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]
[UPDATE: CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNER... MARGARET LIU FROM ARCADIA, CA!} Although no male gymnast was nominated this year, representing the great sport of gymnastics at the 2009 ESPY Awards are Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson and Courtney Kupets. StickItMedia is having a contest to determine the winner of two tickets to see the taping of the ESPY Awards on Wednesday, July 15 (6:00pm) at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The seats are in the loge section, and are valued at $104.50 each. For those of you unfamiliar with the ESPYs, it is an annual sports awards event created and produced by ESPN. Awards are presented to athletes for individual and team athletic achievement. This year's program will be hosted by Samuel L. Jackson, and will air on Sunday, July 19 at 9:00pm on ESPN. The first person to correctly answer these three questions to our [...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]
Gymnastike posted an interesting interview with Ron Brandt, the National Team Coordinator for USAG. Brandt discussed the growing amount of scholarship opportunities for men who wish to continue in the sport at the collegiate level. USAG has a scholarship fund which doles out about $30,000 to athletes every year. Fifty percent of the money collected each year is awarded each year, with the remaining half staying in the fund. The fund now has over $700,000, [...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]
Featured on the USOC website, the irreverent Mike and Myles Show took to the gym to find out exactly how tough men's gymnastics really is. Mike Blatchford and Myles Porter both train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. Blatchford is an Olympic Track cyclist and Porter is a visually-impaired Paralympian in judo. This year they have teamed together to put together [...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]
