MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

18 years ago today, seven women from around the country came together to win the first ever Olympic team gold medal for the USA. Those girls would forever be known as the "Magnificent Seven" or "Mag 7" for short.

Not exactly the first person to report this. The head coach and Aliya Mustafina's personal coach, Alexander Alexandrov got the pink slip from the Russian gymnastics federation. Basically, what has happened is the board of the Russian Gymnastics Federations pulled a coup, and fired him because of some gymnasts' performances in the team final were sub-par. They voted, and fired him behind his back.

Out of all the events, the bars is definitely one of my favorite.  Perhaps this is because I love the idea that this makes human beings fly, overcoming the laws of gravity. That's why I liked it as a kid. Perhaps also why I still love it as an adult. When I watch the bars, the kid in me has the urge to find a set of bars and swing on them.  Another reason I love the bars is it requires such precision and lightness. This routine is Aliya Mustafina's gold medal winning bar routine from London. This is one of my favorite routines from London because it not only has all of the qualities I mentioned above, but it's really a true testament of character. A year and a half prior to London, Aliya busted her knee at the Euros on the vault.  Knee injuries are devastating to everyone, but especially to gymnasts. Most gymnastics events require the athletes to put a lot of stress on their joints either pounding on them from landing and launching yourself in tumbling. I...

Happy National Gymnastics Day, everyone! Today, we gymnastics lovers join in our love of the sport. What are you doing to celebrate? If you are a gymnast, hopefully, you're spending some time with your feet above your head or in flight. While searching for National Gymnastics Day, I found this on USA Gymnastics Website. They're teaming up with Michelle Obama's Let's Move Initiative to help the Children's Miracle network. From usagym.org: "USA Gymnastics is preparing to "Turn the World Upside Down" all the way to National Gymnastics Day on Saturday, Sept. 22. Along with our National Gymnastics Day efforts, the USA Gymnastics Fitness Program is partnering with First Lady Michelle Obama's  Let's Move!  initiative to help get more than a million young people involved in sports. Once again, USA Gymnastics is teaming up with the Children's Miracle network to raise funds in conjunction with National Gymnastics Day. So, plan your Nationa...

Wanna know what your favorite gymnasts have been up to post London? Don't visit TMZ, E! or God forbid, Perez Hilton. Stay right here and I'll bring you all the juice. So what are the lovely ladies doing these days? The USA girls are busy on the Kelloggs Tour of Champions. They're throwing on costumes and prancing around the beam and trying to stay in one piece. This is not exactly the case for McKayla Maroney as you may have heard. The word from People magazine is she fell on the bars. The only other thing I know is that it was during a "simple" dismount, I'm not sure what People's definition of a "simple" dismount is, but whateves.

Welcome back to the new blog site loyal readers! The Finalized WAG 2013-16 CoP has been published officially. Yay! In my last blog, I went over the proposed changes. This week, I will discuss the finalized changes and additions. This also includes new skills that have been officially added to the CoP as of the London Olympics. Remember, for a gymnast to get an original skill named for her, she must perform it at an Olympic or World  Championships  and it must be submitted for approval. Here are three new skills added to the code

Welcome to MCS Maria's Elite Gymnastics new blog site! I'm glad you've made the transfer with me to my new Blogger site. I hope this format will be more welcoming to you and I hope you'll keep visiting. This is still my gymnastics blog, dedicated to all things elite artistic gymnastics. This is a site for gymnastics fans and devotees. I will be posting topics related to the sport of gymnastics. This is a site that is welcome to everyone, and if you have any suggestions, or topics you want me to blog about, please feel free to contact me. I will be creating an email exclusively for this blog. When I create it, I will post that here. I mostly follow women's artistic gymnastics, so if you want to see posts about the men, please go ahead and contact me and if you provide content or ideas, I will be happy to give you due credits. My rule is that topics MUST be related to the sport of gymnastics. If you submit a topic, please make sure it is related to gymnastics. T...