Jonathan Horton Is A Star On The Bar

Jonathan Horton, the star of the 2008 U.S. men's gymnastics team, went big for his last routine in Beijing and it paid off with an individual silver medal on the high bar. At 5'1", Horton disproves the claim that everything's bigger in Texas, but making up for it with great skill, big personality, and effusive language, he showed that American spunk could triumph even while the Chinese men were dominating the sport.

Going into the event Horton knew that his usual high bar routine would not score high enough for a medal, so in the three days preceding the competition, he planned on how to add the extra difficulty that would give him the added points that he felt he needed to make it to the medals stand. Amazingly, when he did his more difficult routine he did it superbly and actually received higher scores from every judge than the gold medalist did. Unfortunately, the difficulty of the gold medalist's routine was still .3 higher and that was enough to give him an overall .025 edge over Horton.

Earlier, in the all-around competition, Horton placed 9th, but was only 4/10 of a point from the silver medal.

The gold medal on the high bar went to Chinese gymnast Zou Kai (left), who had previously also won the gold for the floor exercise. Zou is a very fresh-faced 20 year old. He's cute but I don't think I find him attractive enough to say I really want his wonton.

The stud of the event was of course Jonathan Horton. The Olympics coverage has made him a popular figure with the television viewers, who have admired his big muscles and his little baby maker bump. He looked pretty good in both the white and the red team shirts, although I really like the blue one he wore for the high bar. On the other hand, it does kind of make him look a little less like a junior Super Friend and more like someone who is just ready to crawl into their race car shaped bed.

The third man on note is bronze medalist Fabian Hambuechen of Germany. I wouldn't have minded if he had won the gold, but that would be just so the Aryan in me could hear and sing along with "Das Lied der Deutschen". The thing I have no explanation for is why Fabian Hambüchen kept embracing and touching Jonathan. Fabian apparently wanted to get close but Jonathan's attitude seemed to be more "Can't we just be friends?"

*** I want to add a statement here that I don't understand why people on the internet are so critical of Tim Daggett. Sometimes he has to be the messenger of news that viewers don't want to hear, but he's just giving an honest assessment. He's a sweetheart and I like him.

Inexplicable reference to being gay and shirtless inserted here.

Jonathan Horton enjoying the afterglow (of winning the medal, not from being with Fabian)

Jonathan ritualistically praying to the chalk bucket

Jonathan ready to be disappointed again from finding a "You must be this tall to use this apparatus" sign

Olympian Raj Bhavsar

The news media presents Michael Phelps' gold medals as the highlight of the Beijing Olympics, but for me the highlight is the triumph of Raj Bhavsar and the U.S. men's gymnastics team in earning the bronze medal in the team competition. My heart sings, "O joy! O glorious rapture!"

I had admired Raj for his ability going back to the beginning of the decade and was disappointed when I found out he wasn't going to be on the 2004 Athens Olympic team. For whatever reason, I hadn't seen or paid attention to whatever happened prior to the start of the games and was just surprised when I watched the competition and saw Raj, who I at least knew was one of our star gymnasts, not on the arena floor with our American team. Then I found out the circumstances of how he had deserved to be on the team but had been passed over so that someone else could be included. This really bothered my sense of right and wrong. My hope was that if Raj could, that he would come back in 2008 and get a second chance.

I watched the nationals and the trials this year and felt good that Raj would comfortably be put in the middle of our six member team, no problem. When I heard that Raj had been cheated a second time and denied inclusion, I felt sick to my stomach. For someone to come back after four years and at his age do better than almost all of the other entrants and then be robbed again, I felt terrible for the injustice that was being done in my country's name. It is my belief and I have no doubt in my mind, that the basis for his exclusion was blatant discrimination. That conclusion is not based on emotion; it is based on deductive reasoning. There is no other rational explanation, although pretexts have been referred to such as some mysterious, complex formula that determined third in trials wasn't really third.

