The United States will be represented by five Junior National Team members later this week in Medellin, Colombia at the 2012 Pan-American Championships. 15 nations will be competing in a field that will include [...more]
StickItMedia is pleased to present a two-part preview of the men's Olympic Trials. Guest blogger Matthew Rusk, a gifted young writer from Houston, TX, analyzes this year's field in great detail. Rusk just finished up his freshman year at Indiana University, and has plans to head for London next month to attend the Games. The field for next week's Trials is arguably [...more]
Donnell Whittenburg and Marvin Kimble enjoyed their seemingly unsurmountable leads from the Day 1 competition and rode them all the way to All-Around Titles at the 2012 U.S. Men's Gymnastics Championships in St. Louis. Both powerful gymnasts relied on their consistency in executing their difficult routines in a remarkable show over two days. The two completed their clean sweep of [...more]
The Big 5 is now the Big 6. NCAA champ Jake Dalton had a tremendous Day 2 at the 2012 U.S. Championships, garnering a 90.05 to tie Chris Brooks for 5th place. But the story of Day 2 was seeing John Orozco nailing one landing after another on his final event. Before then, it was looking pretty good that Danell Leyva was going to [...more]
The Big 5 blew into St. Louis like a spring tornado. Big 5, as in Danell Leyva, John Orozco, Sam Mikulak, Chris Brooks and Jonathan Horton. Each of these gymnasts posted all-around scores of 90-plus to stake their claim on a potential Olympic Team spot. Really, the only thing surprising about Day 1 at the 2012 U.S. Championships was just how many great performances there were. More than just a few guys grabbed the bull by the horns to show the selection committee that they [...more]
A terrific spreadsheet is making the rounds, detailing the recent results of every Senior qualifier in the 2012 VISA U.S. Championships field. It was published under the nickname Ono No Komachi, who happens to be a very loyal and knowledgeable men's gymnastics fan and commenter. As Ono points out, the men's Olympic selection committee will also be taking these results into consideration, along with those accomplished at VISAs and Trials. The committee is looking for consistency, so if four days [...more]
No list of Junior qualifiers to the VISA U.S. Men's Gymnastics Championships has been posted thus far, so I thought I'd compile a list of gymnasts whom I believe will be competing next week in St. Louis. I'm leaving out [...more]
It's an Olympic year and new changes to the men's JO program are about to be implemented across the country. Changes include the usual routine tweaks to the compulsory levels (4-7), but the major ones are being unveiled for the optional levels. The key phrases being bandied about are "we're going to slow things down," and "we're going to clean things up." The long-term thinking is not necessarily concern about the American men's program not having [...more]
Here are some videos from JO Nationals that have so far been posted on YouTube. We will continue to add more [...more]
The 2012 men's JO Nationals concluded with Sunday's event finals. This year's meet, although I did not attend, was truly quite a spectacle, and offered a huge glimpse of the future of our sport. The senior 10s put on quite a show, demonstrating a very high level of skills and execution. This year's field was arguably one of the deepest, if not the deepest, in many years. The junior 10s were very impressive, with many of the top finishers scoring right up there with [...more]
