Simone Gets Gold and Aly Finds Redemption

I totally skipped my workout yesterday to watch All-Around finals.  No regrets.  I watched it online and still barely managed to get to bed at 9:30pm.  The Olympics is exhausting.

Simone the queen finally, took her rightful place among gymnastics royalty.  Those of us who follow gymnastics have been waiting for this day since she won her first World Championship AA Gold medal in 2013.  She hit all of her events in typical dynamic Simone fashion and when she finished she was Olympic All Around champion.  Simone is usually so stoic, but when her floor score was announced and her ranking finalized she broke down in tears.  The Gold really was hers for the taking.  The other gymnasts already knew they were essentially competing for silver.  Everyone expected her to win.  After floor everyone knew she had won, she knew she had won, but it wasn't until that moment when it became real.



Aly is such a team player that she stuck every vault so far, but couldn't come up with that kind of landing for herself.  She took a hop on her Amanar, but because it is one of the hardest vaults in the competition she was solid in second place behind Simone after the first rotation.  I got really worried for her after she struggled through bars.  She didn't hit all of her handstands, her form wasn't as clean as it's been, and she didn't stick the landing like she did in qualifications.  She'd dropped to fourth and really needed a solid score on the scariest event there is to stay near the top.  Beam.  She didn't stick her landing, but she was solid and all that stood between her and the podium after that was floor, her best event.  The thing about Aly is that you can see the tension and desire in her face and her body language before she starts an event.  You can feel how badly she wants it.  She doesn't have that walk the park I got this look that Simone has.  She looks scared, so you think, oh my gosh is she going to be able to do this?  But once she hits the apparatus she is aggressive and solid.  She knows how to turn it on.  She hit everything on floor, like usual and her face flooded with relief and tears before she even finished saluting the judges.  Odd as it may sound I was more emotional over Aly's silver than I was about Simone's Gold, because for Aly it wasn't a sure thing and she was seeking redemption.  Four years ago she got bumped from the bronze by Aliya Mustafina with a tie breaker.  She had to get back in shape.  She had to battle Simone and all the young whipper snappers to make the team.  She had to prove she was strong enough for All Around.  She had to beat out reigning Olympic Champ Gabby Douglas to make All-Around finals, and then she had to beat Aliya Mustifana and every other gymnast who has been training their whole lives for this to make the podium.  She didn't have her best day ever.  It was a battle from start to finish, that she finally won.  Victory could not be sweeter as it was her turn to give Aliya a bump placing ahead of her.   What she's accomplished is amazing, and how crazy is it to see how close she got to winning the whole thing at her second Olympics.  I am so impressed.

Third place went to Aliya Mustafina, by the skin of her teeth.  This poor girl has had so many injuries since 2012 and still managed to carry Russian gymnastics on her back.  She had a solid Vault and Bars landing in first place ahead of Simone Biles after two rotations, but beam was her undoing.  She missed an entire acro series and ended up in the 13.866.  Her score was actually lower than when she fell in qualifications.  Her difficulty on floor is not super high, but her execution and elegance were enough to offset that, allowing her scrape her way onto the podium.

The heart breaking 4th place spot went to Chunsong Sang from China.  For her to make the podium, she needs others to miss because no matter how well she does on the other three events her all around total takes a huge hit because she only vaults a full twisting Yurchenko.  She was so close this time, missing it by only .116 of a point.  

The sweetest moment of all, was just after Simone hopped up on the podium as Olympic champion.  She waved and smiled while the crowd applauded, and then beckoned her teammate Aly to join her and share that moment with her.  That is just the kind of person that Simone is, and if the roles were reversed Aly would have done the same.  Those are the kind of teammates they are.  I was in tears.  Obviously.

It was the second 1-2 USA Olympic All Around sweep in history.  Nastia Liukin and Sean Johnson went 1-2 in 2008.  There are many countries represented, and yet only three countries have managed to crack the gymnastics podium so far.  USA, Russia, and China.  All five team USA members qualified to event finals.  I think this is a first for any team, ever, so there is more to come from the Final Five and three more days of gymnastics left for the other countries to bring home some medal.

Aly & Simone post AA Interview

1. Biles USA 62.198
2. Raisman USA 60.098
3. Mustafina RUS 58.665
4. Shang CHN 58.549
5. Black CAN 58.298
6. Wang CHN 58.032
7. Lopez VEN 57.966
8. Teramoto JPN 57.965
9. Thorsdottir NED 57.632
10. Steingruber SUI 57.565

 
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The Final Five Wins Gold

Well, they won! Did anybody expect anything different?  I stayed off social media and the internet until I had a chance to watch it later.  The plan was working just fine until my sister texted me, how did the US already win, when it hasn't been on TV yet?  The older one, not the younger one who went to Olympic Trials with me.  She knows better.  I wasn't too upset, because I figured they would win anyway.  The only thing I didn't expect is that they would do even better than in qualifications.  Winning by 8 points, they could have counted falls and still won.  They won podium training, qualifications and finals not missing a single routine in the entire Olympics.  They are like machines! I don't know how they do it and if I were the other countries I would be so annoyed right now with their brilliance.  The same way, everyone else used to get annoyed by USSR and Romania for winning everything all the time.  The three per country rule was changed to two per country after Romania swept the all around in the 2000 Olympics.

