NBCOlympics.com is covering the USA Women's Gymnastics selection camp in Houston, Texas, at Martha and Bela Karolyi's ranch. Friday and Saturday intersquad meet for the USA women's national team - the Olympic team will be announced on NBCOlympics.com Saturday at about 7:15pm ET (the announcement won't be broadcast like 4 years ago, with the whole controversy of Vanessa Atler not being selected for the 200 Sydney Olympics even though she finished in the top 6). Bridget Sloan looking good for the 6th spot, to join Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, and probably also Alicia Sacramone, Chellsie Memmel, and Samantha Peszek. Shayla Worley was looking good for the 6th spot because of her bars, but she broke her leg during beam warm-ups (check the News/Blogs section for articles on that). From "Women's selection camp: Day 1 Worley breaks leg; Sloan makes strong case for Beijing", NBCOlympics.com: [quote] 4:00pm: Memmel's score on beam: 15.9. Bieger had a 15.4. 3:55pm: Jana Bieger had one small step on her double front dismount. Rest of the routine was very solid, just a small wobble on her front pike. 3:50pm: Chellsie Memmel is competing on beam, after sitting out the last two rotations. Perfect front tuck half. Nailed Arabian. Wobbled on her illusion turn, but that was the only visible error. Stuck a very big double pike -- hard to believe she was hurting earlier. Liukin and Johnson immediately go over and congratulate her, the rest of the athletes follow. Sacramone's score: 16.2. 3:47pm: Alicia Sacramone didn't connect her front pike mount into back pike, as she did in warm-ups. She had a wobble on her front tuck, but her front pike into back tuck was solid. Stuck her double pike dismount. 3:43pm: Ivana Hong was a little tentative on beam, but scored a 15.3. Shawn Johnson saved her switch leap, layout, back pike series. She was a little off, but stayed on the beam. That's the only visible error in her routine, other than a small step on the dismount. 3:38pm: The official word is that Shayla Worley has an acute fracture of her right fibula (the smaller bone in the lower leg). Larson's score: 15.0. 3:32pm: Mattie Larson on beam. Alicia Sacramone is talking her through this routine. Front aerial to two feet. Switch ring to two feet. Standing Arabian. Low double tuck dismount. Sloan's score: 15.6. 3:27pm: Bridget Sloan on beam. Connect front aerial into side aerial -- much better than Trials. Didn't quite connect her sheep jump out of a back tuck, but had a very nice 'Liukin' flip. One hop on the double pike dismount. Big reaction from coach Marivn Sharp. Davis' score: 14.6. 3:24pm: Chelsea Davis on beam. Fall on front aerial, back handspring, layout series. Nice combination of wolf hop, switch leap, back pike. Peszek's score: 15.5. 3:20pm: Peszek on beam. Standing full, slid her foot, back pike, so it wasn't completely connected. Front pike with a step back. Big wobble on a full turn with her leg up, even Bela yelled 'stay there.' Stuck double pike dismount. Lothrop's score: 15.3. 3:17pm: Lothrop on beam. Cool series of aerial cartwheel (she switches legs mid-air, so it's almost a Barani step-out), back handspring, layout. Big double pike dismount. She and coach Kelli Hill appear very happy. Liukin's score: 16.2. 3:12pm: Liukin didn't even wobble on beam, complete with a nearly stuck 2 1/2 dismount. She had the 10 second warning call during her switch ring leap, so she had to rush to get to her dismount. But she made it off in timel. 3:07pm: On to the final event, beam. Johnson's score on bars: 15.65. She leads the all-around with a 47.4 (unofficially, by our math). Liukin is second, 46.45; Sloan third, 45.8 and tied with 45.3 are Davis, Peszek and Hong. 3:04pm: Shawn Johnson nailed her double-twisting double layout on bars. Hong: 15.3. 3:01pm: Ivana Hong on bars. Solid routine. 2:58pm: Jana Bieger fell on a Tkatchev on bars. She scores a 14.8. This season she had been consistent on bars and had hit four routines (two days of Nationals, two days of Trials) in a row. 2:57pm: Memmel is warming up on bars. 2:52pm: Great routine from Bridget Sloan, with just a small slide of her foot on her full-twisting double layout dismount. Much better than the Olympic Trials. She's having a great competition. Davis' score: 15.2. Sloan's score: 15.2. 2:49pm: Bridget Sloan has been pacing around near the chalk bin. She knows she needs to hit bars, especially after a tough Olympic Trials. Chelsea Davis is on bars. Her fan club is especially loud. Nice routine with great transitions form the low to the high bar. While most gymnasts have to work maintain momentum, Davis generates enough swing to make it look easy. Stuck full-twisting double tuck dismount. Peszek's score: 14.8 Memmel has her grips on and is swinging her arms around. 2:46pm: Lothrop hit bars. Peszek had a small step on her full-twisting double layout dismount. Lothrop's score: 14.7. 