Up to the beam and directly into two layout step-outs. Good. Now my turn sequence. The triple turns into a double as my shoulders shift out of alignment, but my arms don’t waver, and I can go straight into an L-turn and then down and up through the full illusion and set. Good.
I lift my chin again heading into the last half of my routine, leaps connected, aerial cartwheel, and a gainer down to straddle the beam. The turn on my back makes the crowd cheer, a soft buzzing in the back of my mind.
And then finally the dismount, I count off, hands, feet, hands, feet, and tightly into a triple twist with a tiny hop to the side, and it’s done. I hit it. I salute the judges and smile widely.
I owned it, and when I’m down on the floor again and look up at the scoreboard, that 15.0, matching Sun Luli’s score, proves it.
One girl left. Ana-Maria Popescu. And, like me, if she wants a shot at bronze, she needs to hit this beam routine. She’s capable of it too. Romanian gymnasts are pretty much born being able to do a beam routine, and Ana-Maria is fabulous. A roundoff to layout full that she lands without a flicker. A standing Arabian that looks like she’s got springs on her feet and the beam is ten feet wide. It should be a fun balance beam final in a couple of days if she can bring it like this. She dismounts like I did, with two back handsprings into a triple twist, but she sticks it cold.
It’s a great routine, and the judges reward her with a 15.3. That’s one hell of a score, and it gets her back into the meet as we go to floor, one of her strengths and distinctly not one of mine.
The scoreboard updates, and there I am, tied with Irina Kareva, with Dani only three-tenths of a point ahead of us. So it comes down to one floor routine. A minute and thirty seconds for each of us to put everything we have out there and see where we land.
1.Daniela Olivero (USA)
44.7
2.Irina Kareva (RUS)
44.4
2.Audrey Lee (USA)
44.4
