From rags to riches …<\/a><\/p>\nEven Paul Hamm’s coach figured it was over: “I thought he had no odds.”
\nA fall on his vault landing sent Hamm stumbling into the judges’ table and all the way down to 12th place in the all-around gymnastics final. “I thought, ‘That’s it. I’m done,”‘ he said.
\nFar from it. In one of the most amazing comebacks in Olympic history, Hamm performed the two most spectacular routines of his career Wednesday to win the gold medal by the closest margin ever in the event.<\/p>\n
He’d been first in the event, and fell — literally – back to last. While he was assisted to some degree by lots of niggling little errors by his competitors after his own horrible mistake, he still needed a 9.825 on the high bar. He did a spectacular 9.837.<\/p>\n
I’m not a big follower of sports. But, damn,<\/em> that was fine stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From rags to riches … Even Paul Hamm’s coach figured it was over: “I thought he had no odds.” A fall on his vault landing sent Hamm stumbling into the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28219,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/10\/drill-baby-drill-redux.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":0},"title":"Drill, Baby, Drill (Redux)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 10-Jun-12 3:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"No great surprise, of course, given that:\"Leading the Romney campaign\u2019s energy strategy is Harold Hamm, who made almost all of his $12 billion fortune from oil and gas drilling in North Dakota.\"When the only tool you have is a (very profitable) oil rig, every problem looks like a well. Embedded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F06%2FRomney-drilling-rig-speech-300x205.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":137893,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/21\/silencing-the-inconvenient-press.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":1},"title":"Silencing the Inconvenient Press","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Feb-19 6:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Justice Clarence Thomas' musings -- supported by Neil Gorsuch -- that there's nothing in the Constitution about public figures having a much higher hurdle to prove libel, and therefore New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) should be reexamined, is not just about celebrities being more able to sue lascivious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/17\/the-not-self-made-man.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":2},"title":"The Not-Self-Made Man","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Jan-19 5:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Apparently there's a substantial swathe of Americans -- across the political spectrum -- that believe that Donald Trump is a pulled-up-by-his-own-bootstraps tycoon, that he did it all, and did it himself, starting from modest circumstances and becoming a gazillionaire by his own incredible business acumen.Except none of that's actually true.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9583,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/31\/no_not_nivea_ne.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":3},"title":"No, not Nivea — Nevaeh!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 31-May-06 12:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The name Nevaeh has become the 70th most popular name for baby girls in the US, ahead of Sara, Vanessa and Amanda. The spectacular rise of Nevaeh (commonly pronounced nah-VAY-uh)...","rel":"","context":"In "Parenting"","block_context":{"text":"Parenting","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/parenting"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45611,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/01\/some-spectacular-photos-for-the-natgeo-2014-contest.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":4},"title":"Some spectacular photos for the NatGeo 2014 contest","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 1-Oct-14 12:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Wow. And these are just from entries so far. Gorgeous stuff. Originally shared by +In Focus: 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest - 32 photos - http:\/\/goo.gl\/csfpyc - National Geographic Magazine has opened its annual photo contest, with the deadline for submissions coming up on October 31, 2014. The Grand Prize\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/n01_00282201.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/n01_00282201.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/n01_00282201.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12353,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/22\/dazzling.html","url_meta":{"origin":6552,"position":5},"title":"Dazzling","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 22-May-08 8:50am","format":false,"excerpt":"I was worried my folks would miss the irises this year, but they are in full, spectacular bloom in front. Yay!...","rel":"","context":"In "Home Improvement"","block_context":{"text":"Home Improvement","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/home-improvement"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3209\/2513233091_785821e8de.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}