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]
The 2011 Palm Tree Classic is shaping up to be the current season’s top men’s club invitational on the west coast. Hosted by Azarian Gymnastics, Meet Director Tim Klempnauer has lined up many gyms from all over the country. Included in the three-day competition is Sunday’s All-Academy Meet, featuring Air Force and Army. The Level 10/Elite all-around and event finals will take place at the same time. On Saturday, the Level 9s, 10s and elites will compete in three separate sessions. Among the top gymnasts battling it out will be the following: [...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]
No season would be complete without our list of six-footers among the ranks of NCAA men's gymnasts. It almost seems that our list is shrinking, but not every team publishes the height and weight for their athletes. Not sure of the reasoning behind that, especially since all Division I teams publish the height and weight for their football, basketball and baseball players, even though they inevitably fudge on several of them. After all, how many [...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]
In a high-scoring weekend of college men's gymnastics, at least for three teams, Stanford posted a huge 364.50 to reaffirm its pre-season number one ranking. The Cardinal more than made up for their loss to Cal last weekend with one of the highest team scores in memory. To put things in perspective, Cal's team score of 358.80 was the NCAA's [...more]
Illinois looked like the top men's collegiate gymnastics team after all the opening weekend scores were posted. At least they appear to be the healthiest, and in relative mid-season form. At the 2011 Windy City Classic, they easily dispatched Michigan, Ohio State, Iowa, Minnesota and UIC, as they won the team title for the second season in a row. The 4th-ranked Illini's 355.40 overwhelmed [...more]
In what may be Cal's final season of competitive men's gymnastics, the Bears gave Cal's bean-counting administrators something to think about, as they defeated top-ranked Stanford in both team's season opener. In the first of back-to-back weekend dual meets at Stanford's Burnham Pavilion, Cal's Glen Ishino put up some staggering numbers to give the collegiate gymnastics world ample notice that he will again [...more]
