spotted
COVER GIRL
W
HEN Mexico’s Elsa Garcia
accompanied her team-
mates from Regio Club Gym-
nastica for the inaugural Nadia
Comaneci International Invita-
tional in Oklahoma City in Febru-
ary, her whole team stopped by
the IG offices in Norman, Okla.
The IG lobby walls are covered
with past IG covers, and Garcia
posed alongside ‘her’ May 2007
issue. “It was really exciting for
me to find myself on the wall of
magazine covers,” she told IG.
“We all had a really great time
over there.”
THE ULTIMATE FIGHT
1
982 British champion
Cheryl Weatherstone
was in Los Angeles in
January for the Taekwondo Black Belt Nationals, where she won
three gold medals: Traditional Forms, Extreme Forms and Extreme
Weapons. Weatherstone, who grew up and trained in the U.S. but repre-
sented Great Britain internationally (1981 Worlds, 1984 Olympic team
alternate), last appeared in IG in March 2003, when she was working
her way toward a black belt. She must have worked hard, because now
she owns four world titles. At the 2009 Worlds this June in Little Rock,
Ark., she hopes to add three more. “I am going for Traditional Forms,
Extreme Forms and Traditional Weapons,” says Weatherstone, who was
a gymnast at the University of Utah from 1985-88.
Weatherstone, who has two sons—Carson ( 12) and Hunter ( 8)—with
husband Del Vance, says martial arts is similar to gymnastics “in that it
takes mental discipline, dedication
and focus, balanced with flexibility
and physical strength.”
Outside the world of combination
kicks and jab punches, Weather-
stone, 44, is involved in another
battle. “The best aspect that mar-
tial arts has brought to me is a
sense of peace as I deal with my
son’s autism,” she says. “In taek-
wondo we have full contact spar-
ring as one of our events. As hard
as I fight in the ring, I will fight
1981 Worlds
even harder to help recover my son
(Hunter) from autism. That is a
fight I am determined to win!”
Cover
IFC
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IBC
BC
Poster
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