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Baed former U.S. Olympic team coach Don Peters has denied under oath having sexual relations with underage gymnasts while serving as U.S. national team coach in the 1980s, according to court documents obtained by the Southe Califoia News Group. Peters, who built SCATS, the Huntington Beach gymnastics academy, into one of the biggest names in inteational gymnastics, was baed by USA Gymnas...

ANAHEIM >> Ragan Smith of Lewisville, Texas/Texas Dreams Gymnastics, was already soaring in rarified air heading into the second session of the P&G Gymnastics Championships on Sunday at Honda Center. Then, Smith, 17, went out and bested her already-superb score of 57.400 on Saturday, with a score of 57.850 on Sunday. The two-day total of 115.250 equated to an easy event victory and national championship for Smith, considered one of the nation’s top gymnasts. “I’m just excited to be U.S. champion,” said Smith, reigning AT&T American Cup champion and an alteate for the gold-medal...

ANAHEIM >> One day before the most decorated team in the history of USA Gymnastics enters the Hall of Fame, the next generation was on display Friday night at the P&G Championships. Simone Biles, in the building at Honda Center but not in a leotard, is contemplating her future along with the rest of the Final Five. Ragan Smith is the future. The alteate for the gold-medal wiing team at the 2016 Olympics showed why she is the current face of a rebuilding program with an impressive performance to open the U.S. national championships. Smith, 17, leads the all-around competition aft...

LOS ANGELES >>USA Gymnastics reached a confidential, out-of-court settlement in Califoia before this year with a former teenage U.S. national team gymnast who alleges U.S. women’s Olympic and national team physician Larry Nassar sexually abused her, a former U.S. Olympian familiar with the case told the Southe Califoia News Group. The confirmation of the settlement by the former Olympian is one of the clearest indications to date that top USA Gymnastics officials were aware of Nassar’s alleged abuse of underage gymnasts and the measures the organization took to keep those allegati...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Simone Biles seemed to come out of nowhere three years ago, this teenage gymnastics superhero built in a Texas gym or maybe another planet, a fearless 4-feet-9 package brimming with explosive power, like Gretzky or Jordan reinventing her sport, defying gravity and the imagination in soaring toward the stars in a way that didn’t seem humanly possible. “I don’t think she’s human,” Canada’s Elsabeth Black said. Through much of 90 more minutes of Biles’ unmatched brilliance in the Olympic Games all-around final at the Rio Olympic Arena Thursday evening it was hard to argue with Black. Then when her total score was flashed on the giant video screen over the competition fl...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Simone Biles won the Olympic Games all-around gold medal Thursday, extending the U.S. hold on one of the most prestigious prizes in women’s sports to a fourth Olympics. Biles, the 19-year-old from Spring, Texas, recovering from a slow start on the vault, seemed to be only competing against herself through the final three rotations at the Rio Olympic Arena, finishing with a total score of 62.198, more than two points ahead of silver medalist and teammate Aly Raisman (60.098). • See photos of Simone Biles Raisman’s margin over bronze medalist Aliya Mustafina of Russia was nearly as large. The Russian, who led after the opening rotation, finished at 58.665. Biles, the t...

Rio de Janeiro >> One step. One little hop at the end of the final routine of the final rotation at the end of more than two hours of an edge-of-your-seat breathtaking Olympic Games men’s all around final decided the gold medal. One step on Oleg Veiaiev of the Ukraine’s dismount on the high bar was the difference in Japan’s Kohei Uchimura wiing his second consecutive Olympic title and Veiaiev landing in a lifetime of being haunted by what if’s? “It was so close; the gold,” Veiaiev said. So close that the final margin between Uchimura and Veiaiev at the Rio Olympic Arena Wednesday night was nine-hundreths of a point: 92.365 to 92.266. By the slimmest of margins Uchimura extended his dom...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Kohei Uchimura’s gold-medal haul keeps growing. The superstar gymnast from Japan won the men’s all-around title Wednesday, edging Oleg Veiaiev by less than a tenth of the point to capture his second straight Olympic title. Uchimura trailed heading into the final rotation but put up a dazzling 15.8 on high bar. Veiaiev followed with a less challenging routine and hopped forward on the dismount. Needing 14.9 to win, Veiaiev instead eaed a 14.8. The crowd groaned when the score was revealed, though Veiaiev shrugged his shoulders as if to say “what can you do?” Max Whitlock of Great Britain was third, just ahead of Russia’s David Belyavskiy. Sam Mikulak of Newport Beach ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA repeated as Olympic women’s team gymnastics champion with a performance that was beyond fierce. The U.S. presented a convincing case as the greatest team in history at the Rio Olympic Arena Tuesday, rolling up 184.897 total points, more than the U.S. squad, the self-proclaimed Fierce Five put up in wiing the gold medal in London four years ago. The U.S.’ final gap over ruer-up Russia (176.688) also exceeded the 2012 team’s 5.056 margin of victory. China was third at 176.003. • PHOTOS: Team USA on Tuesday at the Rio Olympics The result was really not in doubt after the opening rotation for ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA repeated as Olympic women’s team gymnastics champion with a performance that was beyond fierce. The U.S. presented a convincing case as the greatest team in history at the Rio Olympic Arena Tuesday, rolling up 184.897 total points, more than the U.S. squad, the self-proclaimed Fierce Five put up in wiing the gold medal in London four years ago. The U.S.’ final gap over ruer-up Russia (176.688) also exceeded the 2012 team’s 5.056 margin of victory. China was third at 176.003. • PHOTOS: Team USA on Tuesday at the Rio Olympics The result was really not in doubt after the opening rotation for ...