2:39pm: Liukin is on bars. A little off after her second Ono, but saves it. Like Trials, she caught her Pak salto (back flip between the bars) too close to the low bar and had to save it. Nice double front half dismount. Larson's score: 14.7. Liukin's score: 16.6. 2:36pm: Now the real meet begins -- we're on uneven bars. Mattie Larson is up first. Bridget Sloan has her back turned the entire time, mentally preparing. Great routine for Larson, but again, since we're behind the bars it's hard to see any angles. 2:33pm: Memmel has not officially scratched, but is taking things one event at a time, according to USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny. "When she landed, she felt something in the upper part of her back," he said. "She's being cautious." 2:32pm: Sacramone's first vault score: 15.95 (her second vault does not factor into the all-around standings). Sacramone, who is sitting out this rotation on bars, has been chatting with Memmel, seemingly encouraging her and comforting her. 2:26pm: Hong's score: 15.0. Memmel has put her warm-ups on and is standing in the corner of the gym with her dad and is rolling her head. Alicia Sacramone did a front handspring, front layout, 1 1/2 (Rudi) vault with a little step. Did her usual second vault of a Yurchenko double full, small hop. Johnson's score: 15.95. 2:24pm: Bieger's score: 14.8. Johnson competed her Yurchenko 2 1/2, but took a big step to the side. Hard to tell if she stepped over the line or not. 2:22pm: Memmel, her coaches and Kathy Kelly are talking. Memmel was supposed to compete first on vault. Jana Bieger did a Yurchenko 1 1/2, Ivana Hong had a slight step to the side on a Yurchenko double. 2:19pm: Peszek: 15.20, Davis: 14.95. 2:15pm: One step back on Sam Peszek's Yurchenko double full. Lothrop's score: 15.1. Chelsea Davis nearly stuck a Yurchenko 1 1/2. She has a lot of crowd support here -- she's from Austin, Texas. Memmel just warmed up a Yurchenko full vault. 2:13pm: Corrie Lothrop, who has been training the same vault as Shawn Johnson, opted for the safer double twist and did not add the extra half. Larson scored a 14.6. Memmel is doing back handsprings on the mats near beam. 2:11pm: Lots of cheers from the little girls in the audience for Nastia Liukin. She takes a small step to the side. 'Survivor' is playing on the sound system. 2:10pm: Mattie Larson did the same vault as Bridget, but had a big step to the side. Since we're sitting behind the runway, it's hard to get a good sense of what happens in the air. Bridget's score: 15.30. 2:08pm: We're now in rotation two. Bridget Sloan just hit a very big, very nice Yurchenko double full. Only a small hop on the landing. Martha Karolyi is very excited. 1:59pm: Johnson on floor. Out of bounds on her third tumbling pass. Ivana Hong competed on floor just prior to Johnson. Shawn's score: 15.80. 1:57pm: Bela's take on Chellsie: "She will be all right." 1:56pm: Bieger's score: 15.1. Memmel now has a heating pad on her back/neck. 1:53pm: Memmel is still deep in conversation with her coach and father. Jana Bieger competed on floor, went out of bounds on her first pass. Bela is patting her on the shoulder and there are some smiles. Still getting massaged. 1:51pm: Memmel is not finishing her floor routine and is getting a massage on her neck and shoulders. Sacramone's score: 15.3. 1:49pm: Chellsie Memmel hit her opening Arabian double pike, but had a big bounce backwards out of her double layout and has stopped her routine. Bela is rubbing her back as she stands near the corner. 1:47pm: Squad A floor scores are in. Davis: 15.15, Larson: 15.40, Liukin: 15.15, Lothrop: 15.10, Peszek: 15.30, Sloan: 15.30 1:45pm: Alicia Sacramone is on floor. Little off balance after her first pass, out of bounds on her second. Liukin and Peszek are in the corner and they're cheering for Sacramone before her final pass, but she still lands low. Her coach, Mihai Brestyan, is still talking to her. 1:39pm: Big smile from Sam Peszek after a great triple turn on floor. Maybe it's her upbeat music, but all of a sudden the gym has gotten a lot louder. Lots of cheers and clapping. 1:36pm: The most vocal person in the gym is senior women's program director Kathy Kelly, who is cheering through every moment of Corrie Lothrop's floor routine. Lothrop, who was adopted from China as a toddler, landed her final tumbling pass with her feet together and stuck cold. 1:32pm: Nastia Liukin had a low landing on her third pass, but landed her double front, which has given her trouble in the past, perfectly. Shawn Johnson is doing a series of tuck jumps down a tumbling strip, on which Andrew Memmel is sitting. He bounces up and down and as Johnson realizes this, she giggles and apologizes. 