MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

2008 Olympic Champion, Nastia Liukin confirms her support for Nassar's victims.apologized for her apparent lack of concern and support for her teammates. She explained in a post on her personal website , she explained when asked about it for the first time on national television, the query caught her off guard.

With the Olympics in Rio fast approaching, it's hard to keep the new gymnastics stars straight. Luckily, the Gymternet is full of dedicated gym fans with excellent Photoshops skills to help you with the facts on your favorite gymnasts, past and present. I have gathered a group of infographics in the style of The Onion to help you learn all about the Gymternet's favorite athletes.

She may not have won the mirror ball trophy on Dancing With the Stars , but Nastia's longtime boyfriend, Matt Lombardi has given her a much more meaningful gift. The 2008 Olympic All-Around champion shared this photo on her Twitter account with a special announcement:

The big news of the week is the Nastia Liukin has signed on to do "Dancing With the Stars," following the footsteps of her teammates Shawn Johnson and Aly Raisman.

A little Friday fun... I found these series of images on Tumblr this afternoon while going on there to post a blog entry. This is a series of images of the 2008 US Olympic team with captions as to what they were "really" thinking. These Mystery Science Theater ad libbing is via SparklesandChalk on Tumblr.

It's the 10th anniversary of the cult classic Mean Girls.  Since GIFS and stills from the movie have been going viral on Tumblr, I thought it was time to share this hilarious gem. This video from Huangquishangfan on YouTube is a trailer of the movie featuring the athletes of USA Gymnastics.

Today, at the NCAA National Championships two teams, Oklahoma and Florida came out triumphant. One team won for the first time and broke through the door of an exclusive club where many dreamed to go, but only few ventured.

Nastia Liukin has been playing around Sochi while doing features for NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics.

Here's a gymternet story book about the little gymnastics federation that could, aka USA Gymnastics. Featuring Mary Lou Retton, Shannon Miller, Dominique Dawes, Carly Patterson, Chellsie Memmel and more. Lots of funny, ad lib commentary, guaranteed to give you a good laugh bright and early this Monday morning. All the credit is to Jordynslefteyebrow on Tumblr.

The Rio Olympics aren't for another 2 1/2 years, but the gymnasts are taking part in the Olympic spirit in support of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

For this edition of Favorite Routines, we're re-visiting the women's uneven bars final of the 2008 Olympic Games. I'm featuring Nastia Liukin's gold/silver medal winning routine. I say "gold/silver" because she was awarded the silver in a tie breaker for the gold medal.

The much hyped debut of the Pro Gymnastics Challenge has finally arrived. All this talk about "gymnastics as you've never seen it" piqued my attention for sure.  This is the deal. It's a skill for skill challenge, literally like the promos said. It's supposed to be in the spirit of X-Games and things like that. The format is two teams, seven rotations. Team USA vs Team World, which is exactly what NBC wants to make every televised international competition seem like, but I digress. Besides, this is ESPN and ESPN is actually owned by Buena Vista or ABC. That's beside the point. How it works: each team selects the gymnasts they want to compete on each event. It's not scored with the CoP you'd see at an FIG event. Each athlete performs a skill and the athlete from the defensive team must match the skill. The team that completes the skill the best, gets a point. The first team to get to six points, wins the rotation and a handsome $16,000. First ev...

 Hollywood has the Barrymores, the Arquettes and the Estevez/Sheens. Music has the Jacksons, the Judds and the Dylans. Reality TV has the Kardashians. Gymnastics has the Liukins, the Caquattos, Moceanus, the Kupets, the Memmels, the Komovas and the Mustafinas. The sport of gymnastics is full of legendary families with gymnastics stars. In this niche, the family business involves winning gold medals and thankfully, not making sex tapes, drinking tiger blood or going to rehab.

2013 marks a new year and new beginnings. For gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Bridget Sloan, a new beginning means leaving behind their old lives as Olympians and World Champions to start a new life as college students. Ahh, college, some of the best times of my life so far, but we're not talking about me. Bridget is in her freshman year at the University of Florida in Gainseville. Nastia is attending NYU and studying sports management. Bridget made her NCAA debut yesterday competing for the University of Florida Gators.