Three major Junior events on the world stage await our Junior gymnasts. The Summer Youth Olympic Games will take place October 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Held every two years, the Japan Junior International competition is scheduled for 2017 and 2019. The Japan Junior event is perhaps [...more]
Now that Rio 2016 is in the history books, we're changing our focus to Tokyo 2020. Now official, Men's and Woman's gymnastics will be based on four-member teams plus a potential maximum of two event specialists. Since the qualifying round will be a 4-up/3-count format, the four-member teams will likely consist of four all-arounders. The two "event specialists" will compete in the qualifying round to vie for Finals spots on specific events and/or the AA. When announced back in May 2015, the new format ruffled a lot of feathers. F.I.G. Technical Committee President Steve Butcher [...more]
Danell Leyva's 2016 Rio Olympic Games can now be described as being clad in silver. Leyva had the most impressive day in recent USA men's gymnastics history. In the final day of competition, he was the first competitor on PB, and promptly posted his best score of the Games (15.90). That score would certainly hold up for a medal, but the only question was--Which color? Leyva's score survived a talented onslaught of attempts by [...more]
Greek strongman Eleftherios Petrounias turned in the strongest, cleanest routine of the day to earn gold on SR (16.00) by a fairly comfortable margin. His closest competitor was hometown favorite and defending Olympic champion Arthur Zanetti (15.766). Zanetti's silver was Brazil's third and final medal of the Games. Russia's Denis Ablyazin came in a close 3rd (15.70) to take the bronze. Petrounias competed in the second position and had to wait for six others to see if his score [...more]
Diego Hypolito and Arthur Mariano gave the hometown fans plenty to cheer about. Hypolito (silver-15.533) and Mariano (bronze-15.433) earned some hardware for the trophy case and promptly delivered a successful Olympic Games for the Brazilian team. The team isn't done yet, as Arthur Zanetti (SR) also has a legitimate design on winning a medal. The day's top performer, however, won [...more]
The most intense, pressure-packed competition of the entire Olympic fortnight took place Wednesday night at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. Men's gymnastics' two best all-arounders went at it in an epic slugfest that, of course, came down to the proverbial wire. Japan's Kohei Uchimura and Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev traded punches all night, but all it took was [...more]
King Kohei Uchimura earned his first team Olympic gold medal, forever knocking that particularly pesky monkey off his back. It was Japan's (274.094) first team gold since 2004. They did it with a furious rally down the stretch, scoring well over 45-plus on their last four events, including a sparkling 47.199 in their final rotation (FX). Uchimura anchored his team, backed by his sizzling [...more]
China (270.461) edged out Team USA (270.405) to lead a group of eight qualifying teams going into Monday's Team Finals. The Americans had a 1.5 point lead going into China's final rotation (SR). Thanks to Liu Yang (15.90) and You Hao (15.80), China was able to leap into the top spot. The Chinese got off to a blistering start on VT and PB, but cooled off considerably on HB and FX. They hit big on PH and SR to seal their fate. Team USA was sparkling on their first four events until [...more]
In one of the most exhausting, exciting and suspenseful Olympic Trials ever staged, five gymnasts emerged to comprise the 2016 U.S. Men's Gymnastics Olympic Team. Not one single member earned an automatic bid, by virtue of placing in the top 2 all-around and top 3 on events. However, Sam Mikulak came close enough to make his selection a fait accompli. Mikulak ran away with the [...more]
ST. LOUIS, MO -- Couldn't have asked for a more interesting Day 1 at the 2016 Men's Gymnastics Olympic Trials. U.S. champ Sam Mikulak rallied from a near disastrous opening two rotations to maintain his commanding lead in the overall selection standings. Mikulak (90.65) gave up at least a point and a half with major miscues on PB (14.95) and HB (14.30). He then settled down and proceeded to crank out four [...more]