I remember the 1988 Olympic in Seoul, Korea when Phoebe Mills winning a bronze on balance beam was the biggest deal ever.  The US couldn't crack the podium in a non-boycotted Olympics back then.  Brandy Johnson placed 10th all-around and it was the highest all-around finish ever for the US in a non boycotted Olympics.  The US team finished 4th that year.  In 1984 the US won a team silver and Mary Lou Retton won the AA Gold.  Those were both very important, but it's kind of sad that it almost doesn't "count" since the Soviet Union wasn't there.  My how things have changed.  Romania didn't qualify a team to the Olympics for the first time and the only former USSR country that can keep up is Russia.

In the perfect storm of the right gymnasts coming together at the right time, the US won Olympic team gold in 1996, but fell down to bronze in 1992 and 2000.  Marta Karolyi stepped in as national team coordinator in 2001.  They inched their way up to silver in 2004 and  2008, then back on top with gold in 2012 and now 2016.  The US has been on the Olympic podium since 1996 and the World's podium every year team has been contested since 1991 with only two years they didn't make the podium (1997 &1999).

As a team USA has always been pretty good.  There was a large gap between the top few teams and everyone else and All-around and event final medals were few and far between.  They were never bad, just not the consistent multiple medal winning dominant power house they are now.

The semi-centralized system put in place has made all the difference.  Not just because of the intense training they receive at their monthly week long visits to the ranch, but because working together as a cohesive unit over the long term builds bonds integral to team success.  Before the system was put in place the girls trained at their home gyms, and saw each other at competitions a few times per year.  They got a little more time together, training for a few weeks before major international competitions before going their separate ways again.  They were individual gymnasts thrown together for a few weeks out of the year.  I distinctly remember the perfunctory half hugs shared between Kim Zmeskal, Shannon Miller and Dominique Dawes during the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  Half the time they didn't even watch each others routines.  The teams from Romania, USSR, and China lived together and trained together.  They were so close and you could see it in the way they interacted with each other and rooted for each other.  I still remember Tatiana Gutsu crying in the arms of Svetlana Boguinskaia after she fell on beam in.  It was the stuff that gymnastics fluff dreams are made of.  They were like sisters.  Training side by side with the best of the best on a regular basis also makes them push themselves harder, and this makes them all better.  There is criticism that they are pushed too hard at the ranch, there are too many injuries, and the selection process is not fair, but it's working.  Maybe they can find a happy medium somewhere moving forward.



As if it's not hard enough to make the team, the next Olympic teams will be whittled down to four.  The Final Five gave Martha Karolyi the best send off she could have ever asked for.  Her time as team coordinator has come to an end, but I hope that team USA excellence will continue.

Post win team interview

Final Results
1. United States 184.897
2. Russia  176.688
3. China  176.003       
4. Japan  174.371

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Two Per Country Rule Strikes Again

I watched gymnastics all day long yesterday.  I'm not kidding either.  It's the first thing I did when I woke up and the last thing I was doing before I went to bed.  I knew they wouldn't show much on TV and I was not at work so I had the luxury of watching all the live feeds online without having to wait for NBC or stay up late watching all the coverage.  Team finals and All Around finals will be a different story.  I'll have to quit internet/social media to avoid spoilers, and stay up until the wee hours of the night for the five hour broadcast.

Team USA did exactly what everyone expected them to do yesterday.  They dominated.  Not a single miss.  Lots of teams fell victim to the beam, but not the US.  They scored 10 points ahead of second place China.  These girls are just amazing.

Gabby Douglas was solid on all events.  She went out of bounds on floor, but improved her back tuck connection after her first pass.  Her bars were excellent and and good enough to qualify third into bar finals.  She stayed on beam, and had a small step on her dismount.  She tied exactly with Aly on beam with a 14.833, but they both got bumped out of beam finals due to the two per country rule.  Poor thing, she also got bumped out of floor finals due to the two per country rule.  It takes a lot of guts to come back four years later after winning the All-Around.  I give her so much credit for that, because she had everything to lose, but did it anyway.  Like her or not, everyone can respect her response to not making AA finals.    

Laurie Hernandez wowed as expected on all of her events.  She gets every tenth out of her double twisting Yurchenko and her beam was rock solid.  She qualified second into beam finals after Simone Biles with a 15.366.  She too got bumped out of floor finals due to the two per country rule.

Madison Kocian did her job.  She did a beautiful bar routine qualifying first into bars finals with a 15.866.

