hello hello, good morning, salutations, etc etc. i leave texas for virginia this saturday; i am (mostly) packed and hope to god i can fit all my crap in a 5'x8' trailer and my car. including 2 cats in an AMAZING kennel AMAZINGLY and KINDLY donated by miss Cheryl! (i'm psyched about the kennel, not so psyched about seeing how my cats react to driving 22 hours).
in the meantime, i would like to discuss something: Olympic Gymnast's Fashion. (as seen on China and USA last night). mainly, the scrunchies. WHY, dear god WHY do we have scrunchies?! you dont need all that elastic fabric nonsense, you need a tight ass rubber band to hold your hair back! and why pony tails? why not elegant buns like ballerinas? i feel like the messy pony tails and 800 huge metal clips in the girls from China's hair made them look even younger than their 10 years (i swear they cannOT be at least 16!). They had simple red, long sleeved leotards (can that be comfortable? aren't they hot? why long sleeves?) and some wore a little glitter on their eyelids (again, reinforcing the 6 yr old look). maybe they all love to watch Hannah Montana in their spare time?
USA was better (thankfully not so much glitter on the eyes) in long sleeved (wtf with the long sleeves?) leotards with some sort of stylized starfish/star on the left boob/side (or was it right?). anyway, their hair was much cuter-- a lot of them looked like typical 16 yr old teenagers, with bangs poufed a little in the front held by a bobby pin (a look i rock all the time and actually am rocking right now) and that pony tail thing that you do when you dont care how you look so instead of pulling the hair all the way through the elastic you let it loop. does that have a name? i used to do that crap all the time-- who wants an annoying pony tail flying around your face unless you're going for a cute, sporty '50s era look? not me, thank you (plus i dont have enough hair for a pony tail anyway...). the only scrunchie i noticed was on the girl whose dad was an Olympic gymnast from what, Russia or something? so i figured he made her wear it (and her fall from the uneven bars-- OUCH! that sucked. but she's pretty and kicked so much ass on the balance beam)
their make up looked more natural (china, you can def. wear mascara like USA) and i thought overall they were cute and pretty. HOWEVER
i wonder what makes me think of judging/noticing their make up? do i notice make up on the male gymnasts? no! (and also, i havent seen their event yet). but i think it's more noticable because women gymnasts often have very childish, square bodies-- hardly any boobs, they are short, small, and have powerful (yet small) muscles. when they have make up on, they look older-- almost more like teenagers, since teenagers (in america, at least) tend to almost always wear make up. everyone i spoke to about the gymnasts said "good lord, the chinese girls were BABIES" (and it doesnt help that theyve been accused of lying about girls ages and the girls really are under 16).
the male gymnasts, however, definitely look like "mature" guys-- hugely powerful shoulders, very muscular, etc. i have no idea if it's preferred that they be short or tall, but either way they don't look like children like the girls/women do.
why do we idolize this sport so much? why is it more fun to watch/is so popular than almost any other olympic summer sport? what about it do you love so much? please comment, i'd love to hear your opinions!
ps- can we bring back that ribbon thing on the floor excercise? you know what i'm talking about-- that shit is amazing!
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Hmmm... I think gymnastics is so popular to watch because it looks as hard as it is. You (and I certainly do) watch it and think, "I would die if I tried that."
The men are both older and are very short. I knew a guy in high school who did gymnastics until he got too tall. Basically, you get too heavy and start to pull muscles in your shoulders. And guys don't develop their upper body strength until they are older, which is why you don't see many 17 year old male gymnasts.
On the hair thing: I don't really know why they do ponytails, but changing how you put your hair up can actually really change your center of balance, so they probably just try to keep it consistent. I know when I chopped off my hair I couldn't turn for a week or two.
I have some different theories on the long sleeved leos. First, I think they might stay on better than short sleeved ones; you're less likely to have a strap fall down. Second, they might trap sweat better, which you don't want running onto your hands. I don't know how much sweat they work up with their short routines, but I know I would be drenched. I think gymnastics has always had the long sleeves though, so I don't know...
Yeah, the Chinese girls look 10. Kinda creepy.
Is it just me, or did the whole mystique of gymnastics kind of die out after the Barcelona year, when the girls KICKED ASS and took names and that little Kerri Strug broke her foot and STILL stuck her landing on the vault? I mean, I like to watch it now, but honestly, I have no frickin' clue who any of the girls are. Shawn Johnson? Thought she was a dude.
The hair has always bothered me. The scrunchies this year are TERRIBLE. I do think the 5 millions clips are necessary for the Chinese girls, though...Asian hair is fine and usually pretty thin, and the fly-aways and little baby hairs around the face are insane. Even though I can only claim 1/4th Asian descent, I have inherited some of the pesky hair traits.
The US outfits suck--looks like one of the girls decided to make them all herself in home-ec. With the emphasis America puts on fashion, you would think that they would have worked to get someone like Vera Wang to sketch out a leotard design.
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