Twitter hasn't been around that long, but it is quickly gaining quite a sizable number of luminaries from the men's gymnastics community. No doubt the list for the women's side is quite a bit larger, but here is a list of current/former gymnasts, coaches and bloggers and websites that cover men's gymnastics. It is by no means a complete list, but I'd like to encourage folks to submit the Twitter addresses for those who I've missed. Twitter has contributed mightily to the sport in the form of [...more]
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]
In fitting fashion, Adrian De Los Angeles earned a well-deserved national event title on the same apparatus that clinched his Sr. Level 10 all-around title, parallel bars. His 15.00 was a virtual carbon copy of his routine from Saturday afternoon (15.05), and it was good enough by .40 over runner-up Stacey Ervin. It was a great way for Michigan-bound De Los Angeles to end his stellar club career. Later, during the awards ceremony, he was awarded the [...more]
It came down to parallel bars and rings for Adrian De Los Angeles and Jake Martin, respectively. De Los Angeles had a scant lead of .35 points going into the final rotation. With both events being very strong for both gymnasts, it was a breathtaking spectacle. Martin went first and posted a respectable 14.60 on rings. De Los Angeles then proceeded with a clutch performance on one of his better events. His 15.05 was not only the highest score on that event, but it was more than enough to [...more]
Marty Strech needed a 12.30 on pommel horse to at least tie Tristan Burke for the lead going into Saturday's Level 9 all-around finals. Pommel horse is one of Strech's best events, so that minimum score didn't seem to be such a tall order. Well, Strech made it interesting after an atypical fall midway through his routine. Still, he had enough difficulty built in to his routine to [...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]
