Did the Curse of Philadelphia Doom the USA Women's Gymnastics Team?

Did the curse of Philadelphia doom the USA Gymnastics team? It sounds silly, but it seems that any team that has a major Philly connection is doomed to failure.

The USA Gymnastics team lost the gold medal to the Chinese team today. It's easy to point to one of the gymnasts who stumbled in the last two exercises and perhaps cost the USA the gold. In reality, however, it was much simpler. The Chinese were better, by far.

Alicia Sacramone will have lots of fingers pointed in her direction, but that's unfair. She never should have been put in the position that she was. Injuries to teammates Chellsie Memmel and Samantha Peszek are probably what cost the USA the gold medal.

When you enter the team final with only four of your six team members healthy, you're pretty much doomed to failure. Even team leaders Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin failed to perform up to their usual high standards. More than in any other sport, gymnastics is a sport where one mistake by one team member seems to almost always open the door to others.

I would not be surprised to hear that the ratings for the women's gymnastics finals were highest in Philadelphia than anywhere in the country. We really adopted the USA women's gymnasts as our own.

Could it be that the simple act of selecting Philadelphia to host the USA Gymnastics Trials cursed both the women's and men's teams? The men lost their number one gymnast and his brother yet triumphantly earned a bronze medal. The women earned a silver but everyone will always wonder - what if?

_{Photo of Alicia Sacramone in tears after her beam performance in Beijing. Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images}