My top 10 Favorite, US gymnasts to watch.

Tell me your top 10 favorite US gymnasts to watch in the comments section…

When I started writing this list the gymnasts were in order. Now I’m not so sure. The top 5 are 100% in order. But 10-5 are interchangeable. ( i said the same thing in the Chinese top 10:)

10- Hollie Vise: Yevgeny Marchenko’s gymnasts ( Not including Patterson, ironically) were some of the prettiest gymnasts to watch during the early 2000’s (Two of them made this list) Hollie was another gymnast with pretty form, I always liked to watch. Then when she finished second at Nationals and Marta was forced to take her to Worlds, which made me like her even more:)

9- Kyla Ross : Maybe to you, clean and consistent is boring but Junior, Kyla Ross to me was fun to watch. Kyla is one of 3 gymnasts that when I first saw them compete, I thought they had potential be an Olympic gold medalists. The other two were Jordyn Wieber and number 1 on this list. 3 Olympians. 3 Gold medalists. Many world medals. Not bad:) (Though I am sure there were others that didn’t pan out but that doesn’t work for this blog:)

8- Simone Biles, Vault and tumbling, only: Not a big fan of Simone the person anymore but I could watch her vault forever. The height she gets and on that one event is one of the most amazing thing I have ever seen, live. I am 100% against a gymnast winning a medal with a fall accept when it comes to Simone, on vault. She crosses her feet sometimes but considering the difficulty and compared to the horrible form of everyone else I am fine with that. There has never been a gymnast with Simone’s completeness on vault and there never will be another ( Elena Prudnova might have duplicated the power but not the form) Legs together, toes pointed. Okay so she crosses her feet sometimes but compared to anyone else she is perfect) No one competing today has her form on vault with her difficulty. Even if she falls I would think she deserved to win. At least on vault. Same with her tumbling. Sky high. Good form. Insane difficulty. Her power is bar none.

7- Lindsey Vanden Eykel : I know. It’s almost sacrilegious for me to add a UCLA gymnast to a list of my favorites, let alone a gymnast from Woga, but Lindsey was such a beautiful gymnast to watch. She stood out. She was crazy inconsistent and kind of faded away (Mostly thanks to Injuries) but I get a free pass for adding a Woga gymnast because she pre-dated that other chick who ruined the gym for all of us:) AND…. Lindsey wasn’t just another pretty face with beautiful form, killer toe point she was also a smarty pants. She’s currently a lawyer. Plus she was the originator of that attitude turn everyone loves so much. I mean, look at that form. Nastia can only dream her bar routine looks this beautiful? I think not.

6- Lizzy LeDuc: I don’t care if she has a bad attitude and got kicked off the Illinois team for being a bully, Lizzy has been one of my favorite gymnasts to watch since her mom started putting up videos as a child. Woga may try and claim credit for her beautiful dance and form but she had it , way before she ever entered their gym. Oh and if we started a discussion on her College career and the BS scoring she received for hit routines this would be a lot longer:) (I mean, come on? Put a UCLA leotard on this routine and it gets a 10)

5- Kelly Garrison Steves: I pretty much just liked her beam as a kid and she stuck with me.

4- Tracee Talavera: She was the winner of the 1980 Olympic Trials but never got to compete thanks to Carter’s boycott. She finished 2nd at Nationals that year and won a bronze medal on beam at the 81 Worlds. FloorAn update. 2020

3- Phoebe Mills : This was probably one of the first gymnasts I actually remember following and openly rooting for. For some reason I didn’t like Kristie Phillips and was thrilled when Phoebe won a bronze on beam at the Olympic hence proving she was the better gymnast. (I somehow don’t remember Kristie not making the team hence proving that anyway but I was a kid so:) I liked her in spite of this floor routine 🙂

2- Julianne McNamara: I remember no details of her as a gymnast when she competed. I was waaay to young to remember details at this point (I do remember thinking she was pretty) but I do remember being excited when I recognized her in an episode of Charles in Charge 🙂

1- Shannon Miller: The first (and only) US gymnast to have everything the Soviets were praised for during their haydey ( Don’t 2 me people, the Soviet coaches even said it at the 91 worlds) Shannon stood out even as an 11 year old. Screwed out of the 92 AA by the cheating commies, she will always be the one US gymnast I never get sick of watching. Below is my favorite routine of hers. The GWG will always be remembered for her first AA loss in 2 years (competing at every competition known to man kind) but after the jet lag, Shannon finished the meet winning 4 EF medals (2 gold) and she did it while competing IN Russia. Steve Nunno brought his entire set of gymnasts, ALL THE WAY TO RUSSIA, because the rest of the spoiled brats from the US didn’t want to travel, 2 FREAKING WEEKS before Nationals that year. Not sure what Nunno was thinking (I mean competing IN Russia? Nothing ever ends well there for US athletes)

There are no, Honorable mentions. I have never really been a fan of US gymnasts 🙂 Okay, so maybe, Tia Orlando.