"The Washington Post" Comics Survey: The Gold Goes to Denmark ("WUMO")

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Israel and Singapore.

And, our shout-outs to celebrities who regularly  visit this blog, including George F. Will, Alicia Sacramone and Tonya Harding (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Chicken McNuggets may not be very appetizing, but they were the subject of a hilarious comic strip "WUMO," which originated in Denmark of all places.

Our favorite second comic strip from the Sunday, Feb.9th edition of "The Washington Post" was "Speed Bump." This week's edition of Dave Coverly's strip had one of the Easter Island (Chile) heads acting up and irritating his mother.

Other comic strips which made the top ten include: 1) "Sherman's Lagoon" where an albatross gives romantic advice to a turtle; 2) "Lio" where the title character visits an aquarium and takes delight upon seeing a squid; 3) and "Brewster Rockit: Space Guy" where Frankenstein and his would-be-bride have a lovers spat.

Here is the top ten:

1) WUMO

2) Speed Bump

3) Lio

4) The Argyle Sweater

5) Sherman's Lagoon

6) Rhymes with Orange

7) Brewster Rockit: Space Guy

8) Pearls Before Swine

9) Dustin

10) Judge Parker

SIDEBAR: Kudos to Samantha Peszek from the UCLA Bruins' women's gymnastics team; she had a perfect ten on bars yesterday in a meet against Arizona State, which was won by the Bruins.

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/comics

http://www.denverpost.com/comics

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

Quote of the Day/Week- Alicia Sacramone

We were going to quote American Olympic gold medal winners this month (for those of you blogging in from Argentina or Greece, I will quote international gold medal winners next month), but we realized two things: 1) Alicia Sacramone, women's gymnastics team captain of the 2008 Beijing Olympics team won a team silver and 2) Sacramone is sure to get more hits per day than 1984 Los Angeles gold medal winning gymnast Mary Lou Retton. So, we are 'cheating' today, by quipping Sacramone.

The 2012 Summer Olympics will take place in London this summer.

In 2010, Sacramone made a huge comeback by winning a gold medal on vault at the world gymnastics championships in Rotterdam, Holland.

Sacramone is a graduate of Winchester High School in her native Winchester, Mass.

In 2006, Sacramone had the tremendous distinction of competing in college gymnastics for Brown University in Providence, RI, while taking a full class load and still competing as an elite gymnast!

Last year, Sacramone made headlines again, but this time because she posed nude (the actual published pictures are actually partial nude shots) for the 'Body Issue' of "ESPN" magazine along with women's soccer star goalie Hope Solo.

Here is Sacramone's quote:

"Missing the Olympic team gave me the push I needed. I stepped it up a couple of notches and did my stuff."

SIDEBAR: It appears to be a virtual certainty that no local colleges will represent the Greensboro/Winston-Salem, NC, area in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Today, North Carolina A & T fell to Howard University from Washington DC in the MEAC tournament. Three other local universities fell in their respective conference tournaments: Elon and UNC-Greensboro lost in the semi-finals of the Southern Conference, which was won by another North Carolina college in Davidson (which is near Charlotte) and High Point lost to eventual Big South champions UNC-Asheville in the the quarter-finals of the Big South Conference.

This means that Wake Forest, a very low seed in the ACC tournament, must somehow prevail over the likes of UNC, Duke and Florida State in Atlanta this weekend for a team from the Triad to get into the NCAAs.