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Paris Olympics 1: Pommel Horse Final
i have too many stills from the set of gymnastics finals we saw, and dïe überblønde has some video of the men's events and practices. since i have the greatest superabundance of exposures to finish sorting and work up from the women's vault, i'm going to start with the pommel horse. which is just for men, so no "men's pommel horse". (the other two events are equal-opportunity, but the sexes compete separately. which is good for the men, because the women would crush them like bugs.)
i was mostly watching the event, so i have photos of only two people: steven nedoroscik, representing the US and an official geek hero, who finished third; and rhys mc clenaghan, representing that other nation that famously fought off the british empire, who won the thing. sadly, no pictures of nariman kurbanov, who finished between them. who knew that the kazakhs had an awesome gymnatics training program? apparently anybody who pays attention, since they ended up with the soviet gymnastics training center (and the cosmodrome, but that's another story).
so, let's start with mc clenaghan. one reason I was shooting still frames while dïe überblønde was shooting video is that stills tell a different story than video. instants get lost; motion makes the difficult look easy.
ok, in this picture rhys is making it look easy:
but a second or two later, it's apparent how hard it is:
intense concentration and a lot of muscle tension as he's swinging his body around. his legs have to be high enough to clear the horse, but low enough to look good. it's a difficult trick.
this sequence shows the start of his dismount. i let my finger off the shutter button just a fraction of a second too early, so i missed him sticking the landing.
now, here's a little more than those three frames in motion:
(grr! you'll have to click through to see the video; flickr's video embedding isn't working right for some reason.)
the one-handed handstand goes by very quickly, but frozen in time, it's obvious just how difficult it is.
nedoroscik's routine followed his. it's a shame we didn't think to grab a snippet of video of him taking off his glasses before chalking his hands, because he really looks the clark kent-superman part when he does.
this would be a good kick from standing on the ground, but when you consider that he's swinging his body around, it's simply amazing:
<
some shots of how difficult this stuff really is:
this sequence is nedoroscik walking on his hands down the horse, while swinging his legs around, clearing the horse and its, um, pommels, every time.
and this is his dismount as a set of stills, which immediately followed:
there was a moment of unintentional humor in there: imagine if rodin's model for a well-known sculpture was a gymnast:
and this is what all that looks like at speed:
i was mostly watching the event, so i have photos of only two people: steven nedoroscik, representing the US and an official geek hero, who finished third; and rhys mc clenaghan, representing that other nation that famously fought off the british empire, who won the thing. sadly, no pictures of nariman kurbanov, who finished between them. who knew that the kazakhs had an awesome gymnatics training program? apparently anybody who pays attention, since they ended up with the soviet gymnastics training center (and the cosmodrome, but that's another story).
so, let's start with mc clenaghan. one reason I was shooting still frames while dïe überblønde was shooting video is that stills tell a different story than video. instants get lost; motion makes the difficult look easy.
ok, in this picture rhys is making it look easy:
but a second or two later, it's apparent how hard it is:
intense concentration and a lot of muscle tension as he's swinging his body around. his legs have to be high enough to clear the horse, but low enough to look good. it's a difficult trick.
this sequence shows the start of his dismount. i let my finger off the shutter button just a fraction of a second too early, so i missed him sticking the landing.
now, here's a little more than those three frames in motion:
(grr! you'll have to click through to see the video; flickr's video embedding isn't working right for some reason.)
the one-handed handstand goes by very quickly, but frozen in time, it's obvious just how difficult it is.
nedoroscik's routine followed his. it's a shame we didn't think to grab a snippet of video of him taking off his glasses before chalking his hands, because he really looks the clark kent-superman part when he does.
this would be a good kick from standing on the ground, but when you consider that he's swinging his body around, it's simply amazing:
<some shots of how difficult this stuff really is:
this sequence is nedoroscik walking on his hands down the horse, while swinging his legs around, clearing the horse and its, um, pommels, every time.
and this is his dismount as a set of stills, which immediately followed:
there was a moment of unintentional humor in there: imagine if rodin's model for a well-known sculpture was a gymnast:
and this is what all that looks like at speed: