What to Look Forward to At Secret Classics 2013

This Saturday is the long anticipated Secret Classic, the qualifier for the national championships!

It's all very exciting. It's the start of a new competitive season and a new quadrennium leading up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. It's full of possibilities and new beginnings. Here is a few things too look forward to for the competition on Saturday.

Amanda Borden and Samantha Peszek commentating. Amanda did the streaming broadcast last year with Tim Daggett, while Elife Schlegel was doing...something..... but that's beside the point. Amanda still has that positive energy she had in 1996 and as a cheerleading coach, she's got a lot of pep. It's always awesome when former gymnasts return to lend their voices and passion to gymnastics commentating. Shannon Miller did an awesome job with NBC Olympics online streaming with Matt Baker of Great Britain. Samantha did some commentating earlier this year since she was out of the NCAA competition season with an injury. The gymternet is certainly a buzz with excitement over this commentary pairing.

The return of Kyla Ross and McKayla Maroney. It's like the Return of the Gymnastics Jedi up in here. They've been spotted at National Team training camp about a month or so ago. Kyla looks like she has been upgrading her beam and adding in some beautiful connections and not to mention, she was working on a gorgeous floor routine. McKayla is looking as fierce as ever. At training camp, she was spotted training a super high double layout on floor and working on her bars routine. Of course, she's still got that awesome Amanar or Maroney-ar, which is vault perfection. McKayla also was training a new floor routine. Their return should be awesome. 

The return of Simone Biles, one of the newest faces on the USA Gymnastics scene and the silver medalist at the American Cup. Simone is making her mark in USA gymnastics scene with her awesome powerful vaulting and tumbling, but she's also an excellent all arounder and she proved at the American Cup that she can do just about anything.  Then there is the return of some awesomely underrated national team-members. Brenna Dowell of GAGE and Kennedy Baker who is trained by former World All-Around Champion, Kim Zmeskal.

Senior debuts. This includes Lexie Priessman who is trained by Amanda Borden's coach Mary Lee Tracey and Maggie Nichols who was also looking fantastic at training camp.

The juniors... hello! The USA women's gymnastics team is so deep and the juniors that are rising through the ranks are the proof. There is Laurie Hernandez of New Jersey, who is just the cutest thing in the world. Then there is the latest Mary Lee disciple, Amelia Hundley and of course, there is Colorado's own Polina Shchennikova, of TIGAR in Wheatridge, whom I'm looking forward to seeing her awesome beam work!

The live streaming will be on www.secretclassic.com/live this Saturday. The junior session will be at 1 p.m. central time, so that's 11 a.m. on the west coast and 3 p.m. on the east coast. The senior session is scheduled at 6 p.m. central time. Of course, if you can get a great deal on last minute flights to Chicago, you can still buy tickets (ticket prices are posted on USAgym.org) online at  Sears Centre website.