Women’s Gymnastics Upset: Romania Snatches Gold From Team USA
Team USA nearly had the gold in the Women's Gymnastics floor exercises but in the end it was Romania's Sandra Izbasa who walked away with it.
Shawn Johnson, performing Sunday in the women's floor final, finished second behind Izbasa. Fellow American Nastia Liukin won the bronze.
For Romania it was a moment of grand celebration. The Romanian team once dominated women's gymnastics and demonstrated that they still have some fight left in them.
After Johnson went in the unenviable first spot Sunday night and saw her 15.50 stand up through six other finalists, including Liukin, only Izbasa remained. But the Romanian wowed the judges with her soaring somersaults and solid landings, earning a 15.65.
That left Johnson, the 2007 world champion, with three silver medals in Beijing, and gave Liukin, who took bronze, one of each. Not a bad haul, with more event finals to come.
The USA was still leading with the medal counts - 61 total, but it was China that had run away with the gold count by Sunday morning US time. China had 35 gold medals compared to the USA with 19 and they only had 4 fewer overall medals than the US.
It was Great Britain with the third largest gold medal count at 11 and 25 total medals.
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Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com International
