… At the top of the US team is the 16 year old Bridget SLOAN from the “Sharp Gymnastics Academy” in Indianapolis, the only current participating member of the 2008 silver team of Beijing 2008.
She stood out today with her highly concentrated way of training and her efficiency.
All of the girls have their personal coaches with them – a team of seven coaches is accompanying the team of eight girls. …and what famous personalities are among these:
So for example Teodora UNGUREANU-Cepoi, who was once part of the legendary Rumanian Olympic team in Montreal 1976.
UNGUREANU-Cepoi is coaching the 14 year old Sabrina VEGA who will perform on Saturday at her first foreign competition as a member of the national team.
The Olympic bronze medal winner of the Chinese team on 1984 (Los Angeles), WU, Jiani is coaching the two sisters Mackenzie and Bridgette CAQUATTO. Their trainer at home in the Naperville Gymnastics Club is also a former Chinese Star Li, Yueji and he is the husband of WU, Jiani.
…and the former Soviet team and vault world champion from the early 80´s, Artur AKOPYAN is coaching one of the most talented girls on this tour: Matti LARSON, whose family name is from her Swedish father, an immigrant. ..
Coach David Sykes recommends we get advice from a reputable source, the Harvard School of Public Health:
… the Healthy Eating Pyramid, built by the faculty in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Based on the latest science, and unaffected by businesses and organizations with a stake in its messages, the Health Eating Pyramid is a simple, trustworthy guide to choosing a healthy diet. …
… Texas high school officials have decided to suspend all high school sports because of the swine flu.
The University Interscholastic League has postponed all high school athletic competition until May 11, the organization said on its Web site.
“The health and safety of our student activity participants is of the utmost importance,” the UIL’s executive director, Charles Breithaupt, said in a news release on the UL Web site. “Taking every possible precaution to prevent the further spreading of this disease is an important contribution to the welfare of our great state, and altering the schedule of our events is a way to keep our participants safe.” …
I’m generally critical of Inside Gymnastics magazine.
Last December Marketing Manager Nicole Harris told us that their very cool audiocast with John Roethlisberger would be available as podcasts on iTunes. And that the radio show would be a monthly broadcast throughout all of 2009.
It’s May.
That did not happen, yet.
There’s been no update either to their very potentially cool IGtv feature.
The one thing Inside Gymnastics magazine is doing better than anything else is twittering. They are the best source of gymnastics news on twitter, so far.
… We’ve also recently joined Twitter (twitter.com/InsideGym). You can follow us at Twitter handle “InsideGym†for exclusive behind-the-scenes tidbits, breaking news, contests, announcements of upcoming features and interviews, and much more. …
If you don’t use Twitter, the same posts are expanded on their Facebook fan page.
Perhaps I am being too critical. Inside Gymnastics online is free. And they have a lot of great content.
I simply wish they would not announce things … then not deliver.
… Pollan proposes a new (and very old) answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By urging us to once again eat food, he challenges the prevailing nutrient-by-nutrient approach — what he calls nutritionism — and proposes an alternative way of eating that is informed by the traditions and ecology of real, well-grown, unprocessed food. Our personal health, he argues, cannot be divorced from the health of the food chains of which we are part.
In Defense of Food shows us how, despite the daunting dietary landscape Americans confront in the modern supermarket, we can escape the Western diet and, by doing so, most of the chronic diseases that diet causes. We can relearn which foods are healthy, develop simple ways to moderate our appetites, and return eating to its proper context — out of the car and back to the table. Michael Pollan’s bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.
Pollan’s last book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. …
… Miller, whose due date is November 5, will be the third member of her gold-medal-winning 1996 Olympic team, known as the Magnificent Seven, to have a child. (Amanda Borden has a daughter, two-year-old Kennedy and Dominique Moceanu gave birth to her second child, son Vincent, in March. Moceanu’s daughter, Carmen, was born on Christmas Day in 2007.) …
… Chusovitina is still unable to train fully following surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon and another operation on her shoulder. The annoucement of her impending retirement is a surprising change of heart from Chusovitina, who had until very recently angrily brushed aside any claims that her competitive days were numbered.
Earlier this year, she was appointed head coach Uzbekistan’s women’s artistic gymnastics team and has since recruited 2004 European champion Alina Kozich, formerly of Ukraine, for the Central Asian country. …
I’m generally critical of Inside Gymnastics magazine. 
