Obviously unverified but this sounds very plausible considering they are known to perform that song in inappropriate church settings constantly. I hope someone was filming this.
This one seems to be a more straightforward landlord/lease issue, but there's definitely going to be a surge of demand at the other gyms in the area with two closing back to back. It seems this was a more affordable gym than some others, so some families might be having to make some tough decisions. Thankfully, it doesn't seem they're pulling the same move of shutting down after taking everyone's money for the season.
It is normal for it to take longer, and they still have time, but there are no confirmed bids or interested feds yet. They had it in Indonesia in 2025 because no one else bid and they were running out of time, and while Indonesia is not as much of a gymnastics country, they did not have a ton of tickets sold from what I could see in the arena.
Having a worlds every year is still a fairly new thing, they used to skip the middle worlds in certain years. The last year they did so was 1998, also the first year 1982 babies were first allowed to compete after the age change to 16, so they entered the field a full quad after 1981 babies.
The difference was that the big stars would go to the post-Olympic worlds. In 1993, the whole worlds team, just three people, was made up of 1992 Olympians Dawes, Miller and Strug. By 1997, they let six people on the team, and Moceanu was the only one of the Magnificent 7 who came back. By now it's mostly the youngest Olympians and a certain subset of older ones who come back, most of the Olympic medalists take a break. There's also not a team competition.
I'm just wondering how sustainable this is going to be in the long run. A lot of countries have realized that hosting major sporting events is usually a net negative long-term and have decreased their investment in hosting and upgrading facilities. It's a much bigger event, but they just held a Commonwealth Games Lite in Scotland after Australia pulled out of hosting several years ago due to budget issues. Hosting 500-600 athletes and all associated support staff and officials and fans still requires a lot of existing infrastructure.
They can't just keep hoping someone will bite on what will almost inevitably be a money-losing venture unless you are one of the few feds with fans that will always show up, and those feds want years two or three of the quad. I am hoping they are at least reaching out to some feds proactively to see if they are interested and not sitting on their hands waiting for someone to take it, because eventually they're just going to be left with bad options like Russia if they have any at all.
Don't get me wrong, it would be disappointing to see it cancelled. It's the only way many small feds ever get to compete at worlds and it's a big opportunity for new seniors. There could also be a shift to asking the year 2 host or Olympic host to double up, or having a permanent host for year 1, or something of that nature. But at the present moment, we are just over 3 years away from 2029 and it's going to start really condensing the timeline to plan the longer it takes to find a host.
Unsurprisingly, the main reason is rising operational cost. I believe she plans to reopen Sweet Cheeks in less expensive location, but who knows. I haven't been myself but when this article was posted to the Boston subreddit last week, the general consensus was that it was good in the past but had declined in quality and value the last couple of years.
I absolutely love when I see someone acting a fool, and then get to see them make a shitty dish and be sent home:
Ken in the very first episode. In fairness, I think the finger in the sauce thing was overblown, as even Tom puts his finger in the sauce to taste in the #3 episode. But it was hard to like him when he was acting like such a creepy douche towards the women and acted like he knew better than some of the best chefs in the country, yet he couldn't even make a decent dish!
Stephen Aspirinio in the season 1 wedding challenge. The other chefs were busting ass in the kitchen trying to get food out in a timely manner and where is Stephen? Lazily rolling a spring roll or two and then sneaking out to talk down to all the guests about wine. He also got an attitude with Tiffani for the boxed mix cake, yet didn't volunteer to make it himself. He had such a nasty attitude that whole season, I was so happy to see him go.
Daniel in the first episode of season 10. He sets up next to Kuniko and says "Kale chips? I knew I should have set up next to Origami". He was the only one of that group who is sent home that episode instead of getting a chef coat.
The actual anniversaries were last week but I noticed no one had made a post yet so I figured better late than never!
