2009 Gymnast of the Year -- Senior women: Bridget Sloan, USA
2009 World Champion Bridget Sloan. AP Photo/Alastair Grant
What a year it's been for 2009 World all-around champion Bridget Sloan, who likes to downplay her accomplishments. In the past 12 months, Sloan went from being the youngster who barely made the 2008 Olympic team to the leader of the new American generation. She stayed the course to beat newcomer Rebecca Bross for the all-around title at the World Championships, displaying a veteran's calmness. 48 percent of responders voted Sloan as the senior women's Gymnast of the Year, while 29 percent favored double World medalist Lauren Mitchell. 13 percent thought World floor champion Beth Tweddle should get the award, 7 percent voted for World beam champion Deng Linlin and 4 percent for European all-around champion Ksenia Semyonova.
2009 Gymnast of the Year -- Senior men: Kohei Uchimura, Japan
2009 World Champion Kohei Uchimura. AP Photo/Matt Dunham
This one was a runaway. Uchimura, who is playing with a triple twisting double back on floor exercise, is already being whispered about as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, period. He won this poll like he won his first World all-around title -- by a large margin. Uchimura logged 59 percent of the vote. British challenger Daniel Keatings had 22 percent, Fabian Hambuchen 12 percent, Maxim Devyatovsky 4 percent and Diego Hypolito 2 percent.
2009 Gymnast of the Year -- Junior women: Viktoria Komova, Russia. Komova, widely regarded as the best junior in the world, continues to get better and better. At last month's Voronin Cup, Komova debuted an Amanar on vault and unveiled a new floor exercise to the James Bond theme. She won this poll with 40 percent of the vote over U.S. Junior Champion Kyla Ross (25 percent), 2009 American Cup champion Jordyn Wieber and Japan's Mai Murakami (each with 11 percent), Russian Cup champion Aliya Mustafina (7 percent) and Romania's Larisa Iordache (5 percent). Russia's Tatiana Nabieva received 1 percent of the vote.
2009 Gymnast of the Year -- Junior men: John Orozco, USA. The 16-year-old from New York has accomplished more during his three years on the Junior National Team than many gymnasts do in their entire careers. Orozco has now won three U.S. Junior titles, and finished 11th at this year's U.S. Championships. He won this poll with 56 percent of the vote, over Russian David Belyavskiy (17 percent), Japanese Junior Champion Chihiro Yoshioka (13 percent) and Britain's Ashley Watson (10 percent) and Reiss Beckford (4 percent).
Most Impressive Gymnast from a "Non-Gymnastics" Country -- Women: Ariella Kaeslin, Switzerland
2009 World silver medalist Ariella Kaeslin. AP Photo/Matt Dunham
Kaeslin made history for Switzerland by winning gold on vault at the 2009 European Championships and following it up with a silver on the same event at the World Championships. She captured 40 percent of the vote in this category, beating France's Youna Dufournet (35 percent), Mexico's Elsa Garcia (8 percent), Lithuania's Laura Svilpaite and Venezuela's Jessica Lopez (6 percent each), as well as Holland's Wyomi Masela (3 percent) and Greece's Vasiliki Millousi (2 percent).
Most Impressive Gymnast from a "Non-Gymnastics" Country -- Men: Epke Zonderland, Netherlands
2009 World high bar silver medalist Epke Zonderland. AP Photo/Alastair Grant
The Dutch high bar sensation has become a familiar face in event finals, but this year he finally broke through, winning silver at the World Championships. Zonderland received 47 percent of the vote, while Israel's Alexander Shatilov nabbed 25 percent, Australia's Prashanth Sellathurai got 12 percent, Puerto Rico's Lius Riviera 11, and Chilean World floor finalist Tomas Gonzalez 5.
Breakout Female Gymnast: Kayla Williams, USA
World vault champion Kayla Williams. AP Photo/Randy Snyder
Williams's meteoric rise in the sport from Level 10 National Champion to World vault champion in the same year is unprecedented. The West Virginian received 36 percent of the vote, topping Romania's Ana Porgras (25 percent), World all-around bronze medalist Koko Tsurumi (19 percent), Mitchell (17 percent), and China's Deng (4 percent).
Breakout Male Gymnast: Danell Leyva, USA
The U.S.'s Danell Leyva. AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
Eighteen-year-old Leyva made a successful leap from the junior to senior division this year and placed fourth all-around at the U.S. Championships. He wowed many with his flair, especially on high bar, the event where he made finals at the World Championships. Leyva received 32 percent of the vote, while former Cal gymnast Tim McNeill tallied 30 percent, Shatilov 20, Germany's Matthias Fahrig 11 and Brazil's Sergio Sasaki 7.
NCAA Gymnast of the Year -- women: Courtney Kupets, Georgia. No contest on this one. Kupets, now the most successful NCAA gymnast of all time, was the overwhelming choice with 87 percent of the vote. Utah's Kristina Baskett captured 6 percent of the vote, followed by UCLA freshman star Vanessa Zamarripa (4 percent), Alabama's Ashley Priess (3 percent) and LSU's double NCAA champion Ashleigh Clare-Kearney (1 percent.)
NCAA Gymnast of the Year -- men: Steven Legendre, Oklahoma. The former WOGA gymnast capped off his NCAA all-around title by making event finals on floor at the World Championships. Not bad at all. Legendre won this poll with 70 percent of the vote, followed by Cal's Glen Ishino (12 percent), Kyle Bunthuwong (7 percent), Paul Ruggeri (5 percent) and Daniel Ribeiro (6 percent).
Where should Kayla Williams go to college? Georgia. I have a suspicion that results on this one were largely based on the schools that voters personally root for. 31 percent think the 2009 World champion should next vault for Georgia; 25 percent think she'd be best as a UCLA Bruin, 8 percent see her anchoring for Florida; 8 percent for Utah, 7 percent for Alabama, 6 percent for Stanford, 5 for Michigan, 4 for "Other," 3 for Penn State, 1 for Arkansas and 1 for LSU.
Will Shawn Johnson return to competitive gymnastics? No
Shawn Johnson celebrates her "Dancing with the Stars" win. AP Photo/Kelsey McNeil
Despite news that Johnson has returned to training every other day with coach Liang Chow, fans remain skeptical that the four-time Olympic medalist will really return to elite competition. 77 percent of voters said they didn't think they'd see Johnson in leotard at another U.S. or World Championships, while 23 percent hold out some hope. We'll have to wait and see.
As for the last question, about which gymnastics couple will produce the best gymnast offspring, commenters pointed out that I had neglected to add Yang Yun and Yang Wei to the list, as well as Kim Zmeskal and Chris Burdette. So I'm doing what the 2000 Olympic all-around organizers should have done and scrapping the results. We'll redo it another time.
(Results based on an Examiner.com poll posted last month.)
Follow Gymnastics Examiner Blythe Lawrence on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GymExaminer.
Comments
Kayla Williams is horrible. Are people blind?
I think most people voted their Country more then who deserved to win
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