1984 Olympics - EF - 3

Retton and McNamara on bars. Pauca on Szabo on beam. I believe Pauca was the only gymnast to perform two consecutive layouts on beam at these Olympics.

Szabo's beam routine is one of my favorite routines ever. Great composition and I LOVE the four back handsprings.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Mary
• lou
• retton
• ub
• bars
• 1984
• olympics
• EF
• julianne
• mcnamara
• ekaterina
• szabo
• beam

[Tribute2the80s]

I'd be curious to see who qualified and what her rank was. I get her little move where she sits on the high bar was kind of different. And she did a tkachev (which must have been hard given how close the bars were). But I can't help but wonder if judging favoritism was a factor here.  But then again, with the two-per-country rule, there were only so many Romanian and Chinese gymnasts to out-qualify here. And most of the talent in the sport at the time was in Eastern Europe, who boycotted.

[vioreldarie67]

In sfarsit, am vazut-o pe Simona de aproape ! Bravo, Simona !!!

[faeryquene]

There's no way Ma Yanhong and Julianne McNamera were just .10 better than MLR.

[faeryquene]

@violaroadkill The Soviets were missing, and so were the East Germans who at that time tended to be the best team overall on the bars event. Retton also was helped by some generous scoring. She bent her knees horribly on both of her releases the Tkachev, and the 'Retton' and nearly went over on her giant. That routine should not have scored more than 9.60 or 9.65 at most.

[violaroadkill]

How on EARTH did Retton get in a bars final???!