Month: February 2018

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Torn Achilles ends Florida gymnasts career

LEWA EVANS

Senior, Kennedy Baker, a gymnast at the University of Florida, came to the end of her gymnastics career when she recently tore her Achilles during her floor routine at the teams home meet against the Arkansas Razorbacks.

The  Florida fans were extremely quiet as all of their eyes were focused on Baker as she sat clutching her foot after falling on a pass during her floor routine. Her injury happened at the end of Florida’s sixth straight win over Arkansas 197.725-196.875. During the awards ceremony, the team sat with their faces straight ahead, lost in silence and  their thoughts over their teammates injury.

Unfortunately, Baker is done with her gymnastics career. Due to her being a senior, and competing too many times this year, she is not eligible for a fifth year. Baker tweeted out a message to all of her fans the other night…”Hey guys unfortunately my Achilles is torn. I love you all so much… this is not the way that I wanted to end my senior season, but there’s so many I could’ve made it this far without all of your support. Thank you guys for being the best fans in the world.” Baker seemed to be disappointed in how things played out, but she also seemed to be keeping her spirits high.

The team is taking a big hit to their line ups due to the fact that Baker was a major contributor in their, floor, vault and bars line up. Its going to be interesting to see how the team adapts to the loss of Baker. She was a big part of the program and definitely left her legacy at Florida. She was a 11-time All-American(6 NCAA/ 5 NACGC regular season), 2015, 2016, and 2017 All-SEC,  three time SEC champion( 2016 all-around, vault:2017 floor exercise), shares Florida exercise record 10.0), and 2015 SEC freshman of the year.

Personally, due to the fact that Florida is a strong team, I think they will be bale to continue to do well even with the loss of Baker. What do you guys think? Do you think Florida will continue to do well even though they are down a team member?

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LSU gymnast out for the season

LEWA EVANS

Image result for mckenna kelleyUnfortunately, there has been some sad news that was announced from the LUS gymnastics team. One of the team’s juniors, McKenna Kelley, ruptured her achilles tendon during one of the team’s practices.

Kelley shared her news on her Instagram account, writing a touching message out to her family, friends, and fans. By the looks of what she wrote she seems to be confident in her comeback…” Tiger fans, I promise you I will work my tail off to be the best person, student, and athlete for this school”. The amount of confidence Kelley has with her right now is exactly what she needs to help get her back to her full capabilities.

Kelley earned first team-All American and All-SEC honors last season, helping LSU accomplish a record breaking season. This year she was predicted to continue helping her team by being apart of the floor line-up as well as the vault line-up. Due to the circumstances now, she is likely to redshirt this year and return as a red shirt junior next year.

I think it will be interesting to see how the team handles this big loss. Kelley played a very important role in the team’s floor line up, always being able to perform well enough so that her score contributed to the teams over all score. It will be interesting to see who steps up to the plate and takes Kelley’s spot. I personally believe the team will be able to come up with someone that can replace Kelley due to the fact that the team looks very strong this year.

As for Kelley as an individual, I personally believe she will be able to come back from her injury in no time. It was said that she got her surgery almost immediately after she hurt herself. This is good news to hear because the faster you get surgery for a major injury, the faster it can heal. What do you guys think of Kelley’s injury? Do you think she’ll be able to bounce back from her injury as well?

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Is Simone Biles capable of a comeback!?

LEWA EVANS

     Can Simone Biles pull off another round of her amazing performances in the 2020 Olympics? We will have to wait and see come the 2020 Olympics in Japan.

During the 2016 summer Olympics, hosted in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil., powerhouse gymnast Simone Biles lead the American gymnasts to success in the team all-around competition. Not only that, but the then 19-year old also went on to win a bronze medal on beam, a gold medal on floor, a gold medal on vault, and a gold medal in the individual all-around.

