The 2013 NCAA Men's Gymnastics season is officially off and running. A new scoring system greets gym fans, with a 6-up/5-count scenario, which will be replaced by a 5-up/5-count method after March 1. Nevertheless, the team scores are going to look rather wacky at first glance. Freshmen played a huge role in the inaugural weekend by posting some of the highest scores. Illinois' Joey Peters was the nation's [...more]
Six members of the U.S.A. team delegation that will compete in the 2013 Maccabi Games were officially announced this past weekend. The Maccabi Games, the 3rd largest international competition after the Olympics and PanAm Games, will be held in Israel July 17-30. Leading the U.S. squad will be 2012 Sr. National Team member [...more]
The early signing period for 2013-2014 recruits is rapidly approaching (Nov. 14-21). This year's crop of college MAG prospects looks to be every bit as good as last year's. We will be posting any signing news we get as soon as the ink is dry on the letters of intent. The recruits are now busy making their weekend visits to the schools that have expressed interest. Thanks to social media, the college MAG recruiting process is becoming a little more transparent than it has in previous years. This is a good thing for the sport. Football and basketball recruiting have always dominated [...more]
The results speak for themselves. Sean Melton has been a consistent top elite junior gymnast for a long time. He has won national AA titles at every level. Melton's formative years in the sport were spent at Orlando Metro under the tutelage of current Ohio State Assistant Coach Casimiro Suarez. When Suarez joined Head Coach Rustam Sharipov's staff last summer, Melton and teammate Jake Martin moved to Colorado Springs to live and train at the Olympic Training Center. Martin ultimately signed with the Buckeyes to begin his very promising collegiate career, while Melton will be completing his final [...more]
This blog is now four years old, and in that span, the most fun I've had with it has been the interviews. I've interviewed four of five of the current new Olympians. My first two interviews were with Danell Leyva and John Orozco back in December of 2008. At that time, I had no contacts in the sport and wanted to provide a forum for the best of America's club gymnasts. A big part of the reason why I started the blog in the first place was my frustration [...more]
SAN JOSE -- The 2012 Men's Gymnastics Olympic Selection Process is now complete, and the Selection Committee came up with an outstanding team. They ended up allowing the top 5 all-arounders to earn well-deserved plane fare to London. Arguably their toughest decision was to determine the three alternates from the remainder of the field of fifteen. Eight gymnasts were selected, while seven gymnasts stay home. Rather bittersweet for the latter group, but they all were very [...more]
SAN JOSE -- 2/5 of the 2012 Men's U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team were officially announced at the final day of Olympic Trials competition. To no one's surprise, Danell Leyva and John Orozco maintained their insurmountable leads over the 15-man field to clinch automatic trips to London. How they did it was remarkable and demonstrated outstanding consistency throughout the four days (2 days of VISAs/2 days of Trials) of competition. Leyva posted top-3 scores on PH (2nd), PB (1st) and HB (1st), while Orozco [...more]
SAN JOSE -- Almost predictable, the first day of the 2012 Men's Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose boiled down to virtually no movement in the top 8 finishers from the VISA U.S. Championships. Sam Mikulak (91.80) edged out Danell Leyva (91.70) by one tenth to lead all gymnasts on Day 1 of the competition. Leyva, however, is the overall leader of the Olympic Team selection process, which happens to be a [...more]
Guest blogger Matthew Rusk completes his two-part preview of the 2012 Olympic Trials, by featuring CJ Maestas, Sam Mikulak, Alex Naddour, John Orozco, Paul Ruggeri and Brandon Wynn. In this installment, Rusk again goes into great detail for each of these gymnasts' chances for making the trek to London. John Orozco, as Danell Leyva was predicted in Part 1, is also lock to make the Team. The competition for the remaining three spots is relatively limited to a handful of gymnasts, with still a slim chance for a [...more]
