USA smiles

Cincinatti Gymnastics posted this photo of Team USA Junior and Senior gymnasts at the most recent national team camp. The girls are gearing up for the Covergirl Classic and Visa Championships.

Youth Olympics Teams

The British Olympic Association have announced the names of those they will send to Singapore for the Youth Olympic Games. The list includes diver and 2008 Olympian Tom Daley and Gymnasts Laura Mitchell (Jr National Champ) and Sam Oldham (Jr European Champ)



Read the article and see the full list here.


Australia has also named its new junior champion, Angela Donald as their female gymnast.
The USA has confirmed it will NOT be sending a female gymnast.
Looks like an easy win for Komova then.......
I'll update when a more complete list becomes available

Edit- thanks to the good people on the international gymnast forum answering my post, here are some more names for the list.
China - Tan Sixin
Romania - Diana Bulimar
Italy - Carlotta Ferlito

Bouncing Back.

Two skaters looking to bounce back from disappointing 09-10 seasons are Mira Leung (of Canada) and Caroline Zhang of the USA.

Mira recently took part in the Heart Truth Fashion Show, looking elegant and mature in a one-of-a kind designer red dress. Mira gave her own story of how heart disease had affected her family.

“My grandmother is active and has never worried about her health, yet she suddenly had a heart attack. Seeing her so sick in the hospital was very shocking, especially in such stark contrast to her usual vivacity. Today, she is back to her usual self, but that experience made me realize how important heart health awareness is, and how vital it is to look after your heart no matter how healthy you are. I am excited to be taking part in the Heart Truth fashion show and supporting this wonderful foundation. It means the world to me to be able to help spread the message about heart health awareness!”


Joannie Rochette also took part in the show in honour of her mother, and looked down right fabulous!

I personally have been a big fan of Mira's skating. She's recieved a lot of slack over the years for her odd jumping technique and lack of maturity, but I've always found her fun to watch. I also feel the Canadian Skating Federation turned its back on her as soon as she stopped winning national medals - not giving her a single international assignment to try and prove herself. I felt she was much improved at the last 2 Nationals but they didn't seem to think so.

I hope she bounces back and can show some of this new found sassy-ness on the ice.


Caroline Zhang had a disaster at the 2010 nationals - finishing 11th, but revived her season by winning a bronze at 4 Continents. She too has a lot of technical issues to fix if she's going to stay competetive. But I hope she can as she still has beautiful qualities.

This is still all unofficial but word is that Caroline's coach Ming Xu Li has moved back to China and she is now being coached by Tammy Gambill. If this is so, it should all be confirmed at the US champs camp later in the summer.

Caroline has bounced around coaches before, but I hope she can settle down and make it work this year.

(Mira & Joannie's photos came from the Heart Truth show's Flikr Account. Caroline's photo was taken by my friend and skating photographer Phil Culhane)

A busy weekend.

Apologies for the lack of updates, I've been away at my cousin's wedding this weekend. Most of today's news comes from other people's blogs and websites that I was browsing through when I got back. I promise to be more proactive in future!


The list of competitors for the USA Covergirl Classic is up, and it's pretty full. Those competing include Bridget Sloan , Rebecca Bross, Alicia Sacramone, Kayla Williams, Mattie Larson, Samantha Shapiro, Alexandra Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Kyla Ross, Sabrina Vega and many others. View the full list here.
Those we won't see (unsurprisingly for most) - Olympians Nastia Liukin & Shawn Johnson and the still injured Ivana Hong.

British gymnast Daniel Keatings has blogged on his progress, 7 weeks after surgery to repair his ACL. He remains positive and ahead of schedule in his rehab. Maybe he is still planning to make a comeback before the end of the season. Good luck to him! Thanks to 'Full Twist' for the link.

Georgia Bonora did win the Australian championships- read the article from international gymnast magazine.


According to blogger 'Aunt Joyce' Olympic Silver Medallist Sasha Cohen, and former US pairs champ Rockne Brubaker have had a pairs tryout- If they form a partnership it could be very exciting.....

Also from Aunt Joyce - Yu-Na Kim is now a Goodwill Ambassador for Unicef. Yu-Na donated $100,000 to the Haiti Earthquake appeal earlier this year and recently spoke in this message to other donors.

Oh yeah, and I think there's some football going on today too....

