Why I Love: Ashleigh Clare-Kearney

I LOVE ACK (methinks I need a tee that says that)!!! I love ACK because she's full of power mixed in with fun (does that make any sense???). Especially her floor routine. OMG, her floor routine gives me gymgasms!!! I'm gonna miss her and Courtney Kupets dueling it out in the AA and event titles, good times, good times. Anyway, there's a part where the Florida gymnasts are cheering for her and doing her choreo, that's supa mega cute. Enjoyyy!!! BTW, my fave part should be obvie. xD

Elfi, Tim, and Al

Okay, so, Nationals were my first time watching a competition commentated by Elfi, Tim, and Al. On other gym blogs, I read that they were some very annoying idiots. I didn't think they were that bad. But then I quickly learned.

Elfi's problem is that she states the obvious and says the dumbest crap evr.

Ex.

Tim: "That should make Marta Karolyi shake her head in a different direction after her (Ivana Hong) routine."

Elfi: "Would that be up and down?"

One, to shake your head is to shake it from left to right. So both Elfi and Tim were in the wrong.

Tim's problem is that he is a bit corny and on the dumb side.

Ex.

"This is unreal. I think I saw her (Rebecca Bross) do this entire bar routine five times throughout the courst of warmup."

The problem with that quote is that you shouldn't think that you saw her do that. You should knw.

Al's problem is that he agrees with/responds to Tim's/Elfi's cornball jokes with a corny saying himself.

Ex.

Tim: "A lot of hugging in gymnastics, Al. A lot of hugging."

Al: "A lot of smooching."

*mouth hangs open* SPEECHLESS

To conclude this, I would like to say that they all need supa mega extra special help. That is all.

Don't Call It a Comeback...(New Details)

Yes yes yes, I am back with more Sacramento, I mean Sacramone, news. Inside Gymnastics has an article up now. Basically what the article is saying, is that after realizing acting and fashion (what she left her studies at Brown for to go to L.A.) wasn't for her, she started to miss her one true destiny (corny words of mine), gymnastics. Leesh shocked herself by how much she missed gymnastics.
"I don’t really know what happened," Sacramone says of the slow realization she might not be done after all. "It kind of snuck up on me."

What about all the injuries she had?, you might be asking. Well she did get shoulder surgery in May to repair the labrum tear.

But there is one thing for certain: She is def coming back.
“I am coming back, that much is decided,” she says happily. “How far I’m gonna get with that, we’ll see. I don’t know exactly what the process is going to be. I’ll probably take the rest of the summer off, just to heal up. Then I’ll start getting back into the gym in the Fall. As far as National Team stuff, I’ll leave that all up to Mihai to deal with, but hopefully I’ll be starting to compete the beginning of next year and then the main goal right now is [2010] Worlds.”

“I think, as of now, it would only be vault and beam,” she notes of her plans. “Floor is just so much pounding, too much for my body, so I think vault and beam is what I’m working to do right now.

“There’s not much like competing,” she explains of why her forays into coaching and choreography weren’t enough to satisfy her gymnastics obsession. “I love to perform and I think that’s one of the biggest things I was missing. And I kind of think I have a little bit of unfinished business with gymnastics. Yeah, I made my dream come true, but the Olympics weren’t the ideal situation. I think that plays a pretty big part of it. Obviously we still did so well, with the silver medal, but I wanted a different outcome for myself. I think that’s probably one of the biggest motivating factors.”

I can't wait. Neither can MK. Leesh has already received the blessing of Marta Karolyi.

“She was pretty happy about it,” a laughing Sacramone said of Karolyi’s reaction to the news. “She was very pleased with my decision and she was like, ‘We can’t wait to have you back.’ She wanted me to be sure I was safe and healthy about it. She was really good about it, actually.”

And she thinks this all was a Marta Karolyi/Mihai Brestyan plan.

