Since Mattie Larson is everywhere these days, I decided to make her my gymnastics biography of the month. :)
DOB: May 20, 1992
Representing: USA
Coaches: Galina Marinova, Artur Akopyan
Best Event: Mattie has definitely racked up the most gold medals in floor, winning first place at the Junior Pan Am games, WOGA Classic, and US National Championships (2010). She has contributed to quite a few team medals throughout her career.
Best Known For: She's probably most recognized as one of the up-and-coming gymnasts a lot of people were expecting to see at the 2012 Olympics in London prior to her decision to pull out of elite gymnastics and compete with UCLA instead. Due to an injury to her leg, Mattie lost the opportunity to compete with the 2008 Olympic team. After about two years of recovery, she made a comeback and so far has had a lot of success. She has said that there is a chance she may make another comeback into the elite scene after competing college gymnastics.
Currently: Mattie will be going to school this fall, 2011, and training with the UCLA Bruins. She's keeping her options open as to whether or not the 2012 Olympic Games are going to be part of her plan in gymnastics.
Interesting Fact: Her talent for gymnastics was evident very early on in her training. In her level 5 season, Mattie became California state champion on both vault and beam. In levels 6 and 7 she became All-Around state champ and earned first place on beam, floor, and vault.
Any idea why she's not on the list of Gymnasts attending the Covergirl Classics on the 23th of July? I was really looking forward to seeing her, and hoping she would continue after her standings at Worlds last year.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. I was looking forward to seeing her too. Speculation is that she won't be competing in order to save up for championships, I guess. It's interesting that she would choose not to compete CG, since so many people like to utilize that as a sort of warmup meet. I'm so bummed because it looks like Lizzy Leduc won't be competing either. :( Oh well. Hopefully still an interesting meet.
ReplyDeleteI heard someone say that mattie posted on fb/twitter whatever she has was deciding weather she wanted to compete elite or college..she said on her form spring that she would most defiantly be at classics in july. super strange! hopefully we will see her in a few weeks at nationals..be a shame not to see her there, considering shes such an execellent floor worker!
ReplyDeleteWow, that's interesting. Thanks for the info, Callie. I so hope we see her at nationals. I'm sure she'd be an excellent college gymnast if that's what she chooses to do, but she's so talented, I'd like to see her compete more on the international stage. I know she was considering college gymnastics a while ago but decided to go for 2012 instead. Wonder if she's still unsure about that.
ReplyDelete