Team USA struggled against a strong field at today's 2009 Japan Cup. Steve Legendre fell twice on floor and Sho Nakamori hurt his knee on high bar. Meanwhile, Jonathan Horton had the second highest score on high bar (15.85) and had a nice 16.00 on vault to lead Team USA. However, it was not nearly enough as Team Japan [...more]
Three-time U.S.A. Gymnastics Olympian, Blaine Wilson, was hired on as an assistant coach by Ohio State Head Coach Miles Avery. Wilson, a former Buckeye, won a silver team medal at the 2004 Olympics, and was also on the Olympic team in 1996 and 2000. He was the U.S. all-around champion an incredible five years in […] [...more]
Today's Men's Qualifier at the U.S. Olympic Training Center produced twenty-six Senior Division gymnasts qualifiers for the 2009 VISA Championships. Two Ohio State gymnasts, Brandon Wynn and Jake Bateman, posted the highest scores of the day to lead all qualifiers. Among the top clubbers who qualified to compete in the Senior Division were [...more]
U.S. men's gymnastics action is about to heat up again. The 2009 Men's National Qualifier will take place on Saturday, July 11 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. The athletes will arrive this week with training sessions taking place on July 9-10. Saturday's competition will be divided into two sessions. The National Qualifier is mostly designed to determine qualifiers to next month's VISAs in both the Junior and Senior divisions. Any gymnast who is 16 or older [...more]
Cal sophomore Kyle Bunthuwong was added to the previously announced U.S. squad that will compete in next month's Japan Cup. Bunthuwong, a current member of the U.S. Senior National Team, will be joining his former Cal teammate, [...more]
The 2009 Japan Cup will take place July 18-20 in Chiba City. The event will feature individual and international team competition with teams from the U.S., Australia, China, Japan, Germany, Russia and Korea. It will be the first team competition under the new 5-3-3 system. According to the event's website, [...more]
Sho Nakamori is a hard-working, cerebral member of the men's gymnastics community. Not only is he an eight time All-American and member of the U.S. Senior National Team, he is also a CGA National Academic All-American. Nakamori just completed his undergraduate career by earning degrees in International Relations and Japanese Studies. His recent tweet on Twitter said it all - "snakamori done with school. now, focus=gymnastics." Now that his studying days are over, for the time being at least, Nakamori is focused like a laser beam to earn [...more]
As expected, Chuck Chmelka has replaced Francis Allen as Nebraska's men's gymnastics head coach. Allen announced his resignation last week after forty years on the job. Chmelka has been coaching at Nebraska since 1982, after competing there from 1978-1981. Current assistant coach, Jim Hartung, will remain on staff as assistant coach. Chmelka and Hartung know what it's like to win a national championship as they won three titles when they competed together in '79, '80 and '81. Hartung went on to enjoy one more title in 1982, and is a two-time Olympian. Apparently Chmelka and Hartung will be under the gun [...more]
Today on her nationally syndicated radio program, Dr. Laura Schlessinger tore into the sport of gymnastics in response to one of her caller’s inquiries about her seven-year-old daughter. Apparently Dr. Laura did not approve of the sport for children at all, saying that it was bad for the child’s physical development and that it was […] [...more]
Legendary Nebraska Head Gymnastics Coach Francis Allen announced his retirement effective July 1. Allen has had an amazing career which spans forty years, in which his teams won eight national championships. Hired at the age of 26, he is still a very young man. Among the highlights of his career was coaching Nebraska gymnast Trent Dimas to a gold medal on high bar at the '92 Barcelona Olympics, which were the games where Vitaly Scherbo won an unprecedented six gold medals. Allen had the pleasure of rubbing elbows with such luminary football coaches as [...more]
