Home-Cooked Chinese?

Believe it or not, I was actually in bed last night throughly engrossed in a book when Michael Phelps won gold medals #4 and #5 and the “16-year-old” Chinese pixies with the oh-so-straight teeth won the women’s gymnastics team title. I figured all those outcomes were fait accomplis anyway and that I might as well read, rest and catch up on the video and stories in the morning.

Now U.S. women’s gymnastics Head Coach Martha Karoyli is calling out meet officials and implying that they might possibly have mixed up a little, as we say in the South, “home cooking.”

Karoyli was steamed over the officials’ “holding” of gymnast Alicia Sacramone just prior to her balance beam routine. She fell off the beam and then went on to slip in the floor exercise, mistakes which help nix the U.S. chances of a gold.

Now for you Auburn fans who may think “holding” is when one of your Big Uglies grabs onto an opponent’s jersey while another one delivers a chop block to his knees, that’s not what I’m talking about. Instead, think of it this way: “Icin’ the kicka’.”

I watched a little of the team prelims the night before and I couldn’t help but notice that Sacramone seemed jittery and somewhat of the weak link. Do you think the Chinese may have noticed that too? Do you think they might have actually figured out a way to influence the proceedings and serve up a little “home-cooked Chinese” in order to rattle Sacramone and thereby save the PRC the great shame and humiliation of actually finishing–gasp!-second?

Well, you know, stranger things have happened in the Olympics.

To Karoyli’s credit, she went on to suggest that Sacramone was emotionally vulnerable and perhaps not as focused and aggressive as she should have been, even in the face of less-than-ideal circumstances. And she has a point–remember Kerri Strug?

Still, let’s give Alicia a break. She put herself out there in a way that none of us ever will and came up a little short. A silver medal and the chance to compete in the Olympics? There are worse outcomes than that.

As for the gymnastics officials: You wouldn’t happen to be related to the officials in a certain Olympic basketball final from 1972, would you?