Odd Olympic Sports Writing from NBC

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s meant to be a column and what’s a straight news report, but either way this is just some strange writing in an article about women’s gymnastics in Beijing (my emphasis):

The silver medalist on the beam at the 2007 world championships, Li Shanshan of China, went fourth. She had gotten the highest score, 16.125, in qualifying. Seconds into her routine Tuesday, she fell off the beam.She got a 15.3.

Standing against a wall afterward, Li Shanshan seemed so sad. So very sad.

“Appeared downtrodden” or “despondent” or something would have worked, but “…seemed so sad. So very sad” sounds like I’m reading one of my kid’s books. Just a weird sentence.