June 23, 2008

things one can’t help but notice or wonder while watching the olympic gymnastic trials

(I wrote this last night then fell asleep and forgot to post. So ….. come baaack with me, baaack in time … deeeep in the past … 15 hourrrs (ish) ago ….)

~ Bela Karolyi, that crazy Romanian gymnastics coach, is a commentator with Bob Costas, who seems to need emergency medical assistance, so palpable is his distress over sitting there with Bela. I mean, you cannot understand a thing the man says. Maybe it’s that wiry curtain of mustache trapping words and making everything mumbly-jumbly. But he’s excitable, that’s for sure. Who will be the 6 girls on the Olympic team, Bela? asks Bob. WEEL, BOBE, I HEEF TO TEEL YOU DER VILL BE 6 GEERLS ON DA TEAM! EETS HARD TO SAY WHO EET VIL BE — EETS VERY MOST DISPUTED EXCITEENG!! Bob just stares at him, brow furrowed, mouth agape. I KEEDING, BOB COSTAS!! Then Bob says, Well, there’s pretty much nothing to say after that. Hahahaha. Oh, the pain — the visible pain — of Bob’s professionalism being turned on its ear! Bela is a runaway train. I LOVE this. And Bela will be a commentator at the Olympics. Cannot WAIT. They will be The Odd Couple of the Olympics and the undercurrent of buzzing discomfort will be a joy to behold. Mark your calendars, pippa.

~ Shawn Johnson, the leader here so far, is an adorable smiling chipmunk. I want her for a pet. I want to put her in a cage with a habitrail and a hamster wheel and feed her nuts and pellets and watch her drink out of a little drinky bottle attached to the cage. She’s 4-9. She would probably fit. And, please, this is in no way insulting or dehumanizing or anything like that. That’s not the way I roll.

~ There’s a gymnast competing here named Nastia Lukin. What is UP with that? Why, in the name of holy Moses, name your child Nastia?? I get that her dad is some weirdo Russian gold medal gymnast and he’s cold and never smiles and ignores her if she doesn’t do well. But Nastia? It’s a hostile act, is what it is. Passive aggressive, Daddy-ov. What’s wrong with Natasha or Tasha or Sasha or Natalia or something else Russianesque? Nope. It’s Nastia. And her sister Grossia. And their brother Filthia.

~ All these girls are built like Kewpie dolls. Without the belly. They are tiny, thick-necked, and stumpy. They seem to be stumpier and beefier than I remember. Ya feel me, dawg? Very beefy. Carl’s Jr. Six-Dollar Burger beefy.

(Again with the drunk blogging, Trace? You have a problem. You do.)

~ Okay. I don’t understand the whole point of the Olympic trials anymore. (And yet … I continue to watch.) It goes like this: Six girls will make the team. The top two finishers in the trials are automatically on the team. (Shawn and Grossia.) The remaining four will be picked from a “training camp” held at the Karolyis’ ranch in Texas. (”Training camp”? “Karolyis’ ranch”? Uhm, what’s going on? What does that really mean?) So — what’s the point of the competition? 2/3 of the team is selected by committee. Why isn’t it just the top 6 finishers at the trials make the team? I mean, let the girls compete and let the results be the results. That’s what happens at the Olympics, right? There isn’t a committee after the fact deciding the results. Or I should say, there is RARELY a committee after the fact deciding the results, usually if there’s a controversy. (Hello, Sale and Pelletier, pairs figure skating.) I don’t get it. Someone explain why the top 6 finishers at the trials are NOT necessarily the team. Well, maybe someone had a bad competition and so the panel will consider their overall skill. THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES!! IT’S SPORTS!! AGHHHH!! Just give everyone gold medals then. Nastia gets one. Grossia, too. Filthia is AWOL, so Grossia accepts on his behalf, sobbing huge half-Russian sobs for her giant wrestler brother.

~ My new pet, Shawn Johnson, is simply amazing on the beam. She tumbles on that thing as if it’s the floor. Breathtaking! I’ve never seen anything like it. Wow. WOW. She’s astonishing. Make me proud at the Olympics, my little beefy peach, and there’s some extra pellets in it for you.

~ I heart Bob Costas and his twitching discomfort right now. This cannot be overstated. His DREAD whenever Bela opens his mouth. This is epic comedy.

~ Nastia Grossia is the only thin, balletic gymnast. She’s not a Kewpie burger, but, to compensate, her hairline is unnecessarily high. I see no potential for her to be my pet. Sorry, Grossia.

~ The competition is over now and Bela is yelling something at Bob again and I cannot write anything about it, really, because I’m laughing too hard. I’m telling you. I will watch the Olympics for no other reason but THIS. The Bob and Bela show is painfully hilarious.

YAY, OLYMPICS!! I CANNOT WAIT!!