After her amazing success at the Olympics, Simone was a part of the gymnastics Olympics tour, performing her routines with other Olympic gymnasts, traveling from city to city. After being done with the Olympic tour, Simone took a break from gymnastics (which was well deserved), and ventured onto things that weren’t gymnastics oriented. One major thing she was apart of was the show Dancing with The Stars. Even though she did not win the competition, she placed third overall, proving her dancing skills were just as up to par as her gymnastics skills.
After a little over a year off gymnastics, the gymnast is making her comeback. In August, she began to start playing around in the gym, stating she needed to see how her body responded before deciding whether she was mentally and physically prepared for the task of training. Her decision was evident when she tweeted a couple of days ago…” Can’t believe I start gym this week”. The gymnast will start her new training regiment at the World Champions Gymnastics Center, a gym that was built by her parents for her a couple of years prior to the 2016 Olympics. Her former coach, Aimme Boorman, will not be continuing to coach Simone due to moving to Florida. Simone has hired two new coaches Laurent Landi and Cecil Landi who have worked with many successful gymnasts.

Many people question whether Simone will be able to repeat what she did in the 2016 Olympics. It’s always been known in the gymnastics world that it is hard to go back and train for the Olympics again you’ve already been there and prospered. Some do make it back to the Olympics, but in most cases, they don’t do as well as they did before. It will be interesting to see how Simone’s training goes as well as her connection with her new coaches. Personally, I believe that a combination of training hard, having a good connection with her coaches, and her natural talent will lead her back to success in the 2020 Olympics.

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The Gators “chomp into” the Sooners!!

LEWA EVANS

It’s a victory! In a turn of events, No. 5 in the nation, the Florida Gators, came out with a victory over No. 1 in the nation,  the Oklahoma Sooners. The meet was a nail biter, and so far, the most memorable meet of the year in the college gymnastics world.

One individual that stood out on the Florida Gators, was Alex McCmurtry. The senior out of Virginia, was able to achieve two perfect 10.0 scores, taking the first-place title on beam and on vault. Her beam score for this meet was able to complete her “Gym Slam”, as she now is joining a former gymnast of the Gators, Bridget Sloan, as another gymnast to earn a perfect 10 on each event.

Another individual that stood out within the meet was Maggie Nichols (whom also earned a gym slam last year). The sophomore out of Minnesota, took the all-around win with a total of 39.775, and the uneven bar win with a 9.975.

At the beginning of the meet, the Gators trailed by 0.025 after the first rotation and OU pushed ahead,  leading by a tenth after the second rotation. After a new school balance beam record for the Florida Gators, the two teams were tied going into the final event rotation.

In the final rotation, Oklahoma had finished all their beam routines and Florida needed at least a 9.9 from their last competing gymnast, freshman Alyssa Baumann, to tie up the score for the meet. Fortunately for the Gators, Baumann landed all her passes and was able to get a 9.925, leading the Florida Gators to take victory over the Sooners. After flashing the final floor score, the Gators jumped up and down in the middle of the floor waving to the crowd and doing the famous “gator chomp”.

I personally got to see Baumann’s floor routine, and although she made all her passes, I did not think she deserved a 9,925. Some of her landings were sloppy, causing her feet to move a lot. Additionally,  on most of her passes, she ended with her chest down (you’re supposed to end with your chest up). With all the little mistakes that I saw in her routine, I think that she should’ve gotten a 9.7 or a 9.775, which would’ve caused the gators to lose the meet. I think the judges were very biased when judging her floor routine, they wanted the Gators to win, so they gave her the score she needed. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Oklahoma is very overrated due to the fact that they always win. It’s definitely nice to see when other teams beat OU, but in this case, Florida should not have won the meet. For those of you that saw the meet, what did you think of it?

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About

LEWA EVANS

Hello!  My name is Lewa Evans and I am a currently a full time college student at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater! Im  majoring in  environmental science and have an emphasis is geo-sciences. Additionally,  I am a member of the Whitewater gymnastics team!

This blog is going to be about gymnastics! Topics include; college gymnastics meets and results, college gymnasts who have gotten injured, elite gymnasts, and Olympians who are or aren’t currently training for the next Olympics. Also, I will be stating my opinion on what I think of the topic and asking you guys what you think as well. Feel free to leave any comments or questions that you have in the comments section! To add to this, if you guys have any particular topics that you want me to cover(related to gymnastics of course), please leave those in the comments section as well!

I hope these articles can be read and enjoyed by fellow or current gymnasts, anyone who is not a gymnast but has always been interested in reading about the sport, or someone who knows nothing about the sport of gymnastics but would like to read about gymnastics to see if they like it.