Twenty Gymnasts to Watch in the Womens All-Around and Event Finals
With the spotlight focused on teammates Wieber and Douglas, Aly Raisman had room to breathe. Apparently she took a very deep breath. The 18-year old from Needham, Mass. tumbled past her fellow Americans to qualify second behind Komova. Her mouth dropped when she saw the scoreboard. If Komova wavers and Raisman brings her famed consistency, she could leave with gold. She also leapt into the event finals on beam and floor exercise. Her floor routine to the Hebrew folk song “Hava Nagila” posted the highest difficulty score in qualifications, and is one of the few numbers that could tempt the judges to dance along. Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote that “American Jews were collectively kvelling” as Raisman’s entertaining—and gravity-defying—routine unfolded during the preliminaries.
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