What's with this article on Alicia Sacramone?

Question

When reading the article it makes it seem like she did bad, and they favored China. They also make it seem like China dominated us in USA. I mean they beat us but we weren't dominated, considering it was mostly from mistakes.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/gymnastics/news?slug=ap-gym-womensteamfinal&prov=ap&type=lgns

thats the link for the people who haven't read it. Alicia is already going through a lot, with the coach and all. It's going to be even worse when reads this. It was just some mistakes so why are they making a big deal of it.

“We are human when it comes down to it. We make mistakes. And it came down to China had a better day today. Give us another day, we could probably come out on top.” - Shawn Johnson

Answer 1

Because those mistakes cost them the gold medal. She made mistakes, she feels bad about it, and I think that article accurately reflects that. They're not beating up on her or anything.

Answer 2

They're being too hard on the poor girl. She made a couple mistakes, big deal. The Chinese are going to have the medals stripped from them sooner or later, making us the Gold medalists.

Answer 3

yeah ppl dont realize how silver medal is still pretty d*** good. and they didnt get beaten badly despite the fact they had some MINOR mistakes. great job team USA for bring home a medal unlike thousands of writers such as "NANCY ARMOUR, AP National Writer" who wrote that article.  

Answer 4

i absolutely love the way shawn johnson put that

its sooo true

and yeah i kno it makes her sound like she is the worst out there now

yeah ok

a few mishaps big deal

she made it to the olypmics

that means shes one of the best in the world

heelllooo

doesnt that stand for something

i sure the heck think it does

lovelovelove

Audrey

=)

Answer 5

We just didn't have a good day. Alicia made some mistakes but we have to look past that, we all are human and aren't perfect. Like what Shawn Johnson said-“We are human when it comes down to it. We make mistakes. And it came down to China had a better day today. Give us another day, we could probably come out on top.” That's so true.

We will get the Gold medal in the Next Olympics.

                                              ~AtA~

Answer 6

The article is just news.  We were at a disadvantage because of the judging anyway.  Did you see how many "corrections" China made on the beam with no deductions at all!?  And as for the uneven bars, Shawn Johnson and ESPECIALLY Nastia Liukin ( The Gazelle), should have received the best scores in the entire competition!!!!

Shawn Johnson stated her case to support what happenned but that is good too.  Alicia will still be competing in the vault and Shawn and Nastia will be vieing for the all around title!

Answer 7

There is also a video on nbcolympics.com saying why we shouldn't throw Sacramone under a bus.  She did a great job and everyone makes mistakes.  I know she will do amazing in Vault Finals in a few days.

I think if Team USA was healthy we could have won gold.  If Memmel could have competed on Vault instead of Sloan, on Beam instead of Sacramone, and Floor instead of Liukin and everyone hit...the USA would have won gold.

Even if Sacramone hit her routeins I don't think we would have won gold.  We didn't have the right people on the right events.  But at least we got a silver out of it..I mean the 2000 US team placed 4th.

WHY IS EVERYONE GIVING ME A THUMBS DOWN?  i AM BEHIND SACRAMONE 100%  SHE DIDN'T RUIN IT FOR THE TEAM...WTF?

Answer 8

She had a bad day, it happens.

Answer 9

So she screwed up twice big time and the mandatory deductions were enough to reduce the score for the US to be in silver.  So it was her fault.  Everyone has a fall guy, she just made it easy to point the finger.

Answer 10

Chinese cheat they use 8 year old girls

Answer 11

Sacramone didn't have a great showing to say the least.  That being said there was also a Chinese girl who fell off the balance beam, so in that respect Sacramone's fall didn't do THAT much damage to the US team (her score was still like 15.1 anyway despite falling).

Sacramone's floor exercise score hurt the US more.  I think that poor performance is as much on her coach(es) as on Sacramone personally.  Sacramone was obviously not ready to compete again after her balance beam fall.  Her coach should have at the very least done more to calm her down (or if possible, replaced her in the event with someone else entirely....I admit I don't know the rules of replacing participants in gymnastics.)

As far as China "dominating" the US team, China didn't win by very much despite Sacramone's falls AND I agree that the judges were being easier on China making mistakes than on any other team in the competition (home-field advantage?).  IMO subjectively judged sports shouldn't even be olympic events for that very reason.        

Answer 12

Well, when something goes wrong, we always look for a scapegoat. Alicia is (sadly) the scapegoat for this.

Brace yourself, you're gonna see a lot more of this blaming, unfortunately.

Notice how everyone seems "let down" for us wining silver. And they're looking for someone to blame.

Also notice how everyone is downplaying China's big mistakes (especially the fall on the beam).