Aly Raisman just gets better and better.  She nailed everything on floor.  Her first pass is really long so I hold my breath hoping she doesn't go out of  bounds, but she stayed in.   Bars is her weak event, but she got through it fine with her form as good as I've seen it.  I screamed when she bent at the waist on her side somi on beam, but she saved it and then stuck her dismount.  She came to Rio to win. Four years ago she lost out on the AA bronze due to a tie breaker, and she's never quite gotten over it.  She was determined to get her second chance, and she got it.  It is so impressive that she is as good as if not better than she was in 2012.  She made floor finals, but got bumped out of beam due to that pesky two per country rule.


Simone Biles.  What is there to say about her?  She's awesome.  She qualified first into event finals on Vault, Beam, and Floor.  She got a 16.050 average on vault.  She is the only gymnast in the entire competition to score a 16 + on anything.  She had a tiny tiny little hiccup on bars, but no problem because she could fall and still be ahead of everyone else.  I can't wait for her to finally get that Gold medal in the All-Around.



So here's the deal.  When you look at raw numbers Gabby shouldn't have been selected to compete All-Around in team qualifications.  This isn't meant to be a knock on Gabby.  She is an amazing beautiful solid gymnast, and she hit for team USA but based on sheer numbers others are stronger.  Depending on your perspective, maybe that's how it should be.  Maybe being Olympic champion earns her that benefit of the doubt and the right to have those opportunities over other gymnasts.  For those who don't see it that way, it isn't fair and other athletes who had better numbers should have been given the chance. I think that's what a lot of the negativity surrounding Gabby was about.  Not that she isn't good enough or worthy to be on the team, but that others were too and perhaps more so.  According to Marta, there were other things to consider besides All-Around.  Like bars. 

A year ago at World Championships it was Maggie Nichols who got the Olympic Champion bump, and this year, it was Laurie Hernandez.  Maggie sat out bars in team qualifications and then came back during team finals to do All-Around posting a higher all-around total than Gabby did in qualifications.  This year, Laurie's scores in team qualifications were higher than Gabby on every event with the exception of bars, which she did not compete.  I venture to guess that the only event Gabby will compete in team finals is bars.  They only need three gymnasts on each event and her teammates are stronger than her on everything but bars.  If that is indeed the case, it circles right back around to the idea that Laurie should have done All-Around ahead of Gabby.

Laurie most definitely would have given Aly a run for her money to qualify for All-Around, but in the end Gabby was chosen for the opportunity, and Aly delivered on every event to beat her out for that second spot.  Team USA went 1-3 (Simone, Aly, Gabby) in the All-Around, and they could have gone 1-4 had Laurie done all around also.  It is so crazy that the 3rd best does not get to advance.  Four years ago Jordan Wieber was odd man out, and this year it's Gabby.  Team USA is so dominant that everyone on the team could be in the top 10, and all-around finals would look like a USA national championships but they can't have that.  Aly has managed to find herself on the right side of that two per country rule each time, but she has gotten screwed on other technicalities.  I get why the two per country rule exists, but I'm not a fan because ultimately the final 24 women who qualify are not truly the best in the world.  That rule bumped everyone on Team USA except Simone and Madison out of an event final.  Gabby was the biggest victim of the two per country rule out of everyone getting booted out of All-Around, Beam and Floor.

Another interesting story from team qualifications is Kylie Dickson from the United States, I mean Belarus.  She wasn't strong enough to qualify for the US National team so she took her talents elsewhere and competed for a country that she has absolutely no connection to.  She's never been, she doesn't speak the language, and she has no relatives there, but she applied for citizenship making her eligible to compete for that country.  I don't blame her for wanting to be an Olympian.  She wanted the opportunity and she got it, but at what cost?  Her skill level is closer to NCAA which is level 10 and she didn't perform very well.  She had big breaks on everything.  I didn't see her beam.  It was just her and a Belorussian coach she probably just met.  I don't know, it just seems like a very odd Olympic experience.  Belarus has a weak gymnastics program, but it seems like there should have been one girl as good as if not better than Kylie who could have been given the chance.  She vaulted a full twisting yurchenko, and her last pass on floor was a layout full.

Team Finals
1. United States
2. China
3. Russia
4. Great Britain
5. Brazil
6. Germany
7. Japan
8. Netherlands

All-around Finals: Biles, Raisman
Individual event finals
Vault: Biles
Uneven bars: Kocian, Douglas
Balance beam: Biles, Hernandez
Floor exercise: Biles, Raisman

I can't write about everything or else this post would be way too long so if you are interested, all the gymnastics news is here at NBC Olympics.

Edited to add USA line-ups announced for Team Finals:
VAULT
Laurie Hernandez
Aly Raisman
Simone Biles

BARS
Simone Biles
Gabby Douglas
Madison Kocian

BEAM
Aly Raisman
Laurie Hernandez
Simone Biles

FLOOR
Laurie Hernandez
Aly Raisman 
Simone Biles

 
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The All-Around Conondrum

Okay guys, I'm going into full on Olympic reporter mode here.

