The U.S. women’s gymnastics team made it into the finals yesterday, in 2nd place after Romania. Mohini Bhardwaj also qualified for the individual finals in the floor exercise. That’s the event that resembles acrobatic street teams in New York City, but without the black people 🙁 And it’s got some dated, frou-frou, high school cheerleading moves interleaved with all the tumbling, as breaks for muscle recovery.

Now, most of these teen gymnasts look incredibly stressed with the weight of national prestige on their shoulders. You can see the relief on their faces when they step off the mat. In contrast, if you watched Bhardwaj on Monday, her features settled into a frightening, wide-eyed, murderous look the instant before she launched onto the runway; later she said she needed to dial back on her aggression to land her vaults. Sistah is so hardcore. Her style seems higher on power than grace, the opposite of the skinny, lanky Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina.

Strangely enough, both vault specialists, Bhardwaj and Annia Hatch, bobbled their landings and had the team low scores for the event they own. Bhardwaj didn’t qualify for individual finals in either of her strongest events, vault and uneven bars, but did qualify in the floor exercise with the U.S. team’s high score. In 7th place overall, she would also have qualified for the all-around finals if not for the two-per-country cap (two of her U.S. teammates were #1 and #4). And she broke some new ground in gymnastics:

Bhardwaj also became the first gymnast to successfully execute a Pak full on the uneven bars in an Olympic Games or World Championships and should have that move named after her in the international code of points.

The overall team had a disappointing day, which they blamed on nerves; none of the gymnasts have been to the Olympics before, two gymnasts stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise, and one did poorly in every event. Their task is to pull themselves together on the international stage.

Watch Bhardwaj in the team finals Tue Aug. 17, 8pm-midnight on NBC, and in the floor event Mon Aug. 23, 8pm-midnight. Bhardwaj will definitely compete in vault for the team. The remaining lineup depends on coaches’ revised judgments.

The men’s gymnastics team won an unexpected silver medal Monday, their first since 1984, behind Japan and ahead of Romania and Russia. Raj Bhavsar remained an alternate and did not compete.