Carly Patterson: What Makes A Champion?Written by Murray Hughes
If you have been following gymnastics for any length of time, odds are you have heard of a particular gymnast by name of Carly Patterson. You probably also know that she is one of youngest female Olympic gymnasts ever - and that she has stunned world of late with her astounding abilities. In 2004, she became first all-around Olympic champion for United States in more than two decades, and was also first to win for US in past two games, an amazing feat indeed, considering these past Olympic games were fully attended! The last female all-around gymnastics champion for United States won in 1984, when Soviet Union had boycotted Olympics entirely.Carly was born on February fourth, 1988, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to a pair of loving parents - her mother, Natalie, and her father, Ricky. She is first of a pair of girls (her younger sister is Jordan). Currently, she lives with her mother, her sister, and her pets in Allen, Texas. A straight-A student, she is almost a normal teenager when it comes to taste in music, boys, and shopping. However, one thing sets her apart from rest of crowd, even beyond her academics: she spends more than thirty hours a week training in her Texas academy. Of course, she could not have gotten to where she is currently without help. This logically leads to question -- what makes a champion? Carly started early on with her gymnastics career. In 1994, she began taking classes after attending a friend’s birthday party at Gymnastics Elite, a gym facility in Baton Rouge, and meeting head coach there. After five years of training, what began as a sport became a true career: she won her first state title in 1999 for Louisiana. Then, she and her family moved to Texas, which gave her chance to train at some of best gymnastics gyms in United States. She worked with Evgeny Marchenko and his team at World Olympic Gymnastics Academy in Plano, Texas, and within a year completed Top Gym Tournament in Belgium in second place, taking bronze medal in beam event, and won all-around gold at American Team Cup. Thus began her rise to super-stardom in world of gymnastics. She took dozens of titles, national and international, competing across globe. Then, of course, she competed in 2004 Olympics…and rest, as they say, is history.
| | 3 Easy Golf Tips to Shave Strokes from Your GameWritten by Kent Smith
Here are 3 easy golf tips that will immediately give you a better swing and improve your hitting! It did for me almost instantly once I got feel of it. I went from hitting maybe one fairway per round and not being able to hit my driver to hitting vast majority of fairways off tee while still enjoying extra distance of using my driver. This is exciting stuff for a mid to high handicapper...so read on. Golf Tip #1 - Be certain that you are taking club back by turning your shoulders NOT picking up your hands. By taking club back in a "one piece" takeaway, which only means that your shoulders start turn back and your arms, hands and thus club follow in one piece - by doing this you will automatically put golf club on proper swing plane. So long as you do not try to help club do its job, you will be well down path to a more solid swing and consistent hits with this tip alone. Practice this in front of a mirror with or without a club, making sure that your head stays solidly in place and that your three body parts mentioned above go to at least parallel as one unit. Golf Tip #2 - Don't overswing and swing easy. They engineer clubs to do hitting - getting ball off ground and a certain distance no matter how hard you swing. As a matter of fact, harder you swing less club can do what it is supposed to do and you will sacrifice both distance and accuracy.
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