Georgia gymnastics posted its best score at home since 1998 Saturday, proving their mettle as the nation’s No. 1 team with a very impressive 198.200-196.650 victory over rival Florida.
The Gym Dogs were firing on all cylinders all day, charting 16 scores of 9.9 or better, capped off by a perfect 10 on floor exercise from senior Courtney Kupets. They posted season-highs on every event, with a 9.850 the lowest score they counted all afternoon.
Not bad for a team that coach Suzanne Yoculan doubted as the nation’s No. 1 earlier in the week.
Coach John Carney left his club, Gym East in Washington State, to go to College.
How’s he doing in the NCAA?
John Carney knows when to have fun and when to get serious as a gymnastics coach.
Carney, 41, is in his first year as an assistant coach with Oregon State after a long career at the club level.
It didn’t take long for the OSU gymnasts to discover his fun-loving side.
Carney makes a point of keeping the training interesting. He comes up with a variety of games to go along with the bars workouts and lightens up what can be a grind.
“He creates props,†senior D’Anna Piro said. “Over Christmastime we had to draw our assignments out of stockings. Sometimes he has us roll dice to determine how many skills you have to complete.
The low rent San Jose Spartans 194.70 defeated their high flying neighbors, previously undefeated Stanford 193.925 last night.
Is this the NCAA upset of the season?
Miscues on the opening two rotations put the No. 3 Stanford women’s gymnastics team into a hole it could not climb out of in a loss to … unranked San Jose State in a tri-meet at UC Davis on Friday night.
Stanford struggled to season-low scores on the balance beam and floor exercise while San Jose State stuck its routines to build an insurmountable lead, finishing with 194.7 points, to 193.95 for Stanford and 192.7 for UC Davis. …
Cute article on the Postolache triplets, sisters in Romania who train in Focsani.
… They have personalized routines
Although at their category the elements that they should present during competitions are set by the Federation, each of the little girls has her own exercise. “At floor the music is different, taking into account each one’s temperament; the order of the compulsory elements and the links are thought differently. It is like you’d see the same person competing three times, each time differentlyâ€, their coach explains. More than that, they are also starting to show their different personalities. …
The traditional Induction Ceremony of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame will take place on May 30 in Oklahoma City (USA). Four gymnasts will be honoured during this 13th edition: Dominique Dawes (USA), Elvira Saadi (UZB), Viktor Chukarin (UKR), Vitaly Scherbo (BLR) and the coach Octavian Bellu (ROU). The 2009 International Order of Merit will be awarded to Margaret Sikkens Ahlquist (SWE), the President of the FIG Gymnastics for All Committee. …
Michael Smith is editor of the Talkin’ 10′s – Inside LSU Gymnastics blog.
It’s the best blog covering any of the NCAA teams, I reckon.
An insider, Michael is the LSU Gymnastics announcer in the Maravich Center for last 13 years, and play-by-play announcer for LSU Gymnastics on LSUSports.net.
His blog has more detailed analysis than most. For example:
National Rankings
LSU was the biggest mover in the country this week (see the blog from earlier this week for an exact explanation how this came to be). The Tigers jumped four spots in the national point standing to check in at 6th. Here’s how it stacks up in the point standings after 8 weeks of competition along with how many spots each team has moved up or down in the rankings since last week.
The tone is more personal than most other NCAA team sites that seem to cut-and-paste the same old text every weekend.
For example:
… Up until 11:00 p.m. last Friday night, the LSU Tigers held the highest gymnastics team score in Nation at 197.400. Ten times the Tigers set new or matched existing career highs on various events during the meet– a rare event in collegiate gymnastics. Then, approximately 2,000 miles to the west, Utah put on a clinic of its own – scoring 197.525 in a sold-out home arena. So goes the weekly battle among the nation’s elite programs. …
The biggest clash in College gymnastics this weekend is Georgia vs Florida. The Gators are hungry.
Reigning NCAA beam champion Grace Taylor from Georgia is ranked #2 on beam this season.
At any College meet she’s one of the most eye-catching, appealing competitors.
A fan favourite.
McCool FX and Taylor Beam – NCAA Champions 2008
There’s a terrific article on Grace that gives background into her upbringing in a fervently Christian family. Fascinating.
So when the Gators come to town Saturday, is there any chance Taylor will take it easy on them, show a little Christian compassion?
Not a chance.
“Florida beat us at SECs my freshman year. And I don’t appreciate them as a school because of that,” she said. “I don’t like to think of myself as someone that holds grudges, but I don’t particularly like the feeling of getting beat by Florida. And within my power I definitely don’t want to lose to them.”
Red and Black – AMAZING GRACE
Gym Dog Georgia’s ‘perfect little ambassador’
SURREY, B.C. – Casey Sandy of Burlington, Ont., posted the best scores on floor and rings en route to the gold medal in the all around event Thursday at the Elite Canada men’s gymnastics competition …
The meet was the second and final phase in the national team selection. Last season’s national championships were the first phase.
The gymnasts did all around competitions both Wednesday and Thursday evening and the combined score from both days determined the final standings. Sandy totalled 175.300 points with Ken Ikeda of Abbotsford, B.C., second at 174.100 and Jared Walls of Edmonton third at 168.000. …
Ikeda was tops on pommel horse and parallel bars and Olympic team member Nathan Gafuik of Calgary earned the best marks on vault and high bar.
In junior competition, Jackson Payne of Edmonton was the all around champ with 165.000 points placing first on parallel bars and high bar. …
The other all around champions were Justin Karstadt of Mississauga in the Argo age group and Tariq Dowers of Mississauga in the Tyro division.
Eliminated by the International Gymnastics Federation.
But why?
… the FIG technical committee went in the direction of seeking a more rational and objective way to judge gymnastics. The first target was to eliminate certain articles that may have caused confusion or uncertainty in judging such as eliminating bonus awards for virtuosity and originality….
This from a 2000 article written by Japanese gymnastics coach Harumi Minusa. His article, 9yrs-ago, is called How We Must Develop the Sport of Gymnastics for the Future.
Well Professor. Things are much worse today than in 2000.
Gymblog had a revealing look at the state of international gymnastics – Bad form at the American Cup. It includes photos of some of the best gymnasts in the world.
Most international pommel horse routines are a string of poorly executed difficulty parts. Little girls are forced to throw every BIG skill they’ve ever learned on beam.
Is there no way to bring back virtuosity?
VIRTUOSITY is the highest demonstration of athletic ability. Virtuosity may be given for individual element and connections but also for the total exercise.
Virtuosity … may appear anywhere, regardless of the degree of difficulty, and may be seen in the most simple or the most difficult movement. …
In lower level age-group routines we had a simple definition of the virtuosity bonus. If any skill or routine and any given level made the judge go “Wow”, we could award an extra 0.1 …
The quality of the movement had to be conspicuously superior to similar movements from other competitors at that meet.
1976 British Olympian Barbara Slater has been named BBC Director of Sport, a very important and influential post.
… “Her passion, commitment and skill as a supreme sports producer clinched the role. She will now lead teams who will play a major role in broadcasting the London 2012 Olympics and who already have an exciting roster of sports rights already in the locker – huge events that are at the heart of the BBC’s relationship with its audiences. …