14 Comments »

  1. You have to warn me to put down my beverages for these things! I’m crying. Poor gymnast in the habitrail. I think her picture is on the new 12-packs of Coke that we bought yesterday, along with Lebron and a couple other athletes. She’s the only one looking at the camera while everyone else tries to look casual.

    Comment by nightfly — June 23, 2008 @ 11:34 am

  2. Wait, has there been a moment since the last Olympics when Bob Costas WAS happy? Because I don’t think I’ve seen it.

    “Beefy peach”–hahahahaha.

    Comment by Kate P — June 23, 2008 @ 12:17 pm

  3. THANK YOU! I was watching the trials last night, and I was so confused. CO asked what I was watching, and I told him, and when it was over he said, “But I thought this was the trials?”

    MM: “Me too.”

    CO: “Then whose on the team?”

    MM: “I don’t know.”

    CO: “But I thought this was the trials.”

    And around we go. I feel good to know CO and I weren’t the only ones scratching our normal sized foreheads…something poor Nastia Grossia will never experience, poor thing.

    Comment by Maggie May — June 23, 2008 @ 1:55 pm

  4. Hello! Grammatical bonehead, here. I beleive that should have read “The who is on the team?”

    I was still reeling in confusion. Sorry.

    Comment by Maggie May — June 23, 2008 @ 1:58 pm

  5. And I still can’t get it right.

    “THEN WHO IS ON THE TEAM?”

    I’m going to shut up now.

    Comment by Maggie May — June 23, 2008 @ 1:59 pm

  6. Wow! Thank you for the Bela translation. I kept hoping Bob would translate, but he really did look like he just wanted to pretend Bela wasn’t even there.

    Thanks to you, I will never look at Shawn Johnson the same way. Here’s some extra pellets! Hilarious!

    Comment by Kristina — June 23, 2008 @ 8:44 pm

  7. I freakin *love* the Olympic gymnastics!

    Comment by cara — June 23, 2008 @ 10:15 pm

  8. What a great post. Hands up if you think Tracey should sell the idea of “Kewpie burger” to Carl’s Jr!
    “The Dread”, LOL

    Comment by Sam2 — June 24, 2008 @ 6:33 am

  9. You made me laugh SO hard! I thought the EXACT same things while watching the trials. It’s going to be interesting…

    Comment by Shannon — June 24, 2008 @ 9:43 am

  10. MM — Hahahahaha! You’re drunk too!

    Kristina — Isn’t she adorable? She’s a tiny pocket pet.

    Comment by tracey — June 24, 2008 @ 1:33 pm

  11. Shawn Johnson is adorable! Plus, she’s from my town, so we get all excited. There’s a whole section of the newspaper online dedicated to her. You could spend a lot of time on it, if you wanted. :)

    http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=SHAWN_JOHNSON&template=landing

    Comment by Katie — June 25, 2008 @ 8:02 pm

  12. […] And shortly, I will get to see Nastia and the beefy peach! […]

    Pingback by beyond the pale » nastia and the beefy peach — August 10, 2008 @ 8:18 pm

  13. […] *Nastia and the Beefy Peach (thanks, Tracey, even Frank knows them as that now) are on the floor routine. Shawn Johnson will go first, and Nastia will be seventh. Shawn nails her routine and gets a 15.5, the second-highest score for women’s floor routine all week. Jiang Yuyuan is third (the Russian who was second wasn’t even close to Shawn), and I’d just like to point out that this girl is totally underage. She’ll be close to Shawn, but she shouldn’t score higher, in my unprofessional and totally patriotic opinion. 15.35. Large sigh of relief from me. This Brazilian girl has so much energy! It’s too bad she went out of bounds twice, because I enjoyed her energy. But wow, how many Red Bulls did she have before she went on? I was getting the jitters just watching all that energy come out of her. Poor Anna Pavlova, today is just not her day. Cheng Fei just stumbled a bit on her standing twirly thingy, and wow, fell. She’s out of the medals. Shawn Johnson is guaranteed a medal. Nastia up next. She nails her routine too. And… Nastia has a 15.425! So it’s Shawn 1, Nastia 2. Sandra Izbasa is last to go, and she’s flawless. I don’t think as great as our top two, but she did go last, so she has an advantage. 15.65, she takes the gold right out of Shawn’s hands. Shawn gets silver, Nastia gets bronze, and China is shut out of the medals. […]

    Pingback by mountaineer musings » Blog Archive » Olympics! What, you thought I would stop after Phelps? — August 17, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

  14. […] (Yeah, so? Look. I’m the one who wants to put the beefy peach in a Lincoln Log Cabin and watch her cavort about. You think this is beneath me??) Posted by tracey @ 5:08 pm    filed under:   sports      […]

    Pingback by beyond the pale » jason lezak — September 2, 2008 @ 5:09 pm

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