First of all, let me say that this is one of the most GORGEOUS photos of Nastia Liukin I have seen yet! It is a balance beam photo from Team Preliminaries at the Olympics. (Photo: USAG)

While I haven’t seen the video footage yet (will see it tonight in primetime), it sounds as if the US and many others had a rough go of it in prelims. Samantha Peszek sprained her ankle in warmups leaving only 4 girls to compete on 3 of the events. Chellsie Memmel and Nastia Liukin both had uncharacteristic falls on bars. Even the Chinese gymnasts made mistakes in prelims (He Kexin from China even fell on bars) - but if you are going to make mistakes, that is where to make them.

And, even with the mistakes, the US team qualified 2nd to team finals behind China. I almost prefer the US be in 2nd going into finals - less pressure. Rounding out the top 8 teams that qualified to the team finals are Russia, Romania, Australia, France, Brazil and Japan.

In the individual All Around race, Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin lead the pack qualifying 1 and 2 to finals. For individual event finals the US girls qualified at least one gymnast in each event. Alicia Sacramone qualified to Vault finals, Nastia Liukin qualified to Bars finals, Nastia, Shawn and Alicia finished in the top 8 on beam but I am not sure if Alicia gets to go to finals or not based on the 2 per country rule, and Shawn and Nastia both qualified for finals on floor.

Its going to be anyone’s game I think for team finals - afterall the format is 3 athletes per event and all 3 scores count. It was a good idea to get the mistakes and the nerves out during prelims because the heat will be on in finals!