Super 7

This morning as I got ready to head out, I turned on the Today show for a quick weather check. Ann was in the courtyard interviewing the USA Women’s Gymastics Team—fresh off their World Championship gold medal performance last month in Germany. I quickly watched the segment, and headed out to Soho, where I had to pick some stuff up at the adidas store.

When I walked in, I wasn’t surprised to see the store completely packed—it is Soho afterall. But then I started to feel like I was in Munchkinland. All of the girls shopping aside me were well under 5’2”, and on top of that, they had these absurdly muscular arms, broad shoulders, and tiny waists, hands, feet, etc. One of the girls was asking for size 4 ½ shoes, and some of them were shopping in the kids departments, even though most of them looked at least 16.

Who were these miniature people? Well, it took a few minutes, but then I pieced together that it was these were the very same girls I’d just seen on the Today show—the “Super 7”. And apparently, that I was actually in the midst of a USA Gymnastics shopping spree—turns out, the team is sponsored by adidas, so they must have had some kind of mega discount (they were buying out the store). They also had a chauffeured van awaiting them outside to take them to their next destination—Chinatown. Also with them? Marta Karolyi, wife of famed coach Bella (and a coach herself). Not surprisingly, she was very loud.

I noticed that the individual gold medallist, Shawn Johnson, had some sort of boot on—so I guess she's injured. Did she pull a miraculous Keri Stugg-like feat and compete on a stress fracture at the world champs?

I had this little daydream that they’d all break out into a tumbling routine in the middle store, you know, just because, but they all remained on their (very tiny) feet.