Alicia Sacramone on life in L.A.

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Alicia Sacramone, who became YouTube famous for being the tragic figure of the U.S. women’s Olympics gymnastics team -- her missed mount on the balance beam and an out-of-bounds landingon her floor exercise were major mistakes that helped keep the U.S. from winning the team gold medal (it went to China) -- is happily living in downtown Los Angeles now.

She is good friends with UCLA senior gymnast Kristina Comforte, who serves as an undergraduate assistant coach after a series of injuries took her off the mat, and spends time with the UCLA gymnastics team at practice. Sacramone is working for a clothing company called TankFarm. She is into designing T-shirts focused on the college market. She is also planning on going to Tuesday’s live results show for ‘Dancing With the Stars’ to support her Olympic teammate, Shawn Johnson, who has stamped herself, along with partner Mark Ballas, as strong contenders for this year’s title.

Sacramone said she hasn’t decided whether to return next fall to Brown University, where she had completed her freshman year before taking off to prepare for the Olympics. She is interested in pursuing both a career in clothing design and hosting a television talk show, and she said attending UCLA might be a possibility.

She is also looking forward to promoting the 2009 Visa U.S. National gymnastics championships in Dallas in August. Olympic all-around gold medalist Nastia Liukin is expected to compete, hoping to qualify for individual world championships in London. Sacramone said she has been hearing positive things about two young Los Angeles gymnasts, Mattie Larson and Samantha Shapiro, who both train at All Olympia Gymnastics Center. Both gymnasts did well at a recent meet in Montreal.

-- Diane Pucin