According to Blythe Lawrence's blog at Examiner.com, a lot of exciting Junior assignments have been doled out by USA Gymnastics. Jake Dalton and John Orozco will be competing at the Japan Junior International Competition in Yokohama September 20-25. Dalton is now a freshman at Oklahoma. In fact he went straight from Dallas to Norman, OK right after VISAs. Dalton is also reportedly first in line for [...more]
The 2009 Men's World Team selections are now in the books. Leading the way, of course, is newly crowned U.S. All-Around Champion Jonathan Horton. Despite starting vet school next week, David Sender was selected to the team. Sasha Artemev successfully petitioned on to the team, but will have to prove he is adequately competitive by September. Danell Leyva proved at VISAs that he is now ready for [...more]
Jonathan Horton can finally claim that elusive prize of U.S. Men's Gymnastics National Champion. The anchorman of our men's program ran away with the title by a margin of 3.4 points over surprise runner-up Tim McNeill. Running on sheer talent and adrenaline, Horton was easily able to absorb a fall on [...more]
What a night! Jonathan Horton launched a late drive to overcome David Sender's otherwise dominating performance. Horton's 15.90 on what else, high bar, did the trick. Didn't he do something similar about this time last year in Beijing? Horton posted an astounding 91.25 to take the lead after Day 1. Who said he wasn't ready? David Sender charged to a commanding lead after posting outstanding scores of 15.85 on rings and 17.05 on vault. Correct us if we're wrong, but [...more]
It was John Orozco Day in Dallas. The Bronx Bomber started out with great scores on pommel (14.70) and rings (14.55) and never looked back. Orozco won a staggering five out of six events and finished fifth on vault. Every score was over 14.00 in a fascinating display of power and consistency. His all-around score of 86.85 blew away the field. As Gymnastike's Anne Phillips tweeted after the meet, "seriously we should just go ahead and put him on the senior team." [...more]
For those unable to attend, it looks like there will be live scoring for each session of the men's competition at VISAs. Additionally, there will also be a "quick hits" running commentary section. As a reminder, the second day of the Men's Senior Division competition will be webcast on Universal Sports. For those who have Universal Sports on their cable system, Day 2 [...more]
While the Senior Division will get all the television and webcast coverage this week, the Junior Division will also be providing some great competition. Looks like we'll have to rely on YouTube to see how these guys do. The 14-15 division will be awesome. As for the 16-18 division, the field is strong, but is weaker compared to the field that competed at JO Nationals. The top gymnasts who competed at JOs have either [...more]
Today's New York Daily News posted an outstanding article about John Orozco. The article went into detail about his family and the long daily commute Orozco and his mother make every day to the gym. Orozco's father suffered a debilitating stroke two years ago and his mother suffers from various health maladies. Even if she is in severe pain, she gets up and gets her son from the Bronx to [...more]
The U.S. Championships are now one week away. Judging by all the activity on various blogs, websites and Twitter, gym fans are bursting with anticipation. NBC plans to air a one-hour "recap" of the Senior Men's competition on Sunday, August 15. Universal Sports, thankfully, will provide live television coverage and a live webcast of Day 2 Men's Senior action (Friday, August 13). It's a shame that none of the Junior Men's competition will merit a webcast. We've got some great young guys who will be making [...more]
Part 2 In part two of our series analyzing our top elite gymnasts, guest blogger Matthew Rusk examines Steven Legendre, Danell Leyva, Tim McNeill, Daniel Ribeiro, Paul Ruggeri and David Sender. Rusk goes into much detail as he explores the strengths and weaknesses of each gymnast. How well they perform at VISAs will determine whether or not they will be chosen to represent Team USA at the the 2009 London World Championships. Rusk wraps things up with his predictions [...more]