After the US Olympic team was named the next question on everyone's mind was who, of those talented five, would have the opportunity to compete all four events in Team Qualifications for the chance to qualify to All Around finals.  Ask any gymnast on the team and they will tell you that team gold is priority and the biggest honor there is.  I believe they mean it, but that in their heart of hearts they all know that All-Around champion is the premier title of the Olympic Games.  To be able to say you are the best and brightest gymnast in all the land at the Olympics is every little gymnast dream come true and if you have turned pro it is the biggest payday there is for a female gymnast.  In order to get their hands on that money a gymnast must turn professional giving up their amateur status.  They can collect endorsement money and be paid for doing gymnastics, but in return they give up eligibility to compete as a college gymnast. 

Laurie Hernandez turned pro just a few days ago and based on podium training yesterday it doesn't look like she will even have the chance to compete in the All-Around.  Team competition is broken down into two days.  Team Qualifications is where every single individual qualifier and teams compete to qualify for Team Finals and Event finals, and Team Finals is where the top eight teams from qualifications compete for medals.  Back in the old days when there were seven gymnasts per team and six gymnast competed on each apparatus in team qualifications more gymnasts had the opportunity to compete every event in qualifications.  Now that the teams have been whittled down to five gymnasts on a team and four compete on each apparatus, tough choices have to be made.  There are less gymnasts to work with, so each gymnasts strengths and weaknesses on individual events come into play more than ever.  It is one reason why "event specialist" has become a thing in women's gymnastics.  You used to have to do all four events no matter what, but now there are athletes out there who only do two or three events.  Mckayla Maroney was an all-around gymnast, but she made the 2012 team based largely on the strength of her vault, just like Madison Kocian competes all four events, but made the team largely on the strength of her bars.

So.  What we have here is a situation with four very strong All-All around gymnasts with medal potential in Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Laurie Hernandez and Gabby Douglas, but at best only three of them can be given the opportunity to compete on all four events.  With only four routines per event the strengths of each athlete needs to be carefully utilized to maximize team score.  We already knew that Madison would not be doing All-Around, and that Simone would.  We also assumed Gabby would be given the opportunity as well.  After watching podium training yesterday, specifically bars, it became very clear who the odd man out would be between Laurie and Aly.  They go in the order that they are planning on for qualifications.  On bars the order was Aly, Simone, Gabby, Madison, Laurie.  Laurie would never be put up after reigning world bars champion Madison, so it was very clear that Laurie would sit out for bars, which means no All-around for her.

Back in 1996 days of the Mag Seven, this wouldn't even be an issue.  I think everyone from Simone to Madison (1-8 at Olympic Trials) would have made the team.  This would have included Maggie Nichols, and alternates Mykayla Skinner and Ragan Smith.  Four to five gymnasts would have all been given the chance to battle it out for an All-around finals spot.  I hate it that there are so few spots and it's going to change even more at the next Olympics.  I also hate it that only two of the three can be in the All-Around finals due to the two per country rule. 

Is this fair?  Well, it depends on how you look at it.  Laurie was the #2 gymnast behind Simone at Trials and Nationals, but some argue that she was over scored.  She's a first year senior and she's young, so maybe it's not her time.  Aly is a veteran.  This is her second and probably last Olympics.  She was so close to making the all-around podium in 2012 and she gets better and better in every meet.  She has trained hard, peaking at just the right time, and deserves the chance.  Gabby is a "bars specialist" so I guess they need to put her up on bars, although having Laurie's score instead would not jeopardize the team qualifying.  Gabby fell on beam two days in a row at trials, but won 2nd place at World Championships last year.  She fell on beam in Worlds qualifications, but was still good enough to qualify into that AA final  She fell on beam event finals at the 2012 Olympics.  I can't say she's had the history of being 100% consistent, that Aly does, but usually hits when it counts.  She's reigning Olympic champion, so anything is possible and I think that's what they are counting on.  I just hope she isn't being set up for failure.  She isn't the same gymnast she was in 2012.  Simone Biles is so good she's not expected to actually defend her title, and I cannot imagine the pressure she feels to make a solid showing.  In my opinion, it's Gabby that took Laurie's spot, not Aly.

It is also very interesting to note that the only event in podium training that Aly went ahead of Gabby was bars; which makes sense because it is her weakest event.  Typically, you want the scores to build so athletes are put on each rotation based on weakest to strongest routines.  What this means is that Aly is being set up to do really well in the All-Around and based on how she nailed podium training and her recent meets, I think that is fair.  I'm an Aly fan.  I want her to do well so bad! They have up to 24 hours before team qualifications to change line-ups but unless something drastic happens I think it's pretty well set.

Team USA did very well in podium training.  They went 20 for 20 not a single routine missed.  Those girls are well trained and ready.  Team USA could fall several times and make team finals, but my heart will be in my throat watching Aly and Gabby battle it out for that second All-Around finals spot.  Don't expect to see any Pink or Purple leos this year.  They went 100% patriotic.