Rio de Janeiro >> The slimmest of medal chances rested in the hands of Danell Leyva, Team USA’s last man on the last rotation, the absolute last hope in the Olympic Games men’s gymnastics team all-around final Sunday. So Leyva chased the medal around and around the high bar, growing faster, more confident with each rotation. Aggressive, daring, through one of his best ever routines, Leyva was soaring. Then he wasn’t. Late in the routine he could not find his grip on the bar and fell, landing on both knees. For several moments he remained like that, kneeling, head down, a man, his prayers unanswered, now only searching for answers. “Disbelief, shock, obvious disappointment,” Leyva said...

RIO DE JANEIRO — For Team USA, the Olympic Games men’s team gymnastics final had a familiar ending. And begiing. The U.S., unable to overcome a series of early mistakes, finished fifth with a total score of 268.560 at the Rio Olympic Arena on Monday. Japan captured the gold medal. Monday was strikingly similar for the U.S., which won its qualifying group Saturday, to the meltdown the American men had four years ago in London. The U.S. men won their 2012 qualifying group only to slip to fifth in the final. Monday’s unraveling began in the opening seconds. Alexander Naddour, the first U.S. man up in the floor exercise on the first rotation, fell back on a landing and put a hand out of bounds....

RIO DE JANEIRO >> On the eve of the most anticipated Olympic gymnastics debut in what, ever, Simone Biles was a like kid the night before Christmas. In other words, the 19-year-old Texan was just like everyone else who can tell the difference between a Tsukahara and a Yurchenko and a few million who can’t. “‘Oh, my Gosh, it’s here. The Olympics!’” Biles recalled thinking when she went to bed Saturday night in the Olympic Village. “‘Let’s go!’” Biles more than lived up to the hype in the Olympic Games women’s team qualifying at the Rio Olympic Arena Sunday, staying on course to become the first woman gymnast to win five gold medals in a single Olympics. No less than Mary Lou Retton, th...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA posted the highest Olympic Games qualifying round score by nearly 10 points as Simone Biles also kept her bid to become the first woman gymnast to win five gold medals in a single Olympics. A U.S. athlete posted the highest score on all four events to post a total score of 185.238. China had Sunday’s second highest score at 175.279. Biles had the highest individual all-around score (62.366) as well the top marks on the vault (16.050), balance beam (15.633) and floor exercise (15.733). The U.S. was so dominant that the next two athletes in the all-around standings were Biles’ teammates, Alexandra Raisman (60.607) and defending Olympic all-around champion Gabb...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Sam Mikulak isn’t a scoreboard watcher. Yet if the U.S. gymnast had allowed himself a glimpse of the giant video screens high above Rio Olympic Arena after the first four of six rotations in the second sub-division of the Olympic Games men’s team qualifying round Saturday, he would have not only found the U.S. atop the team standings but himself leading the individual all-around. “I try not to look at the scoreboard because that might set expectations in my head,” Mikulak said. “I just want to stay focused.” By the end of Saturday afteoon, Mikulak and his U.S. teammates could not ignore the expectations raised by a qualifying performance that only raised medal expect...

SAN JOSE, Calif. >> Simone Biles can officially book that plane ticket for Brazil. Same for defending Olympic champion Gabby Douglas. Biles, the three-time world gymnastics champion, secured her spot on the U.S. Olympic team with a near flawless tour of the SAP Center on Sunday night, eaing an automatic berth on the five-woman team by strolling to the all-around title at the Olympic Trials. Biles will be joined in Rio de Janeiro by Douglas, three-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman, Madison Kocian and Laurie Heandez. MyKayla Skier, Ragan Smith and Ashton Locklear are the alteates. While Biles has been a lock for months, the path to the Olympics was far murkier for Douglas. A revelation ...