1:30pm: Worley's leg has been bothering her and while warming up on beam she said she heard something pop. They're taking her to a hospital for x-rays. Meanwhile, Mattie Larson competed on floor and had solid landings on all of her passes. Haven't seen any scores yet. 1:26pm: Shayla Worley just left the gym on crutches and her right leg is in a black protective boot. She was followed by her coach and doctor, as well as USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny. She's visibly upset and in tears. Worley was second in the all-around at last year's nationals and was on the gold medal winning world championships team. She competed on the uneven bars during the team final at last year's worlds. When healthy, her bars are an asset to the U.S. team. 1:24pm: Bridget Sloan appears to be back to her consistent, clean self. Every landing was near perfect, including her opening combination pass -- back 1 1/2 through to triple full. 1:22pm: Chelsea Davis just hit a clean floor routine. Nice, controlled landings. Kim Zmeskal-Burdette, Davis' coach and the 1991 world all-around champion, gave her a big hug afterwards. 1:20pm: Shayla Worley is not competing. She has a problem with her "right lower leg." She did warm up on beam. (Worley missed Nationals and only competed three events at the Olympic Trials this year due to a back injury.) Martha Karolyi had said last month that Worley needed to show readiness at this camp. 1:14pm: The gymnasts are divided among two squads. Squad A is Chelsea Davis, Bridget Sloan, , Mattie Larson, Nastia Liukin, Corrie Lothrop and Sam Peszek. Squad B is Alicia Sacramone, Chellsie Memmel, Jana Bieger, Ivana Hong, Shawn Johnson and Shayla Worley (who did not march out with the group). The first event is floor, with Squad A going first. 1:10pm: As the song 'Under Pressure' plays on the gym's radio system, friendly hugs are exchanged among the coaches. 1:09pm: The gymnasts are clearing the floor and putting their warm-ups on. We're getting close to competition. Today, most of the athletes will compete on all four events. 1:08pm: Martha is grabbing "a sip of coffee before we go." 1:04pm: The ranch version of bouncers are guarding the doors -- you have to be 'on the list' to gain admission. 12:58pm: While Johnson and Liukin have earned their spots, this is still all business. The intrasquad is said to be informal, but the athletes are in full competition attire (lots of red!) and scores and start values will be announced. But really, the scores aren't what's important. This is all about one event: the uneven bars. 12:50pm: The athletes travel home from this camp on Sunday, come back to the ranch on Thursday. They fly to San Jose on July 29th for Olympic team processing in San Jose, Calif., and then depart to China on the 31st. 12:30pm: The athletes are still warming up. Each athlete was given an allotted number of tickets for friends and families. There are about 13 sitting on the upstairs balcony right now. Bela is on hand and has invited some of his friends to observe -- FOB's, as they're being called here. 10:20am: The directions to the ranch include, among others, 'take the second left after the railroad tracks.' The car thermometer read 87 degrees and we're on our way to a high of 93. There's country music blaring from somewhere, and a couple of the athletes' parents are milling about in front of the gym, trying to pass the time by playing basketball and watching television while athletes warm up. There are also 250 of Bela's summer campers here. [/quote] more at: http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/news/newsid=152042.html

Chellsie Memmel's whiplash from her floor tumbling pass: [QUOTE] But on her second tumbling pass on floor, the first event of the day, Memmel got off-balance on her landing and took a big bounce backward. The force of it snapped her head back, and she immediately stopped and put her hands on her thighs. ``She just landed and whip-lashed her neck a little bit,'' Andy Memmel said. ``I thought, 'Oh my goodness, we've come this far for something to happen. I'm just glad it's not something terrible.'' Memmel stayed bent over for several minutes, and Bela Karolyi wandered over to rub her back at one point. When she finally stood up, she rolled her neck and someone massaged her neck, shoulders and upper back. After getting a drink of water, she sat down with a heating pad resting on her neck and upper back. Memmel actually warmed up her new, upgraded vault, but she skipped that event. She did a couple of swings on the uneven bars, but took a pass on that, too. When the girls lined up before the last event, the balance beam, Memmel was there. ``If anybody knows, I know how strong she is,'' said Sacramone, who, at 20 like Memmel, is the oldest member of the team. ``She showed how strong a competitor she is.'' Memmel breezed through her routine, showing no signs of the earlier injury. She did somersaults and handsprings on the 4-inch wide beam like