Alicia Sacramone is sad face of these Games
Every morning, as the bus bringing me into the Olympic Green complex travels past the tennis stadium where the sport's biggest stars are playing this week, I wonder if Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have any idea what it is like to be Alicia Sacramone.
Her life is not like their lives, that's for sure.
The image of Alicia Sacramone shaking her head in disbelief and fighting tears after her poor performance in the women's gymnastics team finals is the face of these Games so far. She blamed herself for the Americans' losing the gold medal to China, which was a little too harsh, while realizing she would "have to live with my mistakes."
She's an Ivy League student with a future beyond gymnastics, but this was her one-and-only Olympic opportunity after four years of buildup. She blew it, and she knew it, acknowledging in various interviews that "pressure" and "nerves" got to her.
Sunday's individual vault finals will offer Alicia Sacramone a chance to leave Beijing with some better feelings, but the silver medal from the team competition will taunt her indefinitely.
And this is it, for a 20-year-old gymnast.
There's no U.S. Open next week for Alicia Sacramone, as there is for Federer and Nadal. There's no NBA season coming up for her, as there is for Jazz players Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams and their U.S. basketball teammates. Those guys may have gold-medal ambitions and enhanced endorsement potential, but their careers do not revolve around the Olympics - in contrast to the thousands of other athletes whose pursuits are totally defined by what happens during these 16 days in Beijing.
"Olympic people usually have a large portion of their life invested in that dream," said Rich Gordin, a Utah State University sports psychologist who has worked extensively with top-tier athletes.
Some of them have more at stake than others, obviously. The proof is in the NBC-driven schedule of these Games, staging Michael Phelps' swimming events and the gymnastics meets in the mornings in Beijing, prime time in the States. Phelps is capitalizing, coming through spectacularly in his quest for a record eight gold medals.
Yet whether their performances result in Wheaties box-style adulation as Kerri Strug and the other American women's gymnasts received after winning the gold in 1996 or the commentary from those who believe Sacramone "choked" when she failed to mount the balance beam on her first try and fell again during her floor exercise routine, there's a recovery process for every athlete.
"Gold medal or no medal, you still have to go through it," Gordin once told me.
Experts say that in the wake of a major competition, athletes will experience any of these strong emotions: euphoria, anger or depression.
I would guess you can rule out euphoria in Alicia Sacramone's case.
While figure skater Sasha Cohen was praised for persevering after falling during the finals in Turin two years ago and finishing second, there was no rationalizing of Alicia Sacramone's performance in various reviews. Saying she cost her team the victory is an exaggeration, even coming from her, because the Chinese won by 2- points, the equivalent of two touchdowns. With a better effort from her, the score would have been closer, but that's all.
Just the same, she will always wonder what happened in that last event. When she came twisting out of a tumbling pass and fell, Alicia Sacramone remembered thinking, "I can't believe I'm on the floor right now."
She was supposed to be on the floor, just not sitting on the floor.
The effects of her falls will be long lasting, but not permanent. Alicia Sacramone presumably will resume her studies at Brown University and move on from Beijing. "She's the strongest person I know," said Shawn Johnson, her mature, 16-year-old U.S. teammate.
But that characteristic will be tested Sunday, and for who knows how long after the Games are over.