Edited to add:  Now there is talk that Laurie has a hamstring, no scratch that an abdominal pull yet Laurie and her coach are claiming to be perfectly healthy.  I'm not sure what to think, but there sure is a lot of drama before the competition even begins. 

If you have a cable login and want to watch the live stream from podium training the link is here.  Opening ceremonies is tonight and gymnastics team qualifications start Sunday.

Just in case you were wondering, see this post about How to Get to the Olympics without spending your life training for a sport.

 
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How to get to the Olympic Games

In case you've been hiding under a rock the Olympic Games is next week!  Opening ceremonies begin on Friday.  Anybody that knows me knows that I love gymnastics.  It's my favorite sport in the whole wide world, and I especially love the Olympics because gymnastics is one of it's most popular sports and it gets tons of media attention I don't get to see outside of an Olympic year.  All the four year fans come out and finally, I have a plethora of people to chat about gymnastics with.

Has anyone ever wondered how to go to the Olympics?  If you haven't dedicated your life to a sport, put in millions of hours training, or don't have any talent is it still possible to go to the Olympics?  I had no idea how to even go about it, or what it even could cost, but when I told MJ that I wanted to travel to Rio to watch the 2016 Olympics in person he was totally on board.  The first step was easy enough.  A google search led me to CoSport, the official supplier of Olympic Tickets for USA residents.  You can't get them on Ticketmaster or Stubhub; not legally anyway.  Every country has their own official supplier that can only be used by residents.  It was early, so it looked shady because it was just a shell with not much information in it, but it was legit.  I signed up for email alerts some time in January of 2015 and the email I'd been waiting for finally came on April 22.  This is how the process played out for me. 

Individual Ticket Request Phase
Tomorrow Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 10:00 (New York time), we are launching our Individual Ticket Request for Rio 2016. Our Package Live Sales phase will open shortly thereafter - exact date/time to be announced.

Excitedly, I logged onto the website first thing in the morning and my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw the prices.  There were four categories to choose from, but I had no idea how the stadium would be set up and had to make a decision blindly without a seating chart.  Category C is on par with the cost of our last set of NFL tickets and honestly $132 sound fairly reasonable for an event of this magnitude.  I mean, it's the Olympic Games.  Not deterred, I put in requests for Women's Team Finals night,  Women's All Around Finals, and two different days of Women's Event Finals.  I would be okay with watching Team Qualifications, but the countries don't draw time slots for sessions until closer to the games and I would have no idea of which teams/individuals would be competing in the session I got tickets for until later.  I also have to say, I don't like the way they break up event finals over three days.  For the men it's two events per day, but for the women there is only one day with two events (Vault/Bars), but the other two days is just one event each, so that is not ideal for the money...plus my hotel.

A-434

B-348

C-194

D-132

During the initial ticket request round between April 23 and May 4th all requests received before the deadline would be treated equally - not on a first-come, first-served basis.  There was no guarantee that you would receive any or all the tickets you requested nor was there an obligation to purchase all of the tickets you request and receive.  For sessions where demand exceeds supply, the tickets would be awarded via random lottery.  I knew that this would likely be the case for Gymnastics because it's one of the most popular sports of the games.  Out of 10 tickets I got 0.  If I wanted to see dressage maybe I would have been in luck, but for a sport like Swimming or Gymnastics.  Not likely.   I wasn't ready to give up so I waited anxiously for the next phase.

Tickets + Hotel Packages
On May 1st the tickets plus hotel packages opened. They didn't even notify us, but I happened to check the day of and found a lot of them were already sold out.  They went as high as $11,000 depending upon how many nights and the number of ticket sessions provided.  All of the flex packages that allow a choice of sports are stacked in chunks from the beginning of the games to the end of the games.  The cheapest flex package was $3,700 which included 1 ticket of choice from select inventory of sporting events occurring within the first four days of the games and included four days three nights hotel accommodations.  That was not an option for me because it was Gymnastics or nothing, and gymnastics was not offered in that package.  A sport specific package for Gymnastics included 4 days and 3 nights hotel with tickets to Women's Team Final and Men's Team Final but it was $5,500 and would force me to see the men which is an event I wasn't interested in paying a lot of money for.  I'd also have the extra expense of Women's All Around Final tickets...provided I could even get my hands on them.  I couldn't stomach those inflated prices because I could put together a hotel package for us plus one to two events I really wanted to see for much cheaper if the tickets would become available.  But that's how they get you.  They are in the business of making money so they push overpriced hotel/ticket combo's first, and make it harder to get individual tickets.  When I realized what a racket the hotel/ticket packages were I immediately searched for a hotel, with hopes that I might be able to snag tickets when individual ticket sales opened.  On some sites it was too far out to even book.  On others most of the prices were $500-900 per night.  I managed to find one hotel that was rated well on Trip Advisor and decently priced.  I had to pay the $1,400 for 8 nights (August 7-15) at the Villa Gale Rio de Janeiro hotel in advance, but it was fully refundable and changeable so I snatched it up.  The next day there was NOTHING and this was over one year out from the games!  Co-sport rolled out hotel only packages later, but the least expensive one was $1,485 for 3 nights.  They have a monopoly on a lot of the hotels which makes getting them on your own that much harder, but their prices are highway robbery.  It seemed kind of hopeless, but still not ready to throw in the towel I waited for the next phase.  I have a hotel room in Rio.  All I needed was the tickets...and airfare, but I'd worry about that later.

