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]
StickItMedia has learned that CJ Maestas will be enrolling at the University of Illinois in the fall, and will compete for the men's gymnastics team next season. Maestas, a member of the Senior National Team, is a huge addition for Head Coach Justin Spring. The addition of Maestas, provides Spring the luxury of competing four gymnasts (Maestas, Paul Ruggeri, Tyler Mizoguchi and Yoshi Mori) who potentially can each hit [...more]
If not for a fall on high bar, Orlando Metro's Sean Melton would have hit 90 in the qualifying round. Seemingly on autopilot, Melton was cruising along, posting the day's highest scores on rings (15.10), vault (16.40) and parallel bars (15.00). Settling down after his high bar mishap (12.75), he ended up with the 2nd highest score on pommel horse (14.75) and the 4th highest score on floor (14.80). Not only did he post the highest Level 10 (14-15) all around score (88.75), he even [...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]
Oklahoma's Jake Dalton won his two specialty events, floor (16.20) and vault (16.55), a day after his team fell just shy of the team title. Teammate Steven Legendre came up short with his bid on floor to overtake Jonathan Horton's NCAA record for most individual titles. That Legendre only had one bite at the apple today was very unusual. An event finals without him in the vault lineup was almost as eerie as [...more]
Stanford opened the door with their 56.60 team score on pommel horse, but it wasn't opened wide enough. The Cardinal were well on their way to a national title after three events, tracking just a little more than a point less than they posted at the same point in the qualifying round. Their pommel horse score was 2.10 points lower than what they put up the previous evening, and that could have been enough to allow Oklahoma and Illinois to catch up. But Stanford had a secret weapon, [...more]
Day 1 of the 2011 NCAA Men's Gymnastics Championships was nothing short of spectacular. The top 3 teams going into the competition (Stanford, Oklahoma & Cal) did not disappoint. Throw in defending champs Michigan, and four teams ended up with team scores exceeding 360.00! Illinois and Penn State rounded out the top 6 teams that [...more]
Hard to believe that the 2011 JO Nationals are only three weeks away. Most of the regional club meets are in the books, and congratulations to all those who have qualified. When you figure that approximately only about 7% of all gymnasts ever make it to the optional levels, it's a very significant achievement to qualify for JO Nationals. This year's extravaganza will take place in Long Beach, CA. If you've never been there, you'll be very impressed with the overall setting in the downtown area. The convention center [...more]
The nation's top two teams, Oklahoma and Stanford, duked it out at the MPSF championships hosted by Air Force. The Cardinal got the best of the Sooners this time 362.25 to 360.70, behind their strong performances on rings and high bar. Stanford put up an astounding four scores of 15-plus on rings, led by Tim Gentry's 16.05, and they also pounded Oklahoma by 3 points on high bar behind Alex Buscaglia's meet-high 15.60. The combined scores on those two events provided Stanford with a [...more]
Jason Shen is kicking ass... on his blog, that is. The former Stanford gymnast posted his second installment of his trilogy about how his gymnastics career is helping him to... well, kick ass in the business world. This is a must read for all aspiring young gymnasts, showing them what it takes to kick ass inside and outside the gym. Jason does a great job drawing very real similarities between [...more]
