Archive for Olympics
Highlights from the P&G UK Video Series on Mums of Olympians
Posted by: | CommentsMotherhood transcends geography, cultures and generations. There have been sports moms since the beginning of time and in this week leading up to Mother’s Day in the United States, I just can’t help but to share the touching stories, wisdom, tenacity and true love of sports moms everywhere through this series of short videos put together by Procter & Gamble (P&G) who are “Proud Sponsors of Moms.” In this compilation of the Mother’s of the United Kingdom’s Olympians (including Jessica Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Paula Radcliffe), there are some true gems, but more so, they are real Moms who are true role-models.
What amazing role models these athletes have had their entire lives. And one of my favorite quotes – which is what I tell parents about the sports journey, too – is Motherhood is a Marathon, not a Sprint.
Olympic Gymnast Shawn Johnson’s Mom on Raising An Olympian
Posted by: | CommentsProcter & Gamble has released some new videos honoring sports Moms after the success of their Thank You Mom commercial (ok, they were probably all planned out together). Anyhow, I just watched the video segment featuring Shawn Johnson and her Mom and found it very refreshing.
In the segment Shawn’s mom talks about everything from keeping a balance to not being “THAT MOM” – you know the pushy one who thinks their child is the next Olympian and how she has been their for Shawn every step of the way in her gymnastics journey. Add to it all, the adorable footage of Shawn as a little gymnast, and I quickly found myself reaching for a box of Puffs tissues!
I’m not sure if Shawn will make this year’s Olympic team, but regardless, I think she has contributed so much to the sport of gymnastics that she is always going to be a champion as far as I am concerned.
Who Will Make The USA Gymnastics Olympic Team in 2012?
Posted by: | CommentsThe question as to which gymnasts will be on the 2012 Olympic team for the USA is still to be decided – with Visa National Championships and the Olympic Trials still weeks away – however, if you take a look at the album USA Gymnastics recently posted on Facebook in conjunction with the United States Olympic Committee’s Raise Our Flag campaign, you can get a pretty good idea of who USAG thinks is in the running.
Starting in the upper left corner:
- Alexandra (Aly) Raisman – 2011 World Championships team gold medalist and floor exercise bronze medalist
- Jordyn Wieber – 2011 World Championships team and all-around gold medalist and balance beam bronze medalist (and her list of winning moments is miles long)
- McKayla Maroney – 2011 World Championships team and vault gold medalist
- Sabrina Vega – that’s her in the jump photo, too – 2011 World Championships Team gold medalist
- Shawn Johnson – yep, two photos of her too – Won four medals at the 2008 Olympics: Gold (balance beam) and silver (team, all-around and floor exercise)
- Alicia Sacramone – Ten World medals (four gold, four silver and two bronze); the most World medals by an American gymnast. 2008 Olympic medalist, 2011 World Championships Team gold medalist
- Anna Li – Alternate for the 2011 World Championships Team that won a gold medal. Former NCAA gymnast, 8-time All American
- Gabby Douglas – 2011 World Championships Team gold medalist
- Kyla Ross – 2012 Kellogg’s Pacific Rim Championships, Everett, Wash. – 1st-Team, BB; 2nd-AA, UB; 3rd-FX
- Nastia Liukin – Won the all-around gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games
- not pictured here, but on the actual Facebook album, Rebecca Bross – Six-time World medalist – three silver and three bronze.
* career highlights found on USAG National Team bios
Only five gymnasts will make the Olympic team and in my opinion you could put together just about any combination of five of the girls pictured above and come up with a solid US Olympic Team. It is going to be tough, because only the top placing girl at Olympic Trials is guaranteed her spot! The next four plus as many as three replacement athletes will then be determined by a selection committee. Yikes.
The competition format at the Olympics is going to be 5-4-3 format in preliminaries, and 5-3-3 in team finals. What that means is there can be 5 athletes on the team. In preliminaries 4 athletes will compete on each event (it doesn’t have to be the same four on each event) and the top 3 scores will count for that event’s score. In team finals, each team still has 5 athletes, but only 3 can compete on each event and all three scores count. That means the team who makes the least number of mistakes – wins.
And, if I had to go out on a limb and make my predictions for the 2012 US Olympic Gymnastics team now, I would go with:
- Jordyn Wieber
- Aly Raisman
- Gabby Douglas
- McKayla Maroney
- Alicia Sacramone
- Alt: Kyla Ross
It will be interesting to see if I am right and I would love to hear your predictions for the 2012 US Olympic Gymnastics team! And do you have your Team USA Olympic fan gear yet?
