of our lives,” Strug, 38, told Morales. “It’s surreal,” Dawes said. “Twenty years later, it’s good just to see everyone’s happy, everyone’s healthy, everyone is married (and) either starting families or have families of their own.”
Dominique Moceanu: What life is like after you win Olympic gold at 14.
The signature moment came when Strug stuck the landing in the vault to give the U.S. the win despite two torn ligaments in her left ankle. Bela Karolyi carried her to the podium for the medal ceremony. “That vault signifies a lot more than people understand,” Strug said. “Because finally when all eyes were on me, I dealt with the pressure and now how I view myself and what I’m capable of is very different because of that vault.”.
Miller, 39, remains the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history with a total of 16 medals between world championships and the Olympics. In Atlanta, she won gold in the balance beam competition to help the U.S. claim the team title. “In some ways, it feels like yesterday,” Miller said. “You close your eyes and you can smell the sweat and the chalk of the arena. But in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago.” Miller is now a mother of two and an ovarian cancer survivor who underwent chemotherapy after being diagnosed in 2011. “I’m doing great,” she said. “We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the ’96 Olympic team, but I just celebrated five years cancer free, so I’m very blessed, very fortunate.”
In 1996 it was the Magnificent Seven, and in 2012, the Fierce Five.
Team USA’s women’s gymnastics team went on to bring home the United States’ third-ever team gold medal in the 2016 Olympics, proving once more just what a powerhouse the country’s field of elite gymnasts had become.
Will the pandemic-delayed 2020 games this summer further cement that reputation, with a fabulous four of Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles
and Grace McCallum topping the team podium in Tokyo?
If the athletic performances and overall energy in downtown St. Louis this past weekend are indicators, the answer might be yes. Thousands of people from near and far got a preview of Team USA’s strength as the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for both men’s and women’s gymnastics took place at the Dome at America’s Center.
“In one word, it was electric,” St. Louis Public Radio’s Eric Schmid said Monday on St. Louis on the Air of the atmosphere. “The people who were in
the stands were cheering so loud for every gymnast. And every single time there was a landing, every single time there was a routine finish, the crowd erupted. They were very, very into it.”
A big part of the draw, of course, was the explosively talented and driven Biles.
“They were just excited to see arguably the greatest gymnast who has ever touched the competition floor,” Schmid said.
He covered the spectacle throughout the weekend and joined host Sarah Fenske with the latest on the heels of Sunday evening’s women’s competition. In addition to discussing the highlights and the finalized Olympic squads, Schmid touched on what the spectacle meant for St. Louis.
He also noted how quickly the St. Louis Sports Commission, and other
entities that were involved, brought the major event to fruition as COVID-19 regulations shifted.
“They had about two months to pull this together, which is a very, very, very, very short amount of time to do that, and in many ways they executed it quite flawlessly,” Schmid said. Artistic gymnastics – Wikipedia
Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016.U.S. gymnasts and gold medallists, right to left,
Simone Biles, Gabrielle Douglas, Lauren Hernandez, Madison Kocian and
ALSO Aly Raisman pose for photographs during the medal ceremony for the artistic gymnastics women’s team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Meet the ‘Fierce 5’ of the US Women’s Gymnastics Team – Bing video
USA Olympic gymnastics team 2021:
Meet the full women’s roster — led by Simone Biles — for Tokyo
Jacob Camenker 6/28/2021
Simone Biles was a shoo-in to make the U.S. women’s gymnastics roster
for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but after her, the competition was wide open.
Jade Carey had all but locked up one of the individual spots. After that, the final three spots on the four-gymnast team and the two individual spots for USA women awarded via performances in world competitions was based almost entirely on the USA Olympic gymnastics trials this weekend.
The top two finishers in the USA Olympic qualifiers were guaranteed spots in the Olympics. The Nos. 3 and 4 spots on the team, as well as the non-Carey specialist spot, were decided by a committee that views empirical results.
