Olympic Stories- Anna Li Making Best of Olympics After Bad Injury

Anna Li, 23, had overcome concerns that she was too old, too tall at 5'4 and too injury-prone as she had two surgically repaired broken feet, yet she qualified for the women's Olympics gymnastics team as an alternate for the squad that would head to London.

Li was a stand-out at traditional powerhouse UCLA where she helped guide the Bruins to the school's sixth NCAA title in 2010. UCLA narrowly lost to the University of Alabama this year at the NCAA championships this spring.

On July 28, Li blogged about her Olympics experience in an entry that was posted on uclabruins.com; alas, Li suffered a devastating injury when she feel from the uneven bars during the team's second workout. Li will be wearing a neck brace in the coming weeks and she thanked everyone for their get-well wishes.

But, the former UCLA gymnast was upbeat about her time in the United Kingdom, and she talked about how it took her a moment to realize that when the team's plane landed at 7 a.m. local time in England, that it was 1 a.m. in her home state of Illinois, where Li, the daughter of two Chinese Olympic gymnasts, went to Waubonise High School in the Chicago-suburb of Aurora.

In the years since graduating from UCLA, Li has performed as a stunt woman.

Li said the initial workout occurred at 8:00 a.m. and lasted for close to four hours, and that she took a nap at the team's hotel from noon until 2:50 p.m. for that second workout, where the injury resulted.

The gymnast is one of several UCLA alumni or active Bruins  in the 2012 London Olympics. Yesterday, former Bruin Courtney Mathewson, who helped UCLA to four consecutive NCAA titles, scored three vital goals in Team USA's narrow 14-13 win over Hungary in women's water polo.

As for women's gymnastics, Team USA had a shocking development on Sunday as defending world all-around champion Jordyn Wieber, 16, did not qualify for the all-around at the Olympics due to a highly controversial rule that only allows for two gymnasts from each country irregardless of the gymnast's score.

Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman are the two gymnasts who qualified for all-arounds. Wieber will still compete for the team in the team finals which are happening tonight, surprisingly early for gymnastics which has traditionally been held in the middle of the Olympic games.

According to a survey from bleacherreport.com, some 70-percent of those surveyed felt that the Olympic gymnastics rule should be scrapped. 

http://www.annali.us/

http://www.uclabruins.com

http://www.bleacherreport.com

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- England to Compete in Water Polo

According to a tweet from OlympicNews2012, Great Britain will compete in both men's and women's water polo at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. The country has not fielded an Olympic team in the sport since 1956.

For an image to go with this entry, we were hoping to post a photo of a very attractive Katie Zakula, a sophomore from San Mateo, Calif., who is a member of the University of Cal State Santa Barbara women's water polo team, but that proved to be very complicated.

Along with her teammates Kristin Kulakowski and Michelle Beaudrau, both seniors, Zakula and the Gauchos (love that nickname) have two matches in Los Angeles tomorrow, including a day game with rival Loyola (Calif.).

In other tweeterville news, WTJU (91.1-FM, Charlottesville, Va.), the student run college radio station for the University of Virginia said that the bluegrass band Bearfoot, which performed in Roanoke last night, will be playing at Mockingbird in Staunton tonight.

On the band's web site (www.bearfootband.com), the group describes themselves as 'string band music for the 21st century.' I was also quite surprised to learn that the band is not from Virginia, North Carolina or Tennessee, but Alaska!