For the first time since 2003, USA men's gymnastics has a world champion! After licking his wounds from his dreadful high bar fall during the all-around finals, Danell Leyva smoked the field in winning his first world title on parallel bars. It wasn't even a nail biter, as Leyva (15.633) [...more]
All the superlatives have been thought of and said. Not much else to add about Uchimura-san. What a performance, though. It was almost a surreal experience watching an hour and a half of near perfection in the wee hours of the morning on the left coast. How the judges came up with several tenths worth of deductions over the course of six events is way beyond me. If Kohei Uchimura is not the greatest gymnast ever, then [...more]
In a wild finish, which featured Japan's Kohei Uchimura as the team final's last competitor, Team USA had to wait a while until they found out whether they won silver or bronze. The American's had already finished up on the high bar, and the Japanese and Chinese were completing their competition on high bar and floor, respectively. Thanks to anchor man Zou Kai, who cranked out an evening-high 15.60, the Chinese had [...more]
If the qualification round was any indication of how well the U.S. men will fare in team finals, a podium spot is looking pretty good right now. As expected, the Japanese men posted the highest team score (364.291), but the U.S. men were fairly close behind at (361.583). An injured Kohei Uchimura topped the field in the AA (92.256), and the Americans had three gymnasts place in the top 5. John Orozco was an absolute rock throughout the first round, putting up [...more]
Following the 2012 Olympics, a new quad will be ushered in. Tweaks to the code of points are among the rumored changes. Much discussion is going on about the upcoming changes to the men's JO program. It appears that the current compulsory program (levels 4-7) will remain roughly the same. The big changes will be made to the optional program. Please keep in mind [...more]
Morgan Hamm posted a nicely produced video in support of his brother, Paul, who recently got himself into a little drunken legal trouble the other evening. As a result of the incident, in which he was charged with assaulting a cab driver, refusing to pay a fare & damaging a cab, Hamm was discharged from his assistant coaching duties at Ohio State. The arrest video was very damning and embarrassing for the '04 Olympic champion, and undoubtedly led to [...more]
Still thinking about the second day of the Junior men's competition in St. Paul. That was amazing. Adrian de los Angeles quietly had a great AA (84.65) in the early session. The top four gymnasts from the two junior divisions ended up competing in the evening session with the seniors. Meanwhile, the rest of the juniors, along with a smattering of seniors, competed in the early session. After a quick perusal of the math, de los Angeles had put himself into strong position [...more]
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]