After all that, the U.S. women’s gymnastics roster is now set. Here’s a look
at who qualified to represent the United States in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
MORE: Tracking the results from the 2021 USA gymnastics trials
Simone Biles Opens Up About Being A Sexual Abuse Survivor.
Biles was always going to the Olympics. The 4-8 phenom represented the United States at the 2016 Olympics and came home with four gold medals.
The 24-year-old hasn’t lost an all-around meet since 2013 and is widely regarded as the best gymnast in the world and the greatest of all time.
At the USA championships in St. Louis, Biles put up a score of 118.098, best among the gymnasts on hand, despite a Day 2 performance that saw her make some uncharacteristic mistakes, including falling off the balance beam. Biles made the team as an automatic qualifier, which wasn’t surprising in the least. She has virtually no weaknesses in her game.
Suni Lee was expected to be one of the top contenders at the Olympic trials. The 18-year-old has been a star on the uneven bars during her career and has won a national title in the event. She also competed at the World Gymnastics Championships in 2019, winning a silver medal in the floor exercise routine and a bronze on the uneven bars as part of a gold-medal team.
The 5-0 Lee finished second at the U.S. Olympic team trials with a score
of 115.832. Her best marks, 15.300 and 14.900, unsurprisingly came on the uneven bars. She, like Biles, automatically qualified. She will be heading to
the Olympics for the first time.
Jordan Chiles is a close friend of Biles and, like Lee, will be heading to her
first Olympics. Chiles was one of the best performers on Day 2 of the trials
with strong performances in the vault and on the floor.
The 20-year-old, who was named after Michael Jordan, won gold at the
2018 Pacific Rim Championships in the team competition, vault and floor.
She also earned a bronze on the balance beam.
At this year’s trials, Chiles placed third with a score of 114.631.
She wasn’t an automatic qualifier, but her all-around performance allowed her to clinch a committee-chosen spot with ease.
MORE: Why gymnastics roster sizes were reduced for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics
Grace McCallum The competition for the fourth and final Team USA spot was fierce, but ultimately McCallum emerged as the preferred choice. She finished fourth in the Olympic trials with a mark of 112.564, three-tenths of a point better than fifth-place finisher MyKayla Skinner.
McCallum’s best event is the vault, and she recorded marks of 14.633 and 14.766 in two days of competition at the Olympic trials. The 18-year-old is a two-time gold medalist at the World Championships and she picked up five gold medals at the Pacific Rim and Pan American Championships in 2018.
Jade Carey (individual) Gymnastics rosters have been reduced to four competitors this year, down from five for the last two Olympic Games. But teams were able to earn the right to add as many as two spots for individual gymnasts. These women will represent their country at the games, but their scores will not be included in the team competition.
Carey had virtually locked up an individual spot for the Olympics based on
her performance in the Apparatus World Cup Series the past few years.
She still needed to participate in the USA Gymnastics trials to officially secure her place. She was allowed to compete for a spot on the four-woman Olympic team as well.
In the end, the 21-year-old finished 16th among the participants at the trials with a mark of 80.065, but she didn’t participate in every event every day, which lowered her all-around score.
Carey therefore will be heading to Tokyo and representing the United States
as an individual. She’s a world medalist in the vault and on the floor, so her biggest impact will likely come in one of those events.
MyKayla Skinner (individual) was an alternate on the 2016 Olympic team and nearly made the four-woman team in 2021. She finished fifth at the trials with a mark of 112.264. Her vaulting numbers were better than McCallum’s (15.133 and 15.266), but McCallum was stronger on the bars and floor to give her an all-around edge.
Skinner, 24, is the oldest member of Team USA, edging Biles by a few months.
She took home three gold medals in the World Championships of 2014, 2015 and 2019 and won gold at the NCAA Championships in 2017 (floor) and 2018 (vault) with Utah.
.@Simone_Biles ending on a high note.
#GymTrials21. @simone_biles ending on a high note. #gymtrials21
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