I've never met the man, although I did once get his autograph at an exhibition in Indianapolis, and I don't know any more about him that what is generally known by the public. What I do know about him from what I have seen, is that this is a man that embodies all that I have been told that the Olympics is all about. He's a fighter, he's a champion, he's a role model, and happily he's all-American.

So I celebrate the victory of our American team and in particular the ability of one of its members to overcome adversity and to win not only for himself but for everyone that has ever earned something by great endeavor and then had it stolen away. Huzzah!

Photo of U.S. men's gymnastics team

I had though about titling this post "Little Raj, Happy at Last", as a too cute reuse of the title of the Gloria Vanderbilt bio-pic, but I realized that with Raj's amazing attitude he was and would be happy no matter what, and the most important thing is to acknowledge that Raj has taken the rightful title that no one else can take from him again.

Raj Gets It In The End

Olympian Raj Bhavsar

Raj Bhavsar, having been screwed out of an earned spot on the U.S. Olympic team twice by his fellow countrymen, finally could no longer be denied. When Paul Hamm could no longer pretend that he would be physically ready to compete in Beijing, he withdrew from the U.S. gymnastics team and allowed Raj, an alternate, to become part of the official team.

It is generally acceded by everyone except the USA Gymnastics organization that Raj Bhavsar has the heart of a champion. He is a real example of what it means to be a great American (and Texan). He has great spirit, integrity, personality, and intelligence and is a personification of what the games are all about. Besides these things I also like that he looks good shirtless and with his height he would be a terrific travel-size boyfriend, but I digress.

Jonathan Horton

In 2004 and 2008, the selection committee for the Olympic team allowed their base prejudices against an Indo-American to prevent them from selecting Raj Bhavsar to compete for America at the Olympics. Fortunately, after Paul Hamm withdrew they allowed an objective computer process to pick Raj over the other two alternates, Alexander Artemev and David Durante. Presumably the computer program had been altered this time to allow a Desi to be selected as output.

It's not going to be easy for Raj joining the team at this time, as he hasn't been given the chance to prepare mentally the way the other team members have been. It also won't help from a spirit perspective being on a team that has lesser gymnasts that were selected ahead of him. If anyone can overcome these kind of obstacles it would be Raj Bhavsar, so I hope for the best for him.

Justin Spring

The justification for using a selection committee is so that somehow the "best" team can be put together for the sake of the U.S. to increase its medal tally. If in their analysis they decide that an Indo-American gymnast would not receive good scores from international judges, then for the good of the U.S. such an athlete would have to be denied inclusion. It can be seen that with the unlimited power to do these kind of things, the committee can just as easily include its own favoritism and discriminatory preferences.

Well, we don't have a Soviet-style sports system where it is important to win at all costs for the good of the state, so these philosophies are really not acceptable in this country. It's supposed to be about the athletes and celebrating what each of them can bring themselves to accomplish. The selection should be in their hands according to how they perform and not be overruled by anyone else's whim.

Of course the most patently stupid thing about all of this is the idea that the committee could predict with any certainty how the gymnasts would perform at the Olympics on each apparatus. Everyone knows that the best gymnasts can fall to pieces and the ones in the middle of the pack can have the performance of their life. So to declare that any given set of gymnasts will maximize the team score on some future date is absurd.

Joe Hagerty

Things could be improved for 2012 if the Olympic team trials were made to actually mean something. The team largely should be put together by the achievements at the trials with a few spots left over to a committee to fill in any gaps. The top three or four gymnasts could be automatically selected using a mathematical formula that is based on the all-around and event scores and is a formula known to everyone from the start. No more secret methods in backrooms that are contrived to deliver whatever results the committee wants them to. No more pretending that anyone can predict what a gymnast's score will be on a given apparatus on a specific date in the future. The only thing that is known for certain is the results from the national championship and the trials and that's what it should be based on. Anything else is no better than using tea leaves, or in honor of Beijing, the I-Ching.

