Olympic Stories- Beth Tweedle of Great Britain

The age of 27 is a prime age for many athletes, including those who play basketball, baseball or soccer. But, that is not the case for women's gymnastics as American gymnast Alicia Sacramone, 24, and Nastia Liukin, 22, are likely finished with the sport after not qualifying for the U.S.A women's gymnastics team, which won gold at 2012 London Olympics.

Enter Beth Tweedle. The British/English gymnast reportedly wanted to hang in to compete at the Olympics in her home country. Tweedle is a three-time world champion on bars and the 2009 world champion on floor exercise. She is the most recognized British gymnast in her history, and one of the most famous female athletes in the entire United Kingdom.

Yesterday, NBC, which is televising the Olympics in the United States, focused solely on Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman, the two Americans vying for gold, which Douglas received as well as their two Russian competitors Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina, who won silver and bronze respectively.

NBC did not even show one event with Tweedle, who finished an impressive sixth in the all-around competition with a 170.495.

On Monday, Tweedle seemingly has a respectable shot at winning an individual apparatus medal on the bars, her specialty. And, according "The Daily Mail," an English newspaper, gymnastics icon Olga Korbut thinks Tweedle has an outstanding shot at winning gold on bars.

http://www.bethtweedle.com

Sports Desk- Former UCLA Gymnast is Alternate for Team USA

On Sunday, in San Jose, Calif., the United States Olympic women's gymnastics team was formally decided after the result of team trials. Among the pleasant surprises of the night was that former UCLA gymnast Anna Li, 23, (pictured top) the daughter of Chinese Olympic gymnasts from Las Vegas, qualified as an alternate to the team.

Li was a stand-out at UCLA, where she helped the Bruins win a NCAA title in 2010.

The other alternates are Sarah Finnegan and Elizabeth Price.

Since the Magnificent Seven, which included Dominque Dawes won the team gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, women's gymnastics now apparently only consists of five gymnasts.

Among those who are on the scheduled competing team are McKayla Maroney (pictured), Jordyn Wieber,  Gabby Douglas, Kyla Ross and  Alexandra Raisman, who at 18 is the oldest of the five regular team gymnasts.

Douglas, 16, from Virginia Beach, Va., edged out Wieber, who is considered to be America's strongest gymnast.

There was some controversy as some analysts believe Price, who came in fourth at the trials, should have been on the main team instead of Ross, who is strong on bars and beam.

Alas, the night of competition in San Jose brought an end to two great gymnastics careers as both Alicia Sacramone, 24, the oldest competitor who was also the captain of the 2008 Olympic team and a stand-out gymnast at Brown University, and Nastia Liukin, 22, the 2008 Olympic all-around champion failed to qualify for the team.

www.usagym.com

www.uclabruins.com

DC Diary- Fonzie's Jacket

I meant to blog about Day Two of our 2010 Christmas Family Trip to Washington, DC, yesterday, but getting lost on my way back from a cinema curtailed that effort, so I am writing about it tonight.

Day Two was actually Tuesday. It was far and away the busiest day of the trip, which concludes tomorrow. We saw four Smithsonian museums in one day. One of the highlights was the American History Museums, which contains lots of pop culture and athletic memorabilia in addition to historic items like the counter from North Carolina A and T students sit-in in Greensboro, NC (the Gate City opened a Civil Rights Museum to honor the four men involved earlier this year).

Since the '70s sitcom "Happy Days" was considered subversive by my late father Mehmet Gokbudak at the time, I have always had a special place for The Fonz. My father really detested the phrase "Sit on It!" which Henry Winkler's character uttered quite frequently. To my Turkish father, this was a sign of how Americans had no respect for their parents or elders.

While researching this piece, we found out that The Fonz was meant to be a secondary character but much like George and Elaine on "Seinfeld," he simply took over. There is now a web site called "What Would the Fonz Do" which makes fun of the "What Would Jesus Do" adage that fundamentalist Christians have utilized to the point of redundancy.

Another item on display at the history museum which caught my eye was the leotard of Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin, since I am a gymnastics fan. The pink leotard had an American flag and an emblem from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, in which Liukin won an individual gold medal.

We discovered from researching this piece that according to her Twitter page Liukin was spending the holidays with her family in Vail, Colo. (we hope they weren't driving her crazy) and that she has apparently been dating another gold medalist, figure skater Evan Lysacek. I must profess that even though Liukin, 21, is 19 years younger than me that I am a tad bit jealous (must be my ethnicity!).

My family and I also saw the ice skates worn by another gold medalist Brian Boitano from the 1988 Calgary Olympics, but as the makers of "South Park" have suggested there is apparently some question about his sexual orientation, but irregardless of that he would be too old to date Liukin too!

My night with the family concluded with a dinner at the Commonwealth Gastro Pub where I had a $13 lamb burger. Other menu items included a $12 grass-feed burger and a $13 uncommon burger_ none of us could figure out what that was!

We will have more on the zany Day Two of the DC trip on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

We conclude this portion of the DC Diary by congratulating my friend Turkish-German modern dancer Nejla Yatkin, who has resided in both Washington, DC, and New York in recent years, on the tenth anniversary of her dance company NY 2 Dance.