As I'm sure all of you know, watching gymnastics is my life. I sweat gymnastics. Tiny little men and women jump out of my skin when I'm exercising and do backflips and stuff. It's awesome.

Seriously, though, it doesn't matter if you watch gymnastics once every four years or every other hour, a gymnast was hosed this week, and considering the week she had and the manner in which she lost, it's an absolute joke to a wonderful Olympic games.

America's Alicia Sacramone deserved better after a terrible week. Earlier in the games, she made a crucial error that cost the American womens team the gold medal.

Sunday's NBC broadcast showed much worse.

Sacramone finished in fourth place despite landing both of her attempts in the vault (or something like that). Home country hero Fei Cheng landed her first and fell on her second. Her average score still — somehow — was higher than Sacramone, but the punch line came just a few moments later.

Another gymnast landed on her knees, and was given a much lower score than Cheng. It was worse than questionable, it was deplorable, as Sacramone ended up medal-less. It's bad enough the Chinese seem to be using girls just slightly older than infants in these games. This was much worse.

I don't know enough about gymnastics to write more, so forgive me, but I'm as fired up as I've ever been. And to think, my Newcastle United squad pulled off a big road draw at Manchester United. I should be thrilled. Instead, there are little men and women doing floor routines all over my hard wood floors.

Email: nick@wgr550.com