Nadia Comaneci of Romania, at just 14, earned the first Perfect 10 ever awarded in her compulsory bars routine. She won nine total medals across Montreal and Moscow, including five gold. She was tormented by her abusive coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi and the communist Romanian government and defected in 1989, just weeks before the Ceausescu regime fell.
She moved to the United States and has lived here ever since. She married American MAG Bart Conner and they have one child together. She is very involved in their gym, ironically named for Bart since he already had it before she came here, and is very involved in supporting Special Olympics.
Nikolai Andrianov of Russia/USSR did not start gymnastics until 12. Before he started, he would skip school, get in fights, smoke, and get into trouble. His coach Nikolai Tolkachev managed to work around his stubborn nature, and after a successful first games in 1972, he won seven of eight potential medals in 1976. He won four gold, including the AA, two silver, and a bronze. He won a total of 15 Olympic medals across 1972, 1976 and his home games in 1980, making him one of the most decorated MAG in history, second only to his student Vitaly Scherbo.
Later in his life, he coached the Soviet junior boys, who never lost a comp under him. After the fall of the USSR collapsed the economy and their savings, and after Leonid Arkayev refused to give up his position to let him coach higher level gymnasts, and moved to Japan to coach his rival Tsukahara's son in the 90s.
He was married to another Russian gymnast, Lyuba Burda Andrianova (currently on the women's technical committee at the FIG) and they had two kids, including their son Sergei who has a teen daughter almost to senior age and is the bars coach for the Russian national team, I believe. They divorced after he moved back from Japan to work for his old gymnastics school. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2011 of a degenerative genetic disorder called multiple system atrophy.
This was an exciting AA. All three Romanians and the first independent Ukrainian on the podium. Can't say I'm too disappointed Khorkina fell off bars and didn't medal, and it's not too surprising the Americans (Miller, Dawes, Moceanu subbing for Strug) lost steam after the team final and didn't do very well, but at least they came back in event finals.
Martha caught polio at her fifth birthday party in 1953, two years before Jonas Salk's IPV vaccine hit the market, and needed to sleep in an iron lung all her life. She was able to be out during the day until recent years, when she has relied on it full time due to struggles with post polio syndrome and long COVID, which she ultimately died of.
She became the last American and likely the last person in the world to use one in 2024 with the death of Paul Alexander.
For background, Kaity makes and sells cake pops and has a pretty big following. She fully admits to using box mix, almond bark over real chocolate, etc. This creator, Sweet Treats by Ashley, also sells cake pops. She made a tutorial for fruity pebbles cake pops and even credited Kaity for the recipe in the caption. Kaity made a video, which she has already deleted, attacking her and accusing her of stealing her copyrighted recipe from her cookbook.
The recipe is literally just a few different kinds of box mix and some fruity pebbles. It's not the Krabby Patty secret formula. And Ashley made a response video saying she never even bought Kaity's book, which is very believable considering the recipe already existed online from the makers of Fruity Pebbles before Kaity used it.
She's already lost one of her biggest sponsors, Daisy Makes, who are one of the main manufacturers of cake pop supplies. They even canceled their ongoing product collab. Fruity Pebbles also reposted the recipe on their site yesterday, which was pretty funny. Kaity just posted an apology about an hour ago but it's basically just the standard influencer apology.
I have always gotten the mean girl vibe from Kaity and always expected something like this to happen eventually. I'm just glad there are actual consequences.
I'm definitely happy they are streaming on Youtube free, but it was truly ridiculous the number of times they focused on the Brazilian gymnasts waiting for scores or for their turn when there was actual gymnastics happening!
Does anyone else see this and notice all the red flags? They are high school students fundraising to get their teacher a Lilly Pulitzer custom Jeep, they have a GFM for $12k with under $1k raised so far.
The students aren't the issue, it's that the teacher is aware of this plan and is making videos with the students promoting the fundraiser. They finally got a nice PR haul from LP and the next post was an ask for more brands to send PR.