Customer Reviews

American Gymnasts: Gold Medal Dreams

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This book was written just before the 2000 Olympics and is full of prognostications of an American women's gold-medal sweep in Sydney to rival their brilliant coupe of the 1996 Atlanta games; sadly, the American women's team that competed in the Sydney Olympics was a rather lackluster group: Not one gymnast made it to the event finals, and the highest individual ranking garnered was Elise Ray's 13th-place finish. It was the most dismal Olympic showing since the 1970's, and you wondered what had happened between 1996 and 2000 that caused the American women to completely fall flat.

This is written in an interesting slant for children, but some of the gymnasts' biographies, even if they are true, are rather invidious and would cause a lot of depression in a young athlete: most of the gymnasts started gymnastics at the age of 3, hit the ground running, and were coached by top-notch coaches who flew gleefully out of retirement upon seeing these girls perform. It must make a young gymnast who hasn't attained such lofty heights what she is doing wrong.

The biggest drawback about this book is the color photos. I don't know if it was poor camera angles, an overall lack of bad form on the gymnasts' part, or both, but these are the worst gymnastics photos I've ever seen.