MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

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.

While listening to a podcast about badass people (nearly all of whom were men), I decided it was time to celebrate the badass-ness of women. Since this is a gymnastics blog, this article will focus on bad asses in the sport of gymnastics, particularly women in gymnastics. These women are tough for their perseverance, their bravery, and just generally being awesome.

Gymnastike's popular web series, Beyond the Routine  is debuting the latest series this month. The subject of the newest subject is a former world all-around champion, a member of the 2003 World Championship team that brought home the first ever world team gold. She's also an Olympian, and has recently reinvented her gymnastics life. Have you figured out who it is yet? She was a member of the 2008 Olympic Team in Beijing... She was a world champion on the uneven bars.... If you haven't figured it out yet, you never will.

Chellsie Memmel announced today that she is returning to the world of elite gymnastics. But there's a twist. She's returning to competition as a power tumbler. Chellsie is going out for the national team for trampoline and tumbling with the ultimate goal of competing at the World Cup and then hopefully, go on to the World Championships this fall. She said this opportunity was presented to her "out of left field." " I never imagined that at 25 years old I'd be working towards making another World team, much less on the Tumbling side of gymnastics, but I am and it feels great to be doing it!"

In the interest of finding things that are related to gymnastics in movies, television and the internet, I am putting a section of this blog called Gymnastics and Pop Culture. For this entry, I am posting this clip of Family Guy's patriarch, Peter and his Yurchenko 1 1/2. For anyone who is not familiar with the show, the show, the are many cut-away vignettes segmented throughout the show that don't really have anything to do with the plot of the episode. This particular clip features Peter performing at the Olympics. He is on the vault and he performs a Yurchenko, 1 1/2. He sticks the landing. This clip is spliced with a clip of Chellsie Memmel performing the same vault.

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.

In honor of Chellsie Memmel announcing her retirement, today I'm dedicating this favorite routines entry to her. Chellsie knows how to bring it.

Today, Chellsie Memmel is retiring.... from gymnastics. She's not collecting Social Security since she is only 24 years old.  It's more like moving on to the next phase of her life.