The USA lady gymnasts. Cyborgs?

Unlike their male-counterparts, the USA lady gymnasts performed almost flawlessly, running away with the gold medal. They earned it and are worthy of whatever laurels come their way. Bravo.

Idle thought -- the scoring system changed somewhere along the line. Nowadays a perfect score in a routine might be 16.600, and after deductions of, say, 1.373, will equal out to -- I don't know -- some weird number. I miss the days when a good effort yield a score of 9, a great one 9.5, and an eye-popper was a perfect 10. Everybody understood that. Now, nobody knows what the hell is going on, but I digress.

Yes, I understand that after years of training, and umpteen thousand repetitions, these athletes can appear to be almost programmed like robots to perform what we eventually see on TV. This is not to take away from their dedication and ability, which should be admired, but merely to point out a detail that makes your truly wonder about these girls sometimes. Are they truly flesh and blood humans, or cyborgs cleverly made up to look like real people? I'll get back to that.

If one was looking close, there's no doubt these girls were heavily "made-up". Besides flesh colored make-up, they sported eye-liner, eye shadow, mascara, lip gloss, a touch of rouge here and there, and probably a few other things most men have no idea about. They can't just slap all that goop on themselves 5 minutes before they're due to perform on TV. I wonder if they spend more time warming up or in the make-up room. And what's the point? This is supposed to be an athletic contest, not a beauty pageant.

Nevertheless, those girls run, jump, spin, flip, tumble, twirl, and perform all manner of other amazing feats in their various routines. It's incredible to watch as they push themselves to their limits in the pursuit of perfection. Few would doubt these world-class athletes give it everything they have in a very physically demanding sport.

Which brings me back to the original dilemma. Humans or cyborgs? Certainly they can smile, frown, laugh, cry, and fluently converse -- like humans.

But here's the thing. During all of the physical exertion over their various exercises, their make-up remains perfect. Other than rain, what's the one thing that will ruin a woman's make-up?

Sweat. A human would be wringing wet after what these girls go through, yet not one drop of perspiration from any of them -- ever -- anyplace on their bodies. Check it out.

Cyborgs don't sweat either.

Hmmm.