John Orozco picked up where he left off last October at the World Championships. Orozco is the Day 1 leader at Winter Cup, after a day of many lackluster performances, especially on pommel horse. He needed a 15.45 on his last event (vault) to tie 1st session leader Chris Brooks, and he ended up with a 15.60 to give him 89.35 for the day. …
Overall, Leyva fell three times and still finished in 3rd place (87.65). He is definitely showing improvement on FX and SR, making him (and Orozco) a lock for the Olympic Team. …
Paul Hamm did not impress, but I’m glad he’s in the mix. Always a threat. The BEST NEWS for Team USA is the return of David Sender. He’s a Ring man and a great AA. I’d love to see him compete London after the silly accident that took him out of Beijing.
Glen Ishino: 15.65 on pommel horse, HOLY MACKEREL!!! The breakdown was 6.7, 8.95. That’s the score of the meet in my opinion, significant enough to suddenly put him right in the Olympic mix. He also had a solid 14.4 on floor.
Shawn Johnson has been getting into shape at the Michael Johnson Performance Center in McKinney, Texas. Here she is there alongside discus thrower Jarred Rome.
From Shawn’s blog on ESPN W:
I’m focusing solely on getting my body — specifically my knee — where it needs to be in order to be ready for the U.S. national championships and Olympic trials in June.
I see a physical therapist daily for about two to three hours. We do a lot of strength training and biometrics work with high-tech tools like the Nike SPARQ Sensory Performance Lab, Dartfish digital movement analysis and Myotest. I do a lot of jumping and landing and things that really cater to my sport. In the evenings I head to a local gymnastics club for a few hours of skill work …
I’m pleased to say my knee feels a lot better. It’s still not back to normal, and I don’t know if it ever will be, but I’m learning to deal with it instead of expecting it to be like it was before. In two weeks I’ll return to Chow’s gym in Des Moines and from there will press on with full gymnastics training.
1. Charlie Lakes 112
2. Travis Romagnoli 89
3. David Zeddies 68
4. Paul Ruggeri 60
5. Justin Spring 59
… “I’ve said it from the beginning, and I’ll say it now,” said Spring, current Illinois head coach and 2008 Olympic bronze medalist. “I always knew Paul would come and break all my records.” …
… Spring has a new goal for himself: making a four-year turnaround return to the Olympics — this time as a coach. …
On recommendation from Hal Halverson, I visited Europa Gymnastics Centre, the newest and quite possibly best facility in the U.K.
By accident I arrived first at the OLD gym, a … unique set-up.
Head Coach Yvonne Arnold (British captain 1972 Munich) happily drove me over to the NEW gym.
(She and husband Len have been living above the old gym to help make this project a reality. … They’ve got a new house planned right beside the NEW gym.)
The new building is being used as an Olympic venue. So the final move won’t happen until October. But first it will host MAG and WAG English Championships 2012, March 2-4th.
They will eventually be offering WAG, MAG, Tumbling, Double-mini, Team Gym and Acrobatic Gymnastics.
Three words I’d not expected to see in the same sentence.
Paul Hamm wants to be remembered as a great Olympic champion, not the guy in the YouTube video.
More than six months after his embarrassing arrest on assault and two other misdemeanor charges, Hamm spoke out Tuesday, saying he regretted what happened and hoped to regain his reputation. …
Alyssa Roenigk posted a terrific profile on our World Champion titled Wieber Fever. It’s the companion piece to the Julie Foudy interview.
After winning a team gold and the individual all-around title at worlds in October, Wieber made it known she wanted to parlay her gold medals into an opportunity to meet The Beebs, the performer to whom she believes she is inextricably tied. They’re both small-town kids with really big dreams who beat the odds to become world renowned at what they do.
Wieber told anyone who would listen that she — and her teammates, of course — would like to meet Bieber. Then she sent out a tweet to her nearly 9,000 followers:
“Now that we are world champions…can we meet Justin Bieber yet? #welldeserved … Who has connections!?!?”
Ladies judges, for your information, the way Kohei Uchimura lands IS the correct way to land. There should be no deduction. Please correct your Codes of Points.
