Golden Redemption

Any internal turmoil the American women's gymnastics team might be dealing with following Sunday's Olympic qualifications certainly wasn't evident in today's team final. Today they were golden through and through, hitting twelve for twelve routines with scarcely a bobble and finishing up over five points ahead of second place Russia - a decisive victory in a sport of tenths. It was a wonderful competition and nice to see most teams hitting most of their routines; you really don't want to see victories based primarily on someone else's mistakes. Clearly the Americans had the superior team and their victory was both well-earned and well-deserved.

Members of team Canada, Elsabeth Black (L-R), Dominique Pegg, Kristina Vaculik, Brittany Rogers and Victoria Moors stand together during the women's gymnastics team final in the North Greenwich Arena at the London 2012 Olympic Games July 31, 2012. Photograph by: Mark Blinch, Reuters

The ever classy Romanians took the bronze, while China, who don't have the strongest team this time around came fourth. But the big news for me? Guess which team came in fifth (up from eighth in qualifications, which itself was an accomplishment to be proud of)? That's right: Canada!!! We've never even made the finals in the current eight team format, and the official goal was a top ten finish; cracking the top eight not much more than a nice hope. Achieving that on Sunday was already a huge victory. Coming fifth today was almost like a gold medal for us. As their idol Justin Bieber himself tweeted to the team, "Stand Up Canada"!