Individual Ticket Sales
The first 10 days of individual ticket sales were open only to those who requested tickets in the initial ticket request phase and was supposed to go live on May 19th, but it was delayed.  From what I read their website usually crashes during live sales because they can't handle all the traffic, and tickets in your cart disappear before you've even had a chance to buy them.  This did not sound promising.  A few weeks later I was in Hawaii without my Visa when the tickets finally went live without any warning.   Turns out, Visa really is the official payment system for the games.  It is the only acceptable form of payment so if you don't have a Visa you better get one.  Just hours after the email went out there were only eight sports left with available tickets.  Eight! None for gymnastics.  I checked in regularly for months after that and still...nothing.  I found a support group online for people who want Olympic tickets.  I got some helpful inside information from those who have gone before, and discovered that there are people all over the world trying to get their hands on tickets and I was not alone in my quest for the Olympics.  It turns out, that getting Olympic Gymnastics tickets is like finding a needle in a haystack.  Almost impossible.  Even when the Olympics is in your very own town, it is still hard to get tickets.  That would certainly make the logistics easier, so hopefully it will come back to the US again.  LA is already trying for 2024.     

So this was my dilemma.  Would it be enough just to go and experience the Olympic Games even if that meant not watching a Gymnastics event?  What other sport would I be willing to pay $100 to go watch?  Should I take what I can get and hope that gymnastics tickets become available as it gets closer?  It couldn't be just any sport either.  It would have to be one sandwiched around Gymnastics because I can't afford to stay in Rio for more than the week I already booked.

This was getting really complicated.

When I got news that MJ would probably be out of country at the time it was the nail in the coffin on my bid for the 2016 Olympic Games.  I cancelled the hotel reservation and quit checking in on CoSport.  Every now and then, I'd get an e mail announcing additional tickets so I'd check just for kicks and never saw anything available for gymnastics, until a few weeks ago there was Men's Gymnastics AA final tickets available for $348, and today there is Women's Team Final tickets for $348 but how screwed would you be on hotel and airfare costs if you didn't book that stuff in advance?  And what if I had booked it in advance?  That would mean spending all the money and planning a trip to the Olympics when you don't even know if you are getting tickets!  They sure don't make it easy for people on a budget who need to plan ahead for these things.

I came across an article saying that there were many last minute Rio deals to be had and since there are Women's Team Final tickets available for August 9th I decided to see what it would cost to get to Rio right now.  I found a deal that included 5 nights hotel (instead of the 6 I requested because it takes 18 hours to get there) in a 4-star Copacabana hotel + round trip airfare for two on Travelocity, but while I was shopping this message popped up:

Your price has changed

While you were shopping, the price of your trip changed from $10,867.28 to $15,691.28. This is the next best deal for your trip.

It was less than 5 minutes! I didn't even have a chance to check on Trip Adviser reviews.  So I tried again.  This time I went for the more affordable Best Western near the airport.  Again.

Your price has changed

While you were shopping, the price of your trip changed from $9,152.63 to $13,976.63. This is the next best deal for your trip.

What this tells me is that they lure you in, to think you can get it for 5k per person (which is still quite astronomical), and then they bait and switch "while you were shopping."

So let's pretend I still had that $1,400 hotel reservation.  I priced out the flights separately and the lowest was $3,184 round trip, but that is with a travel time there of 29 hours! Still cheaper than CoSport, but much lower when I priced it out a long time ago.  That same Best Western Hotel on it's own was only $137 per night, and I saw another for $260 near the airport that looked decent.  Not the worst, but given the price of airfare, last minute is most definitely not the way to go.  Brazil also requires a travel Visa.  The struggle is real for Olympian families who need to get there in a hurry.

So you see, getting to the Olympics is not only very difficult for athlete's is also very difficult and expensive for fans who just want to watch.  It's a pretty tricky balance between timing, luck, and expectations.  You have to either be very rich, very lucky, or not care at all which sports you see.  In all cases you have to be persistent to snag hotel and tickets but specifically, if you are dead set on seeing a high demand sport.  I would love to be a part of the spectacle that is the Olympics, but I am neither rich or lucky and I wasn't willing to spend thousands of dollars for anything but gymnastics.  Then my husband left the country so, that was that.  At least I got to go to Olympic Trials.

Rio didn't work out, but I haven't given up on my Olympic dream just yet.  Tokyo 2020 I'm coming for you...or maybe 2024, especially if it returns to the US.

