Women's All-Around

What a night for the U.S. in the all-around. I was pulling for Nastia and she pulled it off. In the end I think everyone knows it came down to landings. Nastia just did a better job with them.

I am not the biggest Shawn Johnson fan but, I do think they need to acknowledge her body type and realize that she is more of a power gymnast rather than a style gymnast. She has the leg build to do harder elements, they just need to focus on that.

Unfortunately while she did win the world all-around title she doesn't have the body type that international judges like. Some people might think that's bad of me to say but, it's the truth. International judges like long lean lines more than short built gymnasts. To over come that you have to compensate with difficulty.

I've been watching this sport pretty closely since the games in Barcelona in 1992. That year America had two stellar gymnasts in the all-around. One was power gymnast Kim Zmeskal the other was the more traditional long lean looking gymnast Shannon Miller. Some ill time mistakes hurt Kim while Shannon hit and won silver. The only reason Kim really had a chance at that title was her power. That power enabled harder routines and great vaults. Without that she would have been another face in the crowd.

It is possible to be a power gymnast with some style. Kim always had great floor routines that were difficult and had a lot of flair and style. Shawn has boring floor routines (which is true of a lot of American's) but, she can fix that with better music and dance and she can use that power to up the difficulty. Truth is Nastia could up her floor difficulty too. And I don't want to hear anything about size or anything like that because even our long lean gymnasts of the pass had harder routines. All it takes is an extra twist or flip.

In the end the all-around was a good night of competition. I just wish some of the routines weren't so boring. And that applies to most of the gymnasts on most apparatus. It seems everyone is going for having one high difficulty routine and hoping that will give them an edge. Another downside of the new system.