2007 World Gymnastics Championships (I know -- it's what you've been waiting for)

Shawn Johnson is my hero.


Yes, she's a 15-year-old girl and my housemates and I gather in our living room to watch her. She frolics in a leotard and we're captivated. And no, we are not ill individuals.

The perfect storyline follows her: the young underdog who bursts out of the junior ranks and upsets "aging" former champion Nastia Liukin (a senior in high school) for the national all-around title. Then, in the pivotal year before the Olympics, she wins the World Championship title with a clutch performance on floor, an event which she later wins. Nastia finishes a distant fifth.

Let the hype begin.

But this gymnast is legit.

She lands dead-on the balance beam and steps forward without a flinch. She propels herself into the air with outstanding height for a girl under five feet tall. Then she returns to the ground and grins. She's from Iowa, and she's young, and it's clear when NBC interviews her that she's thrilled to be alive and hasn't yet resorted to the cliches of, "Well, I just wanted to go out there and do the best that I could."

She's like Kim Zmeskal, U.S.A.'s first female world all-around champion in 1991. A spritely girl with big skills and a certain innocence about her. She's not jaded or obnoxious (or, at least, hasn't shown herself to be so yet).

Then, of course, Kim fell off of beam in Barcelona, stepped out of bounds on floor, and finished 10th in the all-around. Let's hope for better tidings for Shawn.

The women's team won the team title as well, which is nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps they can repeat the glory of the 1996 Olympics team -- videos that my housemates and I, again, watch religiously.

The men took fourth as a team, a respectable leap from a dismal finish last year. Men's gymnastics still fails to receive the respect or attention that its difficulty and strength should. If you doubt me, search "men's high bar releases" on YouTube. Or gymnastics falls for both genders -- now that's a good time.

Clearly I'm heavily biased. But clearly gymnastics is awesome. Not only that, but the United States holds its own against the former communist powerhouses and one current one: Russia, Romania, and China.

There's a new scoring system that was implemented after the 2004 Olympics, where scores are no longer out of a 10.0. Instead, it's "open" scoring. So people are getting 15's and 16's, and to be honest, I find it inexplicable. But that won't stop me from appreciating the skills, the artistry, the stories, the stumbles, and the outcome.


And perhaps you will as well.

*The all-around is the summation of the scores on the four female events: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise.