Please...just do it.

Seeing as Shayla Worley IS my favorite gymnast in the whole entire world. I thought I would post about her latest issue. So before this whole Ashley Priess/Chellsie Memmel battling it out for the last bars spot, everyone just KNEW shayla was a lock. Now whether you agree with that or not is besides the point.

Gymnastics cost a lot of money between the plane tickets, meet entry fees, coaches fees, booster club fees, ect. Add on top of all of that add tickets to go to Beijing, tickets for gymnastics qualifications, team finals, and maybe event finals, and a hotel room. Things like that cost an arm and a leg!!

So shayla's parents have set up a fund because they can't afford this ridiculous amount of money to send her parents and siblings and i think her grandmother to the Olympics. They are asking people to pitch in to help them out. So please do it!! They aren't asking you for hundreds of dollars, but every little bit helps. So maybe you don't want to send it a ridiculous amount of money... send in 10 or 5 dollars. It all adds up!

Here's where you can donate: Shaylaworley.com

Reporting from Camp II

This time its the international meet that was held at the ranch results:

All Around:
1. Ivana Hong: Vault 15.2, Bars 14.9 (WITH A 6.2 difficulty!! why is her B score never in the 9's!), Beam 15.8 (wow..), floor 14.75 (typical.)

2. Ashley Priess: Vault 14.6, Bars 15.75 (NICE! but still not nice enough, we need like three 16 on bars), Beam 15.15, Floor 13.55 (ouchh...)

3. Chellsie Memmel: Vault 14.1, Bars 14.5 (OMG what the heck! I thought we could count on Chellsie for bars!!), Beam 15.35, Floor 14.55


Oh man Chellsie is NOT looking good, why is she struggling so much! The only thing decent about her meet was Beam and it was lackluster at that. Things are looking down for Chellsie but I might have to eat my words at Nationals because who knows she could pull out all these amazing routines...

but I highly doubt it.




Other Scores from girls I care about!

A-Sac Vault: 15.65
A-Sac Beam: 16.15 (WOW!!!)
A-Sac Floor: 15.2
Darling Floor: 14.85 (um..what happened?)

Aisha Gerber was there!! I'm so happy she's back in gymnastics strong. Hopefully she'll try for the Olympics this year, but she has to go against so many for those 2 spots in Canada.

Mattie Larson?? I don't even know who this girl is, but apparently she has a good DTY. But she didn't get above 15 in All Around Finals

Event Finals!!

Vault: Not much competition because Alicia wasn't competing
1. Alyssa Brown (CAN) 14.05
2. Catherine Dion (CAN)13.025
3. Sydney Sawa (CAN) 13.875

Bars:
1. CHELLSIE MEMMEL!!!! OMG! 16.0 (A score 6.9!)
2.Ashley Priess 15.8
3. Paola Galante 15.3

Beam:
1. A Sac!!! 15.6
2.Ashley Priess 15.3
3. Ivana Hong 15.3

Floor:
1. A Sac!!! 15.5 (thats pretty good!)
2. Mattie Larson (who?) 15.2
3. Darling :) 15.1 (thats decent too!)

So EF pretty good, I'm proud of Chellsie for pulling it back together. I was worried, but I'm glad she could pull out a 16! Sacramone is perfectly on form as usual just wish she would upgrade to an Amanar on vault or something and do a double double on floor. But I shouldn't get my hopes up. That was the last international meet before the Olympics.

SO EXCITED! as you can probably tell...

Nationals June 3

Full results: AA: http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/Porta...0514_105521.pdf

EFs: http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/Porta...0514_105827.pdf

Hahaha

Okay last post for today I swear. But this is so funny. This video was actually shot a while ago, after the 2007 world Championships but for a while the video player wasn't working on NBC's site. Now after the new revamped site I can finally see it!! It talks about the habits of the team during the trip like Ivana being a compulsive teeth brusher (omg haha) and Samatha the room key loser. It's actually really funny, check it out: http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=2591ad6a-30e4-4b81-954e-fbfd44668a89

Deep in the Heart of Texas

To go along with my post "reporting from Camp" I thought I would also post an article posted in the LA times that talks about camp. It's a very interesting article talking about what the camp is all about, the history of the camp, and who attends camp. What I find really cool about this article is that they include Darlene aka Darling (she changed her name I guess?? That's what they explain in the article) Hill and her thoughts on the camp. They don't gush over Shawn Johnson, but state that Nastia and Shawn are the favorites in Beijing. They don't make Bela out to be some angry man who yells at people about weight, instead they show his kind side when he is joking about how many keys he has and how he doesn't know what opens what (haha..)

"NEW WAVERLY, Texas -- There are no lions and tigers and bears (probably) at the Karolyi Ranch deep inside Sam Houston National Forest. No, but these 2,000 acres are full of camels, red deer, cows, bulls, peacocks, white swans, black ones too, seven dogs and loads of gymnasts who tumble off the buses that bring them here to live in cabins, navigate the wildlife and listen to the plain-spoken criticism of USA Gymnastics national team coordinator Martha Karolyi.

"Back straighter please," Karolyi says to world all-around champion Shawn Johnson, 16, who quickly snaps out a kink invisible to everyone but Karolyi, Johnson and Johnson's coach Liang Chow.
"Nastia, please, no wobble," Karolyi advises Nastia Liukin, who recently beat Johnson in an all-around competition in New York. Liukin had seemed to move her left big toe slightly on completion of a tumbling pass on the balance beam.

The women of the United States senior national team have gathered at the ranch for the final time before they compete in the Visa National Championships in Boston June 5-7 and the U.S. Olympic team trials in Philadelphia June 19-22.

After those competitions, a training squad will be chosen to return in July to the ranch, where the rest of the six-member team plus two alternates will be chosen.

It is at this ranch where the U.S. has become the most formidable power in gymnastics." (exert from Mining for gymnastics gold at Texas Ranch)

Full Article here: http://www.latimes.com/sports/printedition/la-sp-karolyi11-2008may11,0,3561045,full.story

No Glam, Just Sam

huh?? What kind of a title is that!?! Anyways, IndyStar.com did a interview of Sam Peszek, commenting on how she is all over the Internet and how she goes to a private school.

here's the interview: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080510/SPORTS/805100446

It talks about how she owns her own BMW and gets to park in the senior parking lot even though she's a sophmore... Can I just say wow? This whole interview is suppose to be talking about how they don't treat her differently than any other person at the school. and yet they play her video from Worlds at assemblies and announce on the announcement to watch her on TV at the American Cup. Ha...no special treatment, YEAH RIGHT!!! Anyways the whole interview is basically about money and wealth and treatment. enjoy :)

Also here's the video to go with it:

Reporting from Camp!

Updates on the recent training camp:

Shawn:
-Added the toe-full before her shoot over back into her bar routine (she already did that at the Grand Prix she won, so not really new)
-Hasn't been training her new tkatchev on bars, but I can't see shawn doing a tkatchev anyways..
-Was training a pike front on beam...but we don't know if she's replacing the tuck or just adding it
-Tried to end with a full-in in her floor routine but fell.
-Has the same new floor music as Ashley Priess, a Mozart's piece. Interesting choice (ha..)
-EDIT: shawn DOES compete her amanar (according to "Gymblog" and the Register)

Nastia:
-Her ankle is acting up AGAIN.. oh god. I hope this isn't going to get any worse. EDIT: while Nastia's ankle may be bothering her, I watched a picture slideshow from the Dallas Morning News and it isn't even taped! so no worries there I guess!
-Nothing upgraded that I know of except her DTY

Alicia:
-I don't even know if she was there, but she sprained her ankle. Its not bad, but enough for her to stay off of it for a while

Chellsie:
-Her shoulder is acting up AGAIN like Nastia's ankle.. but she is still doing full sets on bars??

Shayla:
-Poor thing left early from the camp because of injuries. Her hamstring starting acting up, her back is still sore from the past injury, so she only did bars. THEN her back started to hurt more near her shoulder blade

Sam:
-WOW upgrades all over the place. Her A score is now equal to Shawn's A score on floor
-She is now officially doing the double arabian off beam
-And apparently she added a Ray (double double) off bars like Shawn too

Amber:
-Had back surgery but now she's trying to recover in time for Nationals (not a chance) and trials.. the poor girl is injured ALL THE TIME.. and to be honest I completely forgot about her! I don't think she has a chance at Beijing because the only thing she's good at is Vault and we have enough girls doing DTYs

Bridget:
-Upgraded her bars to an A score of 6.7, which is good for the US considering they only have Nastia who can swing bars at this point (a score 7.7), and Shayla who can swing bars but who's A score is a 6.8. WE NEED SOMEONE ON BARS!! China now has 2 girls who have a 7.7 A score! Oh and apparently Chellsie has a 6.7 A score and Jana has a 6.5.

Lou:
-Not training for the olympics any more... She's decided she wants to only focus on Alabama. ugh. and she had somewhat of a legit shot. I mean she wasn't for sure, but she definetly had a shot.

Shawn beat Nastia in the AA with a fall, but Nastia had trouble with her ono 1/2 spin and vault and of course she stepped out of bounds a couple of times. Sam got third

Rumor has it...

Remember my post earlier about Vanessa Ferrari's "vocals" routine?? Well rumor has it she that she will be changing it for the Olympics. How sad because actually enjoyed her floor routine!

Apparently she will be getting a mix: Tosca,Boheme,Madame Butterfly. And apparently there was an interview in Italy on the artist who will do it for her. Now don't quote me because this is a very unreliable source and people over exaggerate to make themselves look cooler. But those are the rumors!