she was in a big ol' parking lot, and she landed her dismount with not even the hint of a wiggle or step. Her only ``flaw'' was a slight wobble on a dance move. Johnson and Liukin rushed over to hug her, and she was quickly swarmed by the rest of the gymnasts. Her score of 15.9 was the second-highest of the day, behind only the 16.2s that Johnson, Liukin and Sacramone got. ``Like her and Alicia were talking, 'We can do this stuff anytime we want to,''' Andy Memmel said. ``And that's what she did.'' [/QUOTE] http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/news/newsid=152520.html#whiplash+cant+stop+memmel Chellsie got 3rd place at Nationals, and already proved she can compete through pain (though controversial) during the 2006 World Championships at Aarhus on bars, when she really messed up her shoulder, so it shouldn't be such a big deal to Martha and the selection committee that she decided to skip those events at the camp. [QUOTE] A case of whiplash forced Memmel to miss three events Friday, the first of a two-day Olympic selection camp. But she reminded everyone what a tough gymnast she is, returning for the balance beam and doing a near-perfect routine that had national team coordinator Martha Karolyi - and everyone else in the gym - clapping. ``It was a shock and, whenever it's a shock, you have to stop,'' said Andy Memmel, Chellsie's coach and father. ``If she would have done something stupid today, then we couldn't have gone on. ... We can afford bumps. We can't afford holes.'' [/QUOTE] Shayla Worley: From Sam Peszek: [QUOTE] "It made me a little flustered. [Shayla's] been sad and kind of distant. She said her leg had been hurting but she said to me, 'Either I suck it up or I don't.' [/QUOTE] [QUOTE] 3:38pm: The official word is that Shayla Worley has an acute fracture of her right fibula (the smaller bone in the lower leg) [/QUOTE] http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/news/newsid=152042.html#womens+selection+camp+day Shayla was told she had to show readiness at the camp. Bad decisions here?

Bridget Sloan has been selected for that 6th spot on the U.S. women's gymnastics team which everyone has been guessing who it is going to be. Too bad for Jana Bieger who was one of the ones going for that 6th spot - she was very consistent and hitting her routines at the gymnastics Olympic Trials, but was getting very low scores; some problems on form/style though. Bridget Sloan will probably be one of the ones chosen to do the bars, besides Chellsie Memmel and of course Nastia Liukin with her really high 7+ A score value. So the U.S. women's gymnastics Olympic Team competing at the Beijing Games are, confirmed: Shawn Johnson Nastia Liukin Alicia Sacramone Chellsie Memmel Samantha Peszek Bridget Sloan The alternates named to the team: Corrie Lothrop, Ivana Hong and Jana Bieger More on the Olympic selection camp at Karolyi's ranch on day 2: [quote] [Memmel] won the 2005 world all-around championship but was injured at the 2006 worlds, underwent surgery in November 2006 and was written off by some observers for 2008 because of the measured pace of her rehabilitation. But she fired off four outstanding performances at national championships and Olympic trials to re-emerge as a critical element for the U.S. team. After another scare Friday, when she suffered whiplash while landing a floor exercise pass and competed only on balance beam, she bounced back with a solid bars routine Saturday during the team’s final selection camp performance to clinch her spot on the squad. Sloan also had a comeback of note. She did not compete on vault at Olympic trials and struggled across the board but bounced back Friday with four scores in the 15-point range. The day got off to a shaky start on floor, with three of the four competitors bouncing out of bounds. Jana Bieger, the only one of the bubble athletes on the apparatus, scored 15.0, improving her scores over both days at Olympic trials. Sloan vaulted for a second consecutive day, and Memmel completed the Yurchenko double full vault that she had planned Friday but had to abandon when she suffered whiplash on floor. Her score of 14.65 was at the midpoint of the scores she received on a Yurchenko 1

Chellsie Memmel and her dad/coach had the right idea with her training schedule, and sticking with it even though Martha Karolyi was showing that she was getting impatient. Perhaps the training camps and intersquad meets timing/intensity/number of times is also too much - so many injuries at these camps and also pressure to perform when it would be a better decision to water down sometimes and rest, rather than compete and aggravate injury or contribute to stress fractures due to over-use...looks like Paul Hamm is getting the benefit of resting his injury as needed, and getting ready to compete at the peak at the Olympics, the time you want to peak.