Danell Leyva followed up his Day 1 performance (92.50) with an equally outstanding one in the finale (91.30) as he coasted to his first Senior U.S. Men's Gymnastics all-around title. Leyva hit 12 for 12 as he bested his World teammate Jonathan Horton by 2.75 points. Horton kept it close until he fell doing a Cassina on high bar. Leyva is now arguably America's premier gymnast, and still has room for growth. Also packing his bags for the Tokyo World Championships will be young [...more]
Danell Leyva posted a career high all-around score of 92.50 to easily outlast Jonathan Horton (90.40) in Day 1 competition at the 2011 VISA U.S. Men's Gymnastics Championships. Who needs to put up huge floor and vault scores to win a title? Not Leyva, especially when he's busy cranking out parallel bars (16.20) and high bar (16.90) scores like nobody's business. It's only one day, however, and he has one more day to prove he's America's best gymnast, but his 2.1 lead over Horton is [...more]
Guest blogger Matthew Rusk is back with part 2 of his analysis for this week's U.S. championships. In this installment, he highlights C.J. Maestas, Tim McNeill, Alex Naddour, John Orozco, Paul Ruggeri and Brandon Wynn. Rusk, a native of Houston, TX, will be enrolled as a freshman at Indiana University this fall. He doesn't pull any punches, and tells it how he sees it. Without a doubt, Rusk is a gifted gymnastics analyst and a remarkably [...more]
For the third August in-a-row, talented young gymnastics analyst Matthew Rusk is back to dish out his commentary on 12 American gymnasts who will be battling it out for 6 spots on the 2011 World team. 2012 and the end of the quadrennium are rapidly approaching, and as Rusk points out, the U.S. roster of 2012 Olympic hopefuls is deep. Well, the 2011 World Championships is one step closer to that Olympic dream, and next week's VISA U.S. Championships will be the [...more]
Swiss Turners Gymnastics Academy, located in West Allis, WI, is developing a most impressive roster of young optional gymnasts. Vitali Kan and Josiah Eng both placed in the top 36 in the Level 9 AA competition at the recent JO Nationals. Steven Jaciuk and Paul Montague ended up in the top 50 in Level 10 (16-18). Jaciuk will be competing for Coach Mike Burns at Minnesota in the upcoming season. Meanwhile, Swiss had two of the top 5 all-arounders in the Level 10 (14-15) division. Dmitri Belanovski and Marvin Kimble placed 4th and 3rd, respectively. This powerhouse club, former training home of Paul and Morgan Hamm, [...more]
A six-man U.S. contingent placed 2nd in the team competition at the Puerto Rico Cup. The host team captured the gold by a relatively slim margin (350.00-348.80). In the same meet, Brandon Wynn (87.15) took the all-around silver medal in a tight finish. Illinois' Tyler Mizoguchi (86.45) came in 6th, while Michigan-bound Adrian de los Angeles (83.90) placed 14th. Wynn won gold on rings (15.925) and silver on high bar (14.60), while Mizo added two more medals to the U.S. total with an outstanding [...more]
A few things were settled at this weekend's Japan Cup. The nonsensical and irrational fear of traveling to Tokyo, due to the Fukushima nuclear crisis, is a non issue. Tokyo is more than good-to-go for World competition in October. The American team represented very well, and delivered sparkling performances on, of all events, pommel horse! Alex Naddour (15.40) and John Orozco (15.35) put up some big numbers, not the kind that would win an event title at a major championship, but [...more]
We finally got to see the list of summer international assignments, published by USAG late last week. No real surprises, and they should provide a good warm-up for VISAs. Headlining the assignments, are those for the Japan Cup. Jonathan Horton and Danell Leyva will be joined by Alex Naddour, Steven Legendre and John Orozco. It's assumed that Horton, Leyva and Naddour will be [...more]
After days of speculation, new Ohio State men's gymnastics coach Rustam Sharipov made it official today that Orlando Metro coach Casimiro Suarez and 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Paul Hamm are officially on board as assistant coaches. We don't need to elaborate too much about Hamm's background, of course, but it's assumed that he will also continue his training on the Buckeyes' campus. Most recently, Suarez is well known as the coach for [...more]
Here’s a young man who has had a charmed gymnastics career. While not heavily recruited in high school, Kent Caldwell chose to take his shiny academic credentials to the University of Michigan, where he was also given a chance to shine in the gym. Caldwell trained at the Charlotte Gymnastics Academy during his club years, and, known for being a floor and vault specialist, his contributions to Michigan gymnastics [...more]