News Bits

Georgia Bonora is leading the All Around competition at the Australian Gymnastics hampionships. You can read a great article by the Gymnastics Examiner here, or Australian Gymnastics here.
The nationals will help to decide the World and Commonwealth teams.


American Skater Johnny Weir is taking this season off to try and develop his skating and persue his other interests.
(Surprise Surprise!)

You can read a full article from icenetwork as well as a written statement from Johnny.

Johhny tweeted "I am sorry to disappoint you all. I will be back. Don't be sad. I love you so much."

To be fair, Johnny has been focusing more on the celebrity than on the skating recently. But he says he'll be back so we'll watch and wait.

If he and Evan both sit out Nationals this year it will make way for a new wave of talent.

Also, Michelle Kwan and Yu-Na kim are to skate a duet to Maria Carey's song 'Hero' in Yu-Na's show - All That Skate Summer. Yesterday was Michelle's 30th birthday. That these two champions who have done so much for the sport have a mutual appreciation society is great.

Dinner with the Queen

Canada's olympic ice dance champions, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were invited to dinner with the Queen in Toronto, during her recent visit to Canada.

Tessa wrote about the experience for Skate Canada/Skatebuzz. Follow the links to see photos of their outfits!

Sunday night – 9:30 p.m.

It was surprising enough to receive an invitation from the Prime Minister to meet the Queen of England and The Duke of Edinburgh, but on the eve of the big event, we got an official invitation to join the Royals at the HEAD TABLE! WOW! We were floored! What an incredible honour - but what could we have possibly done to deserve this privilege??!!!

Monday morning
Scott rented a tux - very 007; classic and sharp. So after picking that up - and waiting while the sleeves were lengthened - we were on our way to Toronto for the big adventure. Scott was driving and we had the tunes blaring – even our new free dance music was on the CD I made for the trip. We made good time, probably because there was very little traffic (not because Scott was driving fast J) -- we even had time to grab lunch at East Side Mario's beside our hotel – The Intercontinental. Everything was going smoothly! Until.....

Monday afternoon
…immediately after I got out of the shower - before blow-drying my hair - the power went out!!!! Getting ready without much light and sans hair appliances was challenging to say the least. Of all times for a power outage!!! Scott and I have a little experience handling stress and managed to pull ourselves together as you can see in the photos!!! Off we marched, in the sweltering heat, across the street to the Royal York.

Monday evening
We registered and entered an opulent grand ballroom. At this point my main concern shifted to not spilling anything on my dress and to not tripping. There was a sophisticated reception abuzz with glamorous guests – we met so many distinguished people! It was great to see one of our friends, Jennifer Heil, Olympic mogul skier and reminisce about the Games!

The time came to proceed through the receiving line - Prime Minister Harper, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, Mrs. Harper. Hand shake, curtsy/bow, curtsy/bow, hand shake - did that really just happen?????

Dinner was incredible - we were two of ten people at the head table. This once-in-a lifetime experience was better than I ever dreamed it could be - the grace, charm and kindness expressed by Her Majesty and His Royal Highness was astonishing and heart-warming!

The Canadian Tenors performed three songs after dessert- the energy in the room was so united and electrifying! The night ended with the Tenors singing O Canada and everyone joining in. What a proud moment! Scott and I were absolutely overwhelmed by the magnitude of the entire evening!!!

Monday night
We exited the Royal York Hotel on cloud nine (and carrying Your Majesty The Queen and Your Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh's place cards from the dinner table). We'd met so many inspirational people and experienced something most people only dream about!

Scott added his thoughts about the event as well.

“Oh my, it was an unbelievable evening. Of course Tessa looked stunning in her green dress and it was such an honour to be seated at the same table as Her Majesty, His Royal Highness and The Right Honourable Stephen Harper. I really enjoyed the company of General Walter Natynczyk who had fascinating stories about inspiring our troops overseas and his experiences with the Snowbirds. The whole evening went by so quickly and it was just another opportunity for us to realize how lucky we are to be Canadian and celebrate that with The Queen of Canada herself!”

Tessa and Scott weren' t the only skaters to meet the Queen during her visit to Canada, Joannie Rochette was also invited to, and gave a speech at the royal celebrations of Canada Day on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

From USA gymnastics

Team USA gymnasts at the Prom
I know Mattie and Sam are going on to college gymnastics
I think Bridget and Ivana are staying as elites.