jill shanna dot com

I know, I have not kept up with this blog at all. There’s a lot of other stuff going on right now.

I totally missed the American Cup live online, but if you have Silverlight, you can still watch it on USA Gymnastics’ website, at least for now. This is the full event, plus some intro fluff and stuff that did not air on NBC. And best of all (at least so far), no ads inserted!

Just found this YouTube channel of Universal Sports’ gymnastics videos–definitely easier than trying to find everything on their own website.

Update on comebacks: Shawn Johnson is back on the National Team but still has yet to appear in competition. Her ACL tear while skiing last year combined with taking a couple of years off of the sport, a growth spurt, and aging have have made for a challenging return to the gymnastics elite. I really can’t wait to see her compete, though. I think she is capable and might even be a better gymnast after some of the experiences she’s had in the last two years. It is also nice to see gymnasts who are a little older and more shapely competing successfully at an elite level. Break down the stereotypes, already.

Alicia Sacramone is also still in the game, so I hope to see her again in competition soon. Nastia Liukin said she was going to start training months ago, and see where it went–no real news from her since then. I would be pretty surprised to see her come back…she doesn’t sound that sure about it and has a lot of other opportunities in commentating, hosting camps, releasing clothing lines, and such, and I think she likes all that stuff. It’s hard to come back after this amount of time off, but I think she could do it (remember her in 2009 at Nationals?)–but only if she was 100% committed to it. Only time will tell.

Paul Hamm finished school and went to Chicago to be a trader (I believe) and decided he just wasn’t ready to be done with gymnastics for the rest of his life. He plans to make a run for the 2010 Olmpic Games. He was supposed to compete in February’s all-men’s Winter Cup (which they don’t televise, for some reason) but suffered a shoulder/chest injury that required surgery, so he is going to have to rehab from that first. I really hope he can come back and stay uninjured so that his journey completes in the best possible way. He’s an amazing athlete with a great attitude and deserves all the accolades and achievements he gets.

I’ve seen some surprises in both the men’s and women’s competitions, which I will write about later. Very exciting, and lots of superb and highly complex gymnastics. I hear that Colombia’s Jessica Gil Ortiz, who took a landing on her head during her second tumbling pass in the floor event final, did not suffer any bone fractures or major injuries. My thought was concussion, based on how she reacted afterward–that was definitely painful to watch. I’m glad it turned out to be better than it looked.

One thing I must say now–WAY TO GO, MARIAN DRAGULESCU! I posted to his Facebook to congratulate him (yes, I’m officially his friend!). He now has eight world medals to his name.

The talented and chiseled veteran Romanian gymnast, at just under 29 years of age, made a comeback from retirement in 2009 and bounced back in full force. He doubtless resumed competitive gymnastics, in part, to erase the memories of his less-than-stellar fourth-place vault finish in the Event Finals in Beijing. Although he placed first on vault in the 2008 Olympics preliminary competition, his final vault performances were bittersweet–featuring an amazing and insanely-difficult first vault that was nearly perfect, followed (and overshadowed) by a badly landed second, easier vault. Dragulescu closed out the 2008 Olympic Games ranked seventh on floor exercise, though he had qualified second on that event in the prelims. After a brief retirement (his second–the first was in 2005), Dragulescu got back into the gym and finally attained redemption on his signature events, taking home two gold medals in reward for his dynamic and well-executed performances on each in London last week. Check out his floor and vault sets.

For complete video of the 2009 FIG Worlds, watch online (below) or on NBC around October 24th:

• Women’s All-Around Final (complete Internet broadcast, British and Australian announcers)
• Men’s All-Around Final (complete Internet broadcast, British and Australian announcers)
• Men’s All-Around Final (TV edit, Tim Daggett and John Rothlisberger with commentary)
• Apparatus Finals, Day 1: Men’s Floor Exercise, Women’s Vault, (Men’s) Pommel Horse, (Women’s) Uneven Bars, (Men’s) Still Rings (complete Internet broadcast, British and Australian announcers)
• Apparatus Finals, Day 1: Men’s Floor Exercise, Women’s Vault, (Men’s) Pommel Horse, (Women’s) Uneven Bars, (Men’s) Still Rings (TV edit, Tim Daggett and John Rothlisberger with commentary)
• Apparatus Finals, Day 2: Men’s Vault, (Women’s) Balance Beam, (Men’s) Parallel Bars, Women’s Floor Exercise, (Men’s) High Bar (complete Internet broadcast, British and Australian announcers)
• Apparatus Finals, Day 2: Men’s Vault, (Women’s) Balance Beam, (Men’s) Parallel Bars, Women’s Floor Exercise, (Men’s) High Bar (TV edit, Tim Daggett and John Rothlisberger with commentary)

Men’s and women’s gymnastics are back in full effect for the biggest American competition of the year on Universal Sports online, Universal Sports on TV (if you get it), and NBC.

This site is pretty unfriendly for searching and uses a Flash Player interface for absolutely everything, so direct links are going to be easiest:

• Senior Women’s Day 1
• Senior Men’s Day 2 (Day 1 did not air)
• Senior Women’s Day 2 (updated link)

I was going to post this over a week ago but didn’t feel like I was finished, and then I left town, and blah blah blah, so here it is now.

The U.S. Cover Girl Classic aired on Universal Sports the last weekend of July. It marks the last chance (other than by petitioning) for those who have not yet qualified for the Visa National Championships to do so, which are coming up, starting tomorrow (men’s and women’s artistic gymnastics will air live or live-ish on NBC this week).

You can watch the competition on demand, for a limited time, here.

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Hi everyone,

I’ve obviously been doing things other than blogging here (I used the word “blog”–and as a VERB!!) for a few months now. I have a lot of ideas for my little jewelry business but haven’t had much time at all lately to work on jewelry. It will happen, though, I promise. I’m going to make a purchase soon of some more basic materials on a larger scale and start putting stuff together that I think others will like.

I plan to move this site to another host and update WordPress and things like that on the back end–that’s one reason I haven’t been updating it lately. Anyway, this post is meant to catch you up on what I’ve been up to recently.

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