Kevin Tan

BTW, you can't compare putting together an Olympic team with putting together a major league sports team. With the latter, a good player can just go to another team if his skills aren't needed in one place or another. With the U.S Olympic team it is the only game in town. There's no second choice teams to go to. There's no reason to destroy callously someone's dream just to add another tally mark to a meaningless national medal total.

Sasha Artemev

Update (August 8): Morgan Hamm also withdrew because of a previous injury. His replacement is the erratic Sasha Artemev. It's not clear yet whether Artemev is a better choice than David Durante. The one thing that Sasha had going for him that was clear is that he is ethnically European and that is something that would give him a big advantage in being selected by the USA Gymnastics organization, disturbingly.

USA Male Gymnasts Work It

In the movie Lust In The Dust, Divine's character said "It's always the little one got something to prove." In the men's artistic gymnastics competition at the 2008 U.S. Visa Championships in Houston, a lot of little ones had something to prove in trying to position themselves for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. The six individual events had six different winners, but the coveted all-around title went to David Sender (at right). Paul Hamm, the gold medalist from the 2004 Olympics, had been leading after the first day of competition but he was forced to withdraw because of a hand injury.

David Sender has always reminded me of Jason Biggs in American Pie. I expect to see him signal that he is ready to start a routine by holding one hand in the air and using the other hand to hold a pie plate in front of his personal John Thomas flair. He's a serious competitor though to be a top gymnast and should be on our team. He said “I was thrilled to win the all-around, but more importantly I proved to the selection committee that I can do two nights of steady gymnastics." Two steady nights of swinging your legs over your head and stretching your perineal muscles? I say, you're selected.

After Sender, the order of the next six gymnasts for the all-around (but not necessarily in the order of wanting to see them shirtless) was Jonathan Horton, Joe Hagerty, David Durante, Raj Bhavsar, Alexander Artemev, and Guillermo Alvarez.

I'm glad to see that Raj Bhavsar is still hanging in there (no pun intended). He was totally screwed when he was given only an alternate position on the 2004 Olympic team so that undeserving Blaine Wilson could be put on the team to get one more chance at winning a medal. The U.S. team got a silver medal that year, but the one put around Wilson's neck rightfully should have been Bhavsar's. I really hope the wrong that was done to Raj will be rectified this year and that he will be representing our country in Beijing.

Speaking of how the judges favor some gymnasts no matter how they perform, there is an interesting article on the International Gymnast website (link) that discusses how the U.S. judges overscore their favorites. It's this kind of thing that allowed Blaine Wilson to win so many U.S. championships when he really wasn't very good. The international judges weren't so lenient and that's why he didn't do as well outside this country. Thank goodness this year he has finally retired. Our American judges would have kept giving him a good score even if he had to use a walker to do the floor exercise.

Here are the top finishers in the individual events:

• Vault: David Sender
• Floor exercise: Morgan Hamm
• Pommel horse: Yewki Tomita
• Still rings: Kevin Tan
• Parallel bars: Justin Spring
• Horizontal bar: Joseph Hagerty

It has occurred to me that being able to do some of these events could have practical, real-world benefits. A pommel horse routine could be a highly effective, albeit unorthodox method of giving someone a deep-tissue massage. A vault would be handy for getting over the beverage cart in the aisle of an airplane. The floor exercise is exercise, which is always good, and putting one foot on the floor while extending the other heavenward is the same position as in the internationally recognized signal of "I'll be ready for my money shot in five minutes."

On the other hand, the parallel bars are only useful in allowing Native-type people to carry you to their sacrifice without them having to bind you to the poles. And the still rings is something that is probably already banned under one of the Geneva Conventions concerning torture.

I have to mention that Guillermo Alvarez (at right) is still one of my favorites. He's good-looking, mild-mannered and intellectual. Plus he has the strength to balance me in any position. Perfect.

Gay men take note: the Mens final of the Visa Championships will be shown on NBC on June 8th. The U.S. Olympic gymnastic team trials will be held in Philadelphia later in June.

Pervious comments on gymnastics and television coverage of the gymnastics finals.