This GIF guide on Jordyn Wieber's performance in the all-around is pretty amazing. There's an awesome GIF toward the bottom on Aly Raisman's floor work. She looks like she got bit by a radioactive spider.
Here's Elspeth Reeve on perils and evolution of the Amanar:
On vault, Wieber performs the difficult Amanar vault -- that's one-and-a-half flips plus two-and-a-half twists. A couple years ago, hardly any women attempted it in competition, because it's so dangerous. If you don't get your twists around fast enough, you're still twisting as you hit the mat -- risking a torn ACL. At the 2011 world championships, Wieber's only Amanar-armed foe in the all-around was her own teammate, Aly Raisman. But since then, everyone else has only gotten better. Everyone on the American team can do an Amanar now. So can a couple Russians. So Wieber lost her advantage there. She scored a 15.833, Douglas scored a 15.9, and Raisman scored a 15.8, shown at left.
The sheer power involved in gymnastics is just mind-boggling.
Related, here's a cool piece on two Olympic gymnasts who basically belong in a retirement home. That means they're my age, and somehow still doing the damn thing.
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