TOKYO -- Nobody in the mixed zone was happier than John Geddert, who beamed like a proud father as Jordyn Wieber took questions from the media, her new World all-around gold medal hanging from her neck. "Lifelong dreams came true today -- hers and mine," he said. Here are a few other things he had to say:
"We lived this once before at American Cup, where she had a mistake and she fought for every tenth on the way back. That's just her personality. Beam and floor, besides the out of bounds she really did a very nice job. Vault wasn't quite as crisp as it could have been, and obviously bars was...we're going to fire the bar coach." -- on Wieber's mistake on bars and his overall assessment of her performance in all-around finals. (Note that Geddert himself is Wieber's bar coach)
"What you do with her is you stay away from her for about five minutes, because she's going to be steaming so much that anything you say to her she's not going to hear anyway. So you stay away and let her calm down, and then go back in and set the plan." -- on how to deal with Wieber when she makes a mistke in competition
"She listens. And she executes. It's not like it goes in one ear and out the other. She really, really listens. She trusts what I know, my opinion and she really tries to deliver that. And it's worked twice now." -- on Wieber making corrections
"Obviously, she's absolutely gorgeous. And coming off that team final floor routine, anything could have happened, but she pulled it to another level tonight when those first three tumbling passes were basically flawless. And then she ran out of gas on the last pass and that was basically the determining factor. She's a gorgeous gymnast across the board. She's going to be tough to beat." -- on Viktoria Komova
"I always like to set a rabbit out in front of her, and we still have rabbits out there. Komova's a good person to be chasing. Just because you beat her by less than a tenth doesn't mean you can't still chase her. We have some improving to do. Mustafina's out there, and there's a couple USA athletes coming on very strong. We have work to do. We've got to improve start values a little bit. Obviously her ability to compete is a plus, but if we don't get start values up, we could run into a little bit of trouble." -- on how things change when you're coaching a World champion
"We're talking like 0.1 here and there, with a bar combination that might give her 0.2, a dismount that actually gives her 0.2. Floor we've got to quit counting C dance elements. We've got to get a D dance element somewhere, on beam and floor. We don't have any. And that's three spots where if we cuold maybe just get 0.2, that's four tenths." -- on potential upgrades
On bars, Wieber is working a toe full to Shaposh half combination and they'll put the Weiler-Weiler half on high bar, Geddert said. Also, "we can twist the dismount. Her dismount was very clean, and it was simple math."
"I think we have to. Anytime you sit on something, sports has proven that somebody will catch you. You can't stand idle. We're going to go at it like you have to improve, even if it's like improving the skills we have, pirouetting on top, quite a range of motion on the dance elements, things like that. We can definitely be better. That will definitely be the drive. We're not going to sit back and go, oh, we're world champ, it's an automatic for next year too. It won't be that easy." -- on why they have to upgrade
"Oh yeah. With the internet today, I know all her routines by heart. I knew she was going to be tough. The question mark was obviously how well that ankle would hold up on the two power events, and she did a remarkable job, but I don't think it's back 100 percent yet. But with a little more training that we have under our belt, she's going to be a monster." -- on whether he knew how good Komova could be
"I wish she would stop digging a hole first, and digging her way out of it. That would be nice. I used to have black hair. But she's going to go out there and give you 100 percent every time out. It's not a pressure thing. She didn't succumb to pressure on bars, she just made a mistake. The USA machine finally had a flaw today. You can't ask for any more out of a kid or an athlete, that's for sure. Lifelong dreams came true today -- hers and mine." -- A final word
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