The Arizona State Men's Gymnastics Team, coached by Scott Barclay, is an excellent example of a successful program that continues to excel despite being kicked in the teeth back in 1993. Prior to that, the ASU program succeeded for 25 years as a fully-funded Division I entity under Coach Don Robinson. Thanks to Title IX, the program was unfairly axed, but was soon resurrected as an unfunded club team, and has been coached by Barclay ever since.
Sun Devil Gymnastics was forced to organize as a non-profit 501-C3 booster club consisting of 7-9 board members. Fundraising consists of booster club memberships and donations, corporate sponsorships and team fundraising events. One such event was the recent [...more]
The 2009 Men's JO Nationals concluded today in Cincinnati with the individual Event Finals. World Cup's John Orozco continued to dazzle as he incredibly won national titles on five out of six events to go along with his All-Around title. Orozco won on floor, rings, vault (tied), parallel bars and high bar. His 2nd place finish on pommel horse prevented a clean sweep in the Level 10 (14-15) age division.
SCATS' Sam Mikulak also had a spectacular day by placing [...more]
The All-Around Finals took place on day 3 of the competition in Cincinnati. In the morning session, World Cup's John Orozco outlasted a very strong field. He was the only competitor to qualify for all six events in tomorrow's Event Finals. Orozco was also the top qualifier in three of the events: vault, parallel bars and high bar.
SCATS' Sam Mikulak finished behind Orozco, and qualified in all events except for floor. Mikulak was the top event qualifier on rings. Seven points separated [...more]
Another marathon day of competition concluded with today's level 9 competition. The top qualifiers advance to tomorrow's all-around competition and Sunday's individual event finals. There were no surprises as Orlando Metro's Sean Melton (84.50) edged past Xtreme's Allan Bower (84.10) in what's shaping up to be a replay of last year's all-around finals. Melton also had the day's highest scores on [...more]
The first 14 hours of competition are over for the Level 10s (all age groups). There were three sessions, with the third session involving the regional team competition. The top qualifiers advance to Saturday's all-around finals and to Sunday's individual event finals. The JO Nationals is a qualifying mechanism for the VISA Championships and also determines the makeup of the level 9 Junior National Team. Now for the results! [...more]
MeetScoresOnline (MSO) now has embedded YouTube video links to complement their online scores. This new free service of connecting gymnastics scores to videos is an exciting development which could take MSO to the next level of being the major gymnastics portal. MSO's founder, Karl Stubsjoen, is looking for advocates to get the word out. [...more]
We don't know who this person is, but he (she) brings up some good points. The blog Brusqueness commented on American male figure skater Evan Lysacek's recent accomplishment in winning the World Championship, the first for the U.S. in 13 years. The blogger continued, "Don't expect him to appear on a box of Wheaties anytime soon." Good point. He (she) goes on to say that "men's figure skating (like men's gymnastics) lacks a broad appeal to the general public."
The blogger goes on to point out the many examples of [...more]
With the pressure of the team competition out of the way, Saturday night's event finals enabled the gymnasts to let it rip. They were competing on their best events and the prizes were for national championship and/or All-American status. The evening's spotlight shone on Oklahoma's Steven Legendre and Ilinois' Paul Ruggeri as they each brought home two national titles in impressive and exciting fashion.
The floor competition was very tight, but Legendre was able to successfully defend his [...more]
Stanford handily put away the competition to win their fourth NCAA Men's Gymnastics title. The Cardinal closed the deal with the evening's top scores on rings. Tim Gentry and Nick Noone led the way with scores of 15.45, followed by Kyle Oi's 15.35 and Sho Nakamori's 15.05. Michigan and Oklahoma mounted late charges on floor and vault but fell short.
Oklahoma's bid to repeat was officially thwarted with their [...more]
The Super Six for the 2009 NCAA Championships advanced as predicted. The evening competition was exciting, with Oklahoma prevailing over Illinois and Ohio State. The most amazing performance of the night was by Illinois' Daniel Ribeiro, who scored an outstanding 16.00 on pommel horse. That's easily the NCAA's top pommel score of the season. We'll be scouring youtube to find that video!
The Sooners really piled it on with their typically great performances [...more]