For those of us who can't be there, this is the NBC link to TV listings for every sport.  This is the Live stream schedule.  Podium training for Men and Women is Wednesday and Thursday August 3 and 4!  It will not be televised, but this is the live stream link.  I am looking forward to a sneak peak of training so I can continue to speculate on line-ups.  I will be glued to the TV all week.  I can't wait.
 

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That Time We Almost Got Kicked Out of VIP

I've stayed at Bellagio, Flamingo, Tropicana, Planet Hollywood, Polo Towers, Hilton Grand Vacation Resort, Monte Carlo, and The Orleans.  I stayed one night at Excalibur before switching to The  Venetian.  Long story.  And this one awful off strip place...I don't even remember the name.  I think it had the word Terrible in it, and it was not nice, but were broke and that was all we could manage at the time.  Needless to say, I've been to Las Vegas a lot, but I've never stayed at Treasure Island, or experienced Vegas VIP style.  This girls trip would be my first.  You will spend money when you go to Vegas because the price of everything is high.  Food is expensive, shows are expensive, but there is definitely something for every budget and you don't have to do all the extra's to have a good time.  MJ and I have gone several times and had a blast without throwing down a ton of money everywhere, but this trip would be slightly different.

I'm kind of obsessed with how much things cost so I'm breaking it all down at the end.  

It started off really, really bad.  I was living in a fantasy world where flights are never delayed and baggage doesn't get lost, because it hadn't ever happened to me.  I checked the status of my flight before I left work that day, but not before we left for the airport so it wasn't until after I checked my bag that I found out my 2:10pm Southwest flight has been delayed to 5:10pm...then 5:35pm.  Even the girls who drove made it faster than I did.  I hung out at the airport with three of the other girls from my group, watched them get on the 3:45pm leaving me behind when I was at the airport first. I was originally supposed to land in Vegas at 3:30pm, but didn't show up at our hotel until 8:00pm. The girls were already drinking champagne.  I was supposed to get there first, but I ended up getting there dead last.  

We lost a girl before we even made it to Vegas.  The week of, we found out she wasn't going to make it.  Then this.  I should have known that my rocky start was a bad omen.

Club Night @The Light, Mandalay Bay
I get there, we ate dinner, and then everyone got ready for club night.  We decided to do bottle service, so that we would have a place to sit, and with drinks that cost $15 bucks a pop it's a better deal.  We were doing it up, VIP style, but our VIP experience was anything but at the beginning.  We got to our table around 11:00pm and then our club night organizer discovered that she didn't bring her credit card.  Not a single one of us had a credit card with us, so we literally had to cab it back to our hotel and then come back.  This took about an hour.  Then, the credit card got rejected because it was a very large out of state purchase in a Vegas night club at 12 midnight.  No money, no bottles, no fun.  The other tables were dancing on chairs, having the time of their lives and we looked like we were sitting in the waiting room of a dentist office.  It was terrible!  Everyone was looking at us funny and every time a guy in a suit walked by we thought it was security coming to kick us out of VIP because you can't sit there, unless you do bottle service and we had no bottles.  We didn't even have anything to sip on.  She left to call her bank.  She came back and talked to our server, left to go talk to the manager...came back...the manager came and talked to her...we stared at each other....and it just went on and on until I thought we'd have to leave.  Let's not even mention that since we all gave cash the money to pay for the entire thing was sitting in our hotel room.

It was 1:00am by now, and even if it worked out, we had three hours to drink two bottles of Vodka.  Then we got the Vodka.  When our server put those glow in the dark bottles on our table I looked at them like, "What am I supposed to do with that?"  It was late and our mood was destroyed, but we had to rally because the money had finally been paid.  So how do five girls go about drinking two bottles of vodka in three hours?  Very quickly, but also very carefully because a hang over at the pool the next day is no fun.  Well, I had a ball dancing my heart out after that.  Three of the girls left early, but I refused to leave until that place shut down.  We got a late start and I was making the most of it.  We managed to drink 1 1/2 bottles.  We stayed until the lights came on and shut the club down around 4pm.  That's also about when my shoes broke.  When I say broke, I mean broke.  The sole of my right shoe was flapping in the hot wind while I stumbled my way home.

The morning after. #vegas #poolparty

A photo posted by Cece (@mahoganydrive) on Jul 23, 2016 at 1:02pm PDT

Pool Day @Treasure Island
Vomiting is the worst, so even though I woke up with a raging headache the next morning I felt like I made out okay.  I had a really slow start in the morning, but it was nothing that Excedrin, a bucket of chicken tenders and a Diet Pepsi at the pool couldn't fix.  I was good to go for the day.  If you've ever been to a pool party in Vegas you know that chairs can be scarce and the sun is hot.  The best way to avoid the discomfort of languishing in the sun is to pay.  The cabana experience was perfection.  The only snafu was the worst nachos I've ever had in my life.  We really should have sent them back.  They were that bad.  We had a nice view of the pool, aka the dance floor because that's the only thing that happens in a pool in Vegas.  People actually come with hair fully done wearing make up.  It's the only pool setting I've ever encountered where the majority of the people don't even bother to get their hair wet.   There is no point.  Nobody swims and the entire length of this particular pool was waist deep.  The DJ was right in front of the pool and everyone stands around drinking and dancing.  It was hot.  Like 111 degrees hot.  We went in and out of the pool at our leisure, and ate and drank all day long.  The most I could handle was a light beer for the day.  At the end of the day we weren't sun fried and we were able to relax.  We lost another girl that night.  She had to get home so she took a flight out after the pool.

