These gymnasts, I don't understand what they're doing. (Laughter.) I cannot even walk on a balance beam.

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But it amazes him that those young women can do what they do on the balance beam and the parallel bars and the vault.

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The 18-year-old Raisman, who also won a bronze medal on the balance beam, is the elder statesman on a team whose average age is just 16.

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Dong has been disqualified from all the events she participated in, which also included the women's individual uneven bars, the women's individual all-around and the women's individual balance beam.

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It includes slides, a balance beam, telescopes and periscopes.

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After winning Olympic gold on the balance beam aged 16, she was catapulted into the limelight of American celebrity, endorsing dozens of products, appearing on numerous chat shows and attending countless premieres.

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Having been pipped to the all-around title (which takes into account performances on all four pieces of apparatus) by team-mate Nastia Liukin, Johnson exacted revenge on the balance beam, the final women's gymnastics event of the Beijing Games.

BBC: US gymnast Shawn Johnson seeks focus to succeed in 2012

These gymnastics folks -- I don't understand how they do what they do. (Laughter.) So I told these young ladies as I was congratulating them, how do you not bust your head -- (laughter) -- every time you're on that little balance beam?

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The 18-year-old gymnast won gold on the balance beam for the United States at the Beijing Games in 2008, alongside three more silver medals, installing herself as a poster child of US sporting success and garnering a host of accolades, as much for her likeable personality as her achievements.

BBC: US gymnast Shawn Johnson seeks focus to succeed in 2012