I just hope this doesn't turn into a Michael Jordan or Brett Favre type case. The sports world doesn't need another one of those

If you wanna read the whole article, the link is embedded. Well there you have it. Don't call it a comeback, its more like unfinished business. xD

Don't Call It a Comeback...(UPDATE)

Alicia Sacramone has CONFIRMED her comeback to Inside Gymnastics Magazine!!! Details soon.

Don't Call It a Comeback...

I am very happy. Why? Because some 30 mins ago, Inside Gymnastics magazine tweeted that Alicia Sacramone is considering coming outta retirement!!! According to Inside Gymnastics, USAG prez Steve Penny announced that Leesh is "considering her comeback to the sport". More news to follow!!!

Happy Anniversary!!!

One year ago yesterday(gosh, I feel old xD), Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, and Yang Yilin were officially the best gymnasts in the world. Nastia who won the gold, Shawn the silver, and Yang the bronze. It was the 1st time Americans went 1-2 in the competition, and the 3rd time an American won the all-around.

I remember it like it was yesterday, I was sitting in my room, watching, the whole time chanting, "Beat Shawn! Beat Shawn!". Although I loved both, I felt like Nastia was kinda the under-dog, considering all the pre-Olympic hype of Shawn winning the all-around. As I was watching Nastia on UB, I nearly fainted, gawking at her impeccable (look at me using big words!), beautiful release moves! And then seeing Nastia on floor, and her hypnotizing floor music, WOW! And I was sooo excited that Nast was wearing a hot pink leo! My fave color!

And then Shawn. Seeing her powerful beam routine, and energy-ful (don't laugh; I just made my own word up) floor routine with that awesome music! WOW!

And Yang. Her beam routine was niiice, and had me intrigued the whole time. Her bars, WOW! Her beautiful lines on bars, were just WOW! And on floor, the beautiful, energetic routine she performed, WOW!

I think I might stop here, cause I'm starting to get really excited and I'm reminding myself of Bruno from Dancing From the Stars.

>>> me

Anyway, Happy Aniversary Nastia, Shawn, and Yang!

Time to Wake Up by Carly Patterson

While I am very late on the fact that she has a new song out, I have watched the video and thought about some things. First, I couldn't really get into the song, because A: I was very confused at points, cause I thought I knew how the rhythm was gonna go, but then it would take a sharp turn, and would leave me thinking, wait, huh? And B: I kept getting very distracted at the fact that Carly has piled on some pounds. Anyway, here's the vid.

So I Did Some "Research"...

And found out that only three ACC schools had gymnastics teams!!! Craaazy right??? I had to go on each school's athletics website, including my beloved Tar Heels (I was sick to my stomach having to visit Duke's, ewww). Only Maryland, NC State, North Carolina (I was a little dissappointed that there wasn't gonna be a UNC-Duke rivalry in gymnastics) had teams. One funny thing about my research: when I Googled "Tar Heels gymnastics", more pictures of the basketball team (who are the reigning NCAA basketball champs, yaaay!) came up then the gymnastics team.

---The Wannabe Gymnast---

Olivia Got That Boom Boom POW!

Olivia Courtney brought her "A" game also. Chica won the all-around title by pulling ahead of Ivana Hong with a double-twisting Yurchenko on vault. Since I missed the event, I can't tell you much, except what I read. So that's basically it. [:

---The Wannabe Gymnast---

Sabrina Vega Is HOT! HOT! HOT!

Sabrina was gettin it at the Covergirl Classic (which I somehow missed). In the junior portion of the event, she won the all-around (with a score of 56.750), and three of the four event titles. Basically, she won 3/4 (I think?) of the events. The only time she let someone shine was when Bridgette Caquatto won vault. From the buffering video I saw of her FX, her first pass is very strong, and her dance moves need to be more fluid. The only bad thing about her FX was her floor music: Spanish guitar music (ya-awn!).

---The Wannabe Gymnast---