The 2010 men’s gymnastics season is about to launch into hyperspeed this month, with three high-profile meets taking place next weekend (January 15-17).  The Windy City Invite will feature top club teams such as Bartlett Gymnastics, Buffalo Grove, Orlando Metro, Queen City and Hocking Valley.  It will also serve as the season opener for Illinois-Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota and Ohio State.  The Rocky Mountain Open will help kick off the season for Air Force, Arizona State, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Washington.  Top club teams from that region will also compete.  The Vitaly Scherbo Invitational will showcase top club teams from the west coast, including San Mateo, WCOGA and SCATS.

On January 23-24, the HGA GymMaster’s Invitational and the Universal International Invite will be the top club competitions that weekend.  The following weekend, January 29-31, the Stanford Open will feature the third dual meet in a row (successive weekends) between Stanford and Cal.  This meet also happens to be one of the premiere annual club competitions in the country.  The venue at Stanford is intimate, top-notch and full of excitement during the Saturday joint club-collegiate competition.

It certainly was great to see Jacoby Rubin’s name again.  Rubin, a 2008-09 Junior National Team member, sat out last season recovering from an injury.  He notched an 84.80 in his 2009-10 debut last month at the Hawaiian Pineapple Classic. He and his teammates, Craig Hernandez, Danny Berardini, Nic Sacramento and Wasef Burbar, are going to make Buffalo Grove one of the most dominant club teams in the country this season.

Next month’s Pacific Coast Classic is offering a generous 33% discount on pre-sale tickets.  This three-day meet is one of the nation’s top club-collegiate competitions, and is held in downtown Oakland, CA.  The PCC and the Stanford Open are introducing the new Level 3A this season.  Unique to Region I, Level 3A is for 10-year-olds who wish to compete Future Stars routines.  Supposedly this new level will encourage these gymnasts to pursue their Future Stars training on a year-round basis.  Those competing at 3A will compete concurrently with the Level 7s.  In addition to the PCC and Stanford Open, Region I 3A gymnasts will also have the opportunity to compete at state and regionals.

Thanks to Andy Thornton for turning us on to Danell Leyva’s new high bar skill, a full twisting laid-out Tkatchev (a Liukin).  Even more incredible is what he’ll end up doing it with in combination.  Thornton also posted some great videos of Steven Legendre, Jake Dalton and Bobby Shortle at Oklahoma’s recent intra-squad meet.  This is nice taste of what we’ll be seeing this season.