That night we walked the strip, grabbed a bite to eat at Margaritaville and hung out at Vista Cocktail Lounge in Caesar's Palace until 3:15am.  I had a few drinks.  I was practically falling asleep at 1:00am and my voice was all but gone but I stuck it out.  I love this place! It has a DJ.  The music was good when it was Shadow Bar and the only thing that changed is the name and the decor.  A lot of the hotel lounges are free, but they get you with the drinks.

I was a trooper guys!!  I was proud of myself for staying up and out both nights.  Getting a group trip together is hard.  Chances are things, are going to go wrong.  The group texts before hand were exhausting, and I was so over all the planning by the time we showed up, but we got it together and had a fun.  Everyone else went home on Sunday but I stayed an extra night and slept at Mom and Dad's house where it's free and food is included.

    
Money, money, money, money...MONEY!
Transportation:  My round-trip flight from San Diego was $189.00.  Two girls drove, but I hate that drive and I'd rather pay.  It cost the three girls that flew together $30 bucks for a cab ride from the airport.  I was already late, and alone, so I jumped on one of the shuttles for $9.00 one way.  It will take you longer to get to your hotel depending on how many stops they have to make, but it's always available and it's cheap.  The cab from our hotel to the nightclub hotel was $15.00.  I love walking the strip, but it was too far to walk in heels. Gotta love Southwest.  As compensation for my delay they gave me a $100.00 voucher before we even took off, and emailed a 50% off flight offer code.

Treasure Island Hotel:  Two nights in a two bedroom three bath suite was $894.00 inclusive of tax and resort fees.  It was basically two adjoining rooms; a regular room (with one bath) combined with a one bedroom two bathroom gigantic suite.  It would have been even more expensive, but there was a problem at check in and we lost a room, which worked out because we lost a girl.  We had two queen beds and three single roll away beds.  Three bathrooms for 6 girls was perfect.  Our room was really nice too.  I should have taken a picture.  The total cost was $149 each.

The Light @Mandalay Bay bottle service:  $695 plus tip. I know, I know.  On what planet does a bottle of alcohol cost this much?  Like really?  First of all, setting the whole thing up is kind of strange because they don't put much information on the websites.  It's almost like they don't want you to know about it.  Most of the bookings are done through promoters.  Even if you can book through the club, apparently you will get a better deal with a promoter.  I contacted The Bank @Bellagio via some random e mail I had to google just to find and got a reply by text.  The minimum for VIP there was $495, but it felt very cryptic.  MJ and I paid a guy cash on the street once for club entry and it worked out, so you never know, but I wasn't so sure.  One promoter asked my friend for a picture of her and her friends to "see what he could do."  Drai's Nightclub was $695 for one bottle, but our table would be outside.  We got a really good deal at The Light because our friend new someone who knew the promoter.  Normally, two bottles would cost at least $1,000 and some places are that much just for one.  We found out that night that one of the girls doesn't drink vodka so we started out planning to split it seven ways, but in the end it was a five way split at $140 each.  Our friend felt so bad about how long it took that she didn't make us chip in on tip.  Which fyi should be at least 10%.

The Cabana @Treasure Island:  The cost was $275 for the cabana plus a $200 food minimum plus tax and gratuity.  This included a fruit platter and 1 free re-stock of the mini fridge which contained soda and water.  $200 is not hard to do at all.  Our food tab ended up at $275 and they tacked on tax plus a 10% gratuity so it totaled out at $318.  Two of the girls invited a friend, so that surely upped our tab but it didn't feel worth it to get nit picky about it so we kept the six way split @$100 each.    

Food:  All the prices in Vegas are jacked up.  The average lunch/dinner at the casual dining restaurant in our hotel Friday night; The Coffee Shop was $16-18 bucks for things like club sandwiches, dinner salads and burgers.  On Saturday night us three girls sat down at Margaritaville and walked away with a $120 bar tab.  The nacho appetizer we split was $18.00.  There was a vending machine in the hallway of our hotel offering 12 oz water bottles for $3.00, but you could find people selling them on the strip for $1.00.       

So when all is said and done this trip cost me $578.00 plus some extra for food/drinks and a cheap shuttle.  We all went into it knowing we would spend money and that we couldn't be total cheapskates.  We had a blast.  No regrets at all.  One of the last messages that went out on our mile long Vegas group text was "that was fun, where are we going next?"  Crickets.  I think we need to recover from this one first.

 
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