In 1976 my coach offered a bunch of us an opportunity to go at watch the Olympics in Montreal. There were about 10 of us in a motel room. We took the Metro every day over to the Olympic Park to watch gymnastics.
It was great to be able to go back up there. Taking the Metro to the Olympic Park the first day certainly gave me a feeling of de ja vu.
As has been widely reported- There were a lot of falls. That is pretty normal for the year after the Olympics. What I found troubling was the amount of injuries that occurred on both the Men’s and Women’s side. Speaking to many of the c0aches and competitors they were NOT happy with the schedule. Not enough time to adjust from travel and not enough time to adjust to the bright lights on the podium.
Big winners over all- Morgan Hurd (the Harry Potter loving NEW World Champion) on the Women’s side and Ruoteng Xiao for the Men.
Biggest Loser- Gym Nova the equipment company. The floor broke on Day One of Men’s preliminaries and an entire rotation had to compete again. (First time there was a 9th person in Men’s FX finals due the the break in floor). A Beam that very few people seemed to be able to stay on.
Craziest new skill – “The Flying Dutchman” Epke Zonderland missed a hand on is Kovacs and managed to HANG ON!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TZucAeUx-g
Most Pleasant Surprise. Yul Moldauer (USA). Super clean (I believe he had the Highest E scores of the entire championships). Good difficulty. Finishing 7th AA and medaling on FX. I loved his excitement as he came off equipment.
