MY MOMENT – U.S. Olympic Team

This is cool. A music video/anthem with lyrics dedicated to Team USA.

@CSaccullo:

Your country couldn’t be any more proud to have such an amazing group of athletes represent it. On behalf of fans everywhere thank you for all your blood sweat and tears, this is your moment!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Joint effort between @DanielCSantos and @CSaccullo.

NEW – Woodward Tahoe

So NEW it’s not on Wikipedia yet.

Woodward Tahoe opened a few weeks ago. This company is expanding.

Woodward Copper opened 2008.

Woodward Beijing opened 2010.

Click PLAY or watch Tahoe’s Opening Day video on YouTube.

Jon Slaughter, Marketing Director, is justifiable proud of progress made. They broke ground on the impressive 34,000 square foot facility only about 11 months prior to opening. It’s at Boreal Mountain Resort close to Lake Tahoe, California.

Click PLAY or watch … Nate Wessel explain the design on YouTube. Including the Trampoline Park with a “Supertramp”.

That Supertramp is not one of those built by Dave Ross / Rebound. It’s a new design. I got to bounce on it myself — BIG AIR … SLOW … and SOFT.

The highlight for many of the kids visiting is that pit jump. HUGE AIR on a bike.

Lauren Gearhart moved from Copper to get the Cheer program up-and-running at Tahoe. She explained that Artistic Gymnastics will not be offered at this camp due to space limitations. Action sports share tumbling, trampoline and pits with Cheer. It’s a natural fit.

Rod Floor, tumbling trampoline and full Cheer Floor are in place.

They’ll be no Artistic Gymnastics at this Woodward. A bit of a trend for the company, I’m thinking. Action Sports are the priority.

Woodward Tahoe looks like a winner to me. It will run winter and summer. It’s atop the Donner Pass on Highway 80, West of Truckee, California.

Training Action Sports gets a little bit safer. 🙂

homepage Woodward tahoe

LIKE Woodward Tahoe on Facebook.

China a Hidden Dragon?

Andrei Rodionenko was quoted as saying that China will have 3 Amanars in London.

That sounds highly unlikely to me. Was something lost in translation?

Huang Qiushung looked good in training. (VIDEO)

Who else?

Andy Thornton notes that Jiang Yuyuan has done it in the past.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (2008)

related – Yao Jinnan’s possible D-Score = 25.2 … counting only DTY.

I’m still projecting China 4th as a Team.

History: Olympic Champions

Full Twist:

… the final post in our series “Gymnastics History: Olympic Champions”. Over the last few months we have been looking back at former Olympic Champions and also a chance to see how our sport has developed over the years. We will conclude this series this week with the Women’s Team Champions of Olympics past. Where possible we have included results,scores and pictures or videos where available. Remember – only two Friday’s left until the Opening Ceremony! …

2008 Beijing Olympic Games

China 188.900
USA 186.625
Romania 181.525

Also in this series:

Gymnastics History: Olympic Champions – Women’s Team Champions

Kyla Ross’ father is 6’5″

We shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss potential gymnasts with tall parents.

… Jason Ross is 6’5″, and a former athlete. He played college football and baseball in Hawaii, where he met his wife Kiana; that’s where they had Kyla.

“When she was born, we were like, ‘Oh my God, she has triceps, she has quads hanging off her. What the heck’s going on?,’ Ross said. “And she was just super strong. I mean, at an early age, she was able to walk across the monkey bars, just hanging herself.”

Baby Kyla’s musculature wasn’t the only striking thing about her. Her look reflects the multi-racialism of Hawaii. Her father is black and Japanese. Her mother is Filipina, white and Puerto Rican. …

SoCal gymnast Kyla Ross brings poise, nerves of steel to London Olympics

Hideo Mizoguchi speculates that many of the super athletes of the future will be multi-ethnic, unique combinations of genetic potential.

via @OtotheBeirne

By the way, for the first time women outnumber men on the U.S. Olympic Team.

Schlock Olympic Coverage

definition schlock:

Noun: Cheap or inferior goods or material; trash.

A guy named Josh Schlock on Bleacher Report drew ire from gymnastics fans. Brigid on Facebook called his article “disaster-mongering”:

Injuries have killed the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in recent Games, especially the women in Athens and Beijing. Now the team has a few injuries that could stand in the way of a gold medal during the London Games as well.

Both the men’s and women’s gymnastics teams have injury concerns that could potentially derail them from their path to gold in London.

If the Americans are going to win a team gold in the Olympics this year, they cannot be stopped by these injuries. …

Bleacher Report – US Olympic Gymnastics Team: Top Injury Concerns Going into London 2012

Bleacher Report is one of the NEW kind of online news sites. The kind with many unpaid “reporters”. 🙂

Actually, Josh — no longer a High School intern — has a point though it’s poorly communicated.

There is a good chance that American Team member(s) will be replaced due to “injury” before competition begins in London. Price or Naddour, for example, might be put into the line-up, if they look good in training.

Couch Gymnast contributor Lauren, a couple of weeks ago, posted this hilarious Bleacher spoof post:

Michaela Maloney – No Shot at Vault Gold [My Bleacher Report Article]

Here’s another article — linked by Yahoo Sports — getting mocked right now:

Which Olympic sport is the hardest? Fourth-Place Medal ranks all 32

Chris Chase wins the 4th place medal for Schlock in Olympic journalism.

Every 4yrs we have to put up with instant experts in Artistic Gymnastics.

another Olympics GIF article

Here’s a follow-up to Get to Know Your U.S. Gymnastics Team Through GIFs.

A GIF Guide to the U.S. Gymnastics Team’s Biggest Rivals by ELSPETH REEVE on The Atlantic Wire.

It features Russia, China, Romania, Oksana Chusovitina and Beth Tweddle.

Thanks @a_picazo.