MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

Valentines Day is this Friday. If you haven't already gotten your loved ones gifts, or your just running out of ideas, here are some fantastic (and hilarious) gymnastics valentines featuring all of your favorite gymnasts, courtesy of Tumblr.

Okay, a giant grievance of die-hard gymnastics fans is lack of creativity, originality and artistry. Here is a gymnast who has all three. Ksenia Afanaseyva is the current reigning world champion on the floor exercise. It's easy to see why. Ksenia can do the super power tumbling of Jordyn Wieber and company. But her choreography is so unique and creative. These days, a lot of gymnasts' version of the dance part of their floor routines mostly consists of waving their arms around in between a leap series and a tumbling pass. Ksenia is a fantastic dancer and she moves and dances so naturally it's hard to tear your eyes away. This is Ksenia's routine from the team final at the London Olympics: If you would like to see Ksenia's World Championships routine, just visit the Gymnast Profiles section of my site and check out Ksenia's profile. Again, if there is a routine or gymnast you want featured, just send me a line and I'll post it for you. Favo...

In light of all the seriousness that is going on today with the presidential debates (here in the states). I thought I would lighten the day up a bit with some hilarious gymnastics photos complete with fun captions! Aliya Mustafina, Rebecca Bross and Jiang Yuyuan Rebecca: Ewwww, girl, did you remember to put deodorant on today? Musty: Don't even go there bronze medalist, I know where you sleep! Danell Leyva This is what I'm going to do to the judges if they give me a lousy score! Ksenia Afanseyeva Today, gymnastics, tomorrow, the WORLD! Anastasia Grishina OMG! This couldn't be a worse time to need to pee! Aliya Mustafina Back off or I will cut you! What did I just tell you about cutting you? You think I'm joking? Try me! Alicia Sacramone channels Mean Girls I'm sorry people are so jealous of me, but I can't help it that I'm so popular Stephen Colbert  How he see's gy...

Gymnastics is gaining in popularity. The 2016 Rio Olympics seem so far away, and I'm sitting in the middle of football season biding my time until gymnastics returns. Former Chicago Bears Lineman, Spice Adams is getting in the spirit for Rio already. In fact, he is so excited for Rio that he is going to train for the Gymnastics team. Shawn Johnson, Gabby Douglas and Nastia Liukin aught to watch their backs! (Haha!)  He posted the following video on YouTube of him trying out the events. It's very funny.

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...

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...