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.

Bits and Bobs

This is a post made up of all the rendom bits of news that don't seem to fit anywhere else.

The FIG has posted a preview of the upcoming World Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships in Wroclaw, Poland (July 16-18). For Brits the team mainly includes members of the now famous and very talented Spelbound. Best of luck to them all. Read about it here.

Reader Briony rightfully corrected me for saying nothing much was happening in the skating world at the moment. The British Solo Ice Dance Championships are taking place in Sheffield this week.

I have to admit I don't know much about solo dance, even though I have a friend at med-school who competed in it. It seems to my ignorant eyes to be similar in terms of the rules and patterns in the competition (a set dance- eg waltz, tango etc. then a free dance) just without partner. As Bryony pointed out, Solo dance isn't sanctioned by the ISU but is popular in the US and here in the UK. With the usual shortage of partners - it seems like a good idea!


In other sport - runner Caster Semenya is finally being allowed to compete again internationally after almost a year off and a myriad of gender tests. The results of the tests have not been released but, whatever the reason, it'll be great to see her back.



This is old news now, but the USA 2000 olympic gymnastic team are to recieve bronze medals at the 2010 visa championships after the Chinese team were stripped of theirs when Dong Fanxiao was found to be under-age. I found an interesting old fluff piece on youtube about Dong Fanxiao and the Chinese gymnastics system.

US skater Ashley Wagner has a new video blog on the universal sports website. The video also shows Christina Gao and Adam Rippon goofing around back-stage at an ice show. watch it here.

British Gymnastics has now added a great selection of videos from the national champs.
Beth Tweddle said she didn't compete floor because she was resting a slight knee injury and she also is planning to debut a new floor routine :-)

That's all for now- I'll elaborate on this if I find any more exciting info to blog.

Skating stuff

This week has been a busy one for gymnastics- hard to find much going on in the skating world.
However - I felt it deserved a mention.

Some more skaters have revealed their music choices for the upcoming season

Mao Asada JPN (I think I already posted this one - but hey)
SP Tango by Alfred Schnittke
LP Liebesträume by Franz Liszt

Yu-Na Kim - new exhibition - La Roux's Bulletproof (now THAT's a bit different to Meditation by Thais!)

Kate Charbonneau CAN
SP Malaguena
LP Hymn to Love

Amanda Dobbs USA
SP Breakfast at Tiffany's
LP Aranjuez

Christina Gao USA
SP Violin Concerto by Mendelssohn.
LP Yellow River Concerto

Tamar Katz ISR
SP Layenda, by Vanessa Mae
LP Scheherazade, by Rimsky-Korsakov

Brian Joubert FRA
SP or LP Malaguena

Shawn Sawyer CAN
LP Alice in Wonderland soundtrack

Daisuke Takahashi JPN
LP Amelie, choreo by Lambiel

Jessica Dube & Bryce Davison CAN
SP Mask of Zorro -choreography by David Wilson

Caydee Denney & Jeremy Barrett USA
LP Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin

View all those announced on the Goldenskate forum here.

Also Liza Tukatmysheva, one of Alexei Mishin's group of young, talented skaters is training what looks like an easy triple axel. Liza is 13 now I believe- is she finally old enough to compete internationally this year? Watch a video here.

Turkish skater Tugba Karademir had retired from skating to focus on university.

Nastia - still living in a whirlwind.

Olympic champ Nastia Liukin's feet have barely touched the ground since she got off the plane from Beijing. Her latest piece - a cameo on the american drama 'Make it or Break it'.

She does a nice little behind-the-scenes piece here. I'm sure her actual cameo will be hitting youtube soon.


I was hoping we might see her competing again this year, maybe on bars or floor as she almost did last year. But that seems increasingly unlikely as she continues to balance being a superstar gymnast with being a superstar.

Hard life isn't it!