Gymnastics Olympic Trials Day 1

We just got back from the first day of the US Olympic Trials for the women and what an amazing meet! The finals are Sunday and I can’t wait to see it all again. The women put on a great show with very high quality gymnastics and plenty of interaction with the crowd.

My camera is pretty bad so I will take my husband’s camera on Sunday. I did get a few pictures to come out okay though.

2004 Olympic All Around Champion, Carly Patterson, performed some of her songs for the crowd outside of the arena in the Fan Zone. This is a picture we got of her looking out of the arena into her “backstage” area. We didn’t stay and listen to her sing – I wanted to see the gymnasts warm up instead.

The “Jumbotron” was an integral part of the entire experience. They used it to show videos of each of the gymnasts training (Shawn Johnson is shown here), show the scores, spotlight the faces in the crowd (this was fun!), show the routines as they happened and for replays.

Mattie Larson, Shayla Worley, and some of the other competitors chalk up for bars during warm ups.

And you can’t got to an event like this and not get a shirt!!

So after Day 1, Shawn Johnson leads the pack followed by the graceful Nastia Liukin, the powerful Chellsie Memmel, Samantha Peszek, Ivana Hong ( a very pleasant surprise – she looks like a contender), and Jana Bieger. Alicia Sacramone’s vault during warmups was HUGE, so was her vault. Ivana Hong was a nice surprise with great tumbling. Mattie Larson definitely looks like one to keep an eye on, too.

I’ll post more thoughts and photos as the weekend goes along.

More pictures and my thoughts coming later in the weekend! Time to get some sleep.