The Dawson Diaries: Tour of Champions

My girls, like many others in America, spent a lot of time watching the gymnastics competitions during the Olympics. While in Charlotte for a Lego store trip, we saw an ad for a Tour of Champions. I bought tickets, and Friday night all four girls and I went.

We were so excited to see the girls come out and had high expectations for the performances. We noticed pretty quickly that Mckayla was missing. We were bummed, but we still had the others, right?

We watched the girls work that bar and it was nice, but it was Olympic"ish." There was a lot more emphasis put on the SHOW.

Pretty early on I realized that this wasn't going to fully meet my expectations. There was this odd little dance that involved almost zero tumbling....

BUT then here came the men to do their pommel horse type routines. Nice, but also very objectifying when they all took off their jackets in a very Magic Mike type moment. They did do a great routine on the bars, and the high bar. I was too mesmerized to take many pictures though. I was not happy with their rings routine, but mostly because the show producers had the young women (Gabby, Allie, Jordan, etc) posed around them for no purpose whatsoever, and I'm trying not to have my daughters think that women are props.

Then Jordan came out and did her floor routine (or a version of it) for us. I loved watching the ease at which she can perform.

Then Allie amazed us.

All four of them came out and performed on the beam. The lighting was so dark though it made it difficult to focus on any one girl. I also left out the pictures of the lady hanging in the white silks. She may have been part of the Olympics, but it wasn't grabbing me.

THEN THERE WAS GABBY. Thank goodness. She also performed her floor routine, to a bunch of cheering little girls. I wish there was more of her doing her THING, but it all seemed pretty short.

I left out many parts of this show because they also included rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline (which was awesome) and the silks lady, there was partner rhythmic gymnasts (which reminded me of Cirque) and a dance couple. Nastia Liuken was on the floor as well, but tended to do other things. I was hoping she would do her tumbling as well, but maybe she has retired from that sort of thing.

At the end we watched them pose these strong young women in the Olympic rings, and spin them around a few times. The young men were objectified in the same way, but at least they got to show their strength by pushing off of the rings and hanging.