MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

I love any mention of gymnastics on TV, in movies, it fills my otherwise slightly sarcastic self with glee. This GIF set is of a scene from the popular TV series, Modern Family.

2012 all-around champion Gabby Douglas is rejoining the national team for the first time since London. Today, USA Gymnastics released the roster for the June national team training camp that will commence Monday. Joining her will be the co-winner of this year's Nastia Liukin Cup, McKenna Kelley (aka Mary Lou Retton's daughter.)

The BBC is officially bringing the first ever gymnastics reality television competitions to audiences and judging the competition will be the fabulous Nadia Comaneci and London Olympian, Louis Smith.

John Orozco has been a national champion, a world medalist and an Olympian. He also has a secret talent for music. In this video that I randomly discovered on Tumblr, John is showing off his vocal chops by singing "Take Me or Leave Me" from the musical Rent .

First year senior Alyssa Baumann is finding her niche. In this video from the May national team training camp, Alyssa was shown training beam and bars. She's got those beautiful WOGA lines and it's especially apparent on the beam.

 Here is young Jordan Chiles,another junior on the US National team, during the May training camp. She's only 13 and won't be old enough for the 2016 Olympics in Rio since she'll just be 15. She's got beautiful form and artistry and surprisingly powerful for such a tiny wispy little thing.

In the last episode of Beyond the Routine, we were privy to Lexie's world. We learned about really disgusting injuries involving her toe. We also learned that she is afraid of doing a Ray on bars because of her toe injury, but she overcame it!  We learned that she's got the hots for a skier dude named Nick who likes to dress like Pete Wentz and wear skinny jeans that would probably fit Lexie.  Mary Lee is basically an embarrassing mom. Lexie also wears Kim Kardashian levels of make-up to the gym, at least for the camera. This week it's Amelia Hundley's story (aka Lexie's BFF). This episode was far different than Lexie's story. Amelia doesn't have time to make goo goo eyes at ski bums. She's Mary Lee's pet project. Mary Lee is determined to make Amelia into a world class gymnast.

Bring on the upgrades. US national team member and Tokyo World Cup silver medalist, Maggie Nichols was spotted at camp adding a serious upgrade to her bar repertoire.

The Aliya Mustafina fan page on Facebook posted this picture of Aliya and Polish gymnast, Marta Pihan-Kuleza.

MyKayla Skinner is proving herself to be a valuable part of team USA. At the National team training camp at the Karolyi Ranch, MyKayla has been looking stronger and more consistent than she has.

At the May national team camp, young Bailie Key was seen throwing some serious new skills.

Gymnastike followed up the original Beyond The Routine web reality program with Mary Lee. But this time, there was no Sophie Lee Tracey. Maybe she stole too much attention from Lexie and all of her gym make-up, since this is Lexie's story and all.

On the last day of the European Championships, the event finals, Beckie Downie got a gold medal for  Great Britain (finally) and Anna Pavlova marked her return to major international competition with shiny new silver medal and Larisa Iordache, Aliya Mustafina and Vanessa Ferrari all added more bling to their medal collections.

After an amazing performance during today's team finals at the European Championships, team Romania took home the gold medal. The Romanians, led by Diana Bulimar and Larisa Iordache had issues in the qualification round yesterday, but today, they on fire.

Team Great Britain is on a roll. Since London, they have been quietly joining the upper echelon of the   elite gymnastics world.

The results are in from the junior team competition and qualifying session. The Russian juniors already have a take no prisoners strong hold as they won by well over three points.

Photos from podium training for the European Championships have been floating around Tumblr. The preference for blinding hot pink trend has officially crossed the Atlantic ocean. Team Russia was spotted wearing hot pink, as was team Italy. Sigh...

Here is little Shang Chunsong during beam finals during the Chinese Nationals. Shang is looking quite confident during this routine, her connections are sharp and her routine is much more fluid than last year.  With Nanning Worlds about 4 1/2 months away,  Shang looks like she's already campaigning for beam world champion.

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.

Yao Jinnan is back (not like she ever went anywhere) and is looking fierce. Maybe it's the black flame leotard that she's sporting.

The exodus to Sofia has begun.

Ever wanted to know what the lego interpretation of McKayla Maroney's perfect Amanar or Viktoria Komova's bars would be like? Probably not, but the folks at The Guardian  (a U.K. based news outlet) have posted this hilarious video of Olympic gymnastics, with Legos.  It's freaking AWESOME.

While the European Championships are happening in Sofia, China is hosting the their national championships in Nanning, just four months before the World Championships will be held in the same city. Consider it the Chinese warm up to worlds.

With the European Championships getting underway next week, the Russian team is hard at work preparing for total domination.

Despite the on-going political upheaval in the Ukraine, the International Gymnastics Federation has agreed to lend the money for the teams to attend next week's European Championships.

It's time to wrap the Round Lake gymnasts in bubble and maybe douse every inch of that place in bleach. It's injuries and illness galore over there.