It's been a week since the men's JO Nationals in Long Beach, and the girls' turn was this weekend. Held at the same venue, Long Beach Arena, the best Level 10s in the country competed for top spots on the podium and to impress the dozens of college coaches, who were afforded assigned seating. According to Coach Rick McCharles, who attended both the men's and women's meets, the men's meet was [...more]
The 2011 Men's JO Nationals will be taking place in two weeks in Long Beach, CA. The rotation schedules have been published here. Region 5 definitely wins the award for the best regional venue. Their meet was held at Ohio State, the same weekend as the men's NCAA Championships. How cool that must have been for all the boys being afforded the opportunity to watch some great gymnastics put on by the college guys! Ohio was quite the hotbed for gymnastics, with [...more]
Saturday was a big day for gymnastics. American Jordyn Wieber prevailed (barely) over Russian Aliya Mustafina. Oh wait a minute, wrong blog. You can read all about that here and here. The big news was Jonathan Horton gutting out a gritty win at the American Cup. Many folks, including me, thought that Horton might not yet be [...more]
Orlando Metro’s Jake Martin made another statement as to why he may just be the top club gymnast in the country. Despite falls on parallel bars (13.40) and pommel horse (13.40), Martin still managed to make a run at 90 points and finished up with a meet-high 88.70. He put up a string of 15s on floor (15.10), rings (15.15) and high bar (15.20) to go along with a 16.45 on vault. His AA score is the nation’s [...more]
Today, in a spineless, bull-headed and ultimately sexist decision, Cal’s powers-that-be formally took a guillotine to their men’s gymnastics program. The decision obviously smacked of a serious kowtowing to the predatory and cannibalistic insanity of Title IX. Cal’s genius bean counters and feckless bureaucrats ended up granting a reprieve to [...more]
Although the 2011 Winter Cup was marred by scratches and injuries, it still was an enjoyable meet to watch. It’s very confounding as to why this meet does not rate even a simple webcast. The technology is free and there are plenty of knowledgeable personalities to provide commentary. Seen in attendance were David Durante, who did a great job providing live Twitter updates, the venerable [...more]
Day 1 of the 2011 Winter Cup is in the books. The day's top qualifier was Oklahoma's Jake Dalton, who logged an 88.10 to outlast Danell Leyva's 87.45. Not surprisingly, the day's top 6 AA scores were posted in the day's second session. The top two qualifying club gymnasts were Jake Martin (82.95) and Stacey Ervin (81.80). Several prominent scratches have marred this meet, such as [...more]
Stanford, Cal and Illinois are the top 3 teams after the first two weeks of the 2011 season. No doubt this will change as the season progresses and gymnasts regain their health and lineups/routines firm up. Stanford's 364.40 last weekend is provoking much conversation. Their score was higher than any they recorded all last season. It will be interesting to find out how consistent [...more]
It's now the early signing period for college gymnastics recruiting. Lasting a week (Nov. 10-17), the remaining men's programs have been scrambling for the past several months wooing the nation's best club prospects. As of now, only Oklahoma has formally announced their impressive recruiting haul. The Sooners have signed Jacoby Rubin, Dylan Akers, Danny Berardini and William Clement. Rubin and Akers are current Junior National Team members. Assuming the rumor mill is accurate, Oklahoma will probably end up [...more]
Rick McCharles and Full Twist posted great perspectives on the current state of gymnastics blogging and new media. As they both duly noted, the most prolific new media representatives who reported from the World Championships in Rotterdam were Anne Phillips from Gymnastike, Blythe Lawrence from Gymnastics Examiner and Brigid McCarthy from the Couch Gymnast. As Coach Rick said, FIG and USAG have wisely embraced new media, and are [...more]
