Entries from March 2010 ↓

Content is more important that stlye.

Timelyness more important than qwality control.

… That’s how we bloggers defend our shoddy work against the grammar Nazis. The Couch Gymnast was peeved on this point, lately.

I could put up a link like this:

What do you thick?

=== UPDATE:

One spelling Nazi (Dana) insisted on a correction link. You’ll now find it cluttering the right hand navigation.

I like this clip posted by British Gymnastics TV. Those guys are fantastic at gymnastics video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

April 21st – May 2nd, Birmingham, England

competition home page

A fan favourite, for sure.

Henrietta is one of five “Gymnastics Legends to be honored by the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame“.

• Cathy Rigby (USA) -1970 World Championships, Silver medal on Balance Beam
• Henrietta Onodi (HUN) – 1992 Olympic Gold and Silver Medalist
• Yuri Korolev (RUS) – 1981 and 1985 World All-Around Champion
• Mikhail Voronin (RUS) – Winner of 9 Olympic medals in 1968 and 1972 (deceased)

• Eileen Langsley (GBR) will be awarded the International Order of Merit for her contributions as the most prolific photographer of major gymnastics competitions for nearly 30 years.

FIG

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks, yet again, to MunchTheSilivasFan.

Fantastic Yuri Korolev being included. He’s one of my favourite gymnasts of all time.

… Should Cathy Rigby be on that list? How many other World Championships single apparatus Silver medalists have been inducted?

I loved Cathy too, … but is this some sort of pro-American bias on the part of selectors?

The schedule has just been adjusted:

• Saturday, 16th October: Women’s qualifying competition
• Sunday, 17th October: Women’s qualifying competition
• Monday, 18th October: Men’s qualifying competition
• Tuesday, 19th October: Men’s qualifying competition
• Wednesday, 20th October: Women’s team final
• Thursday, 21st October: Men’s team final
• Friday, 22nd October: Men’s and women’s all-round finals
• Saturday, 23rd October: Women’s event finals (vault, bars); men’s event finals (floor, pommel horse, rings)
• Sunday, 24th October: Women’s event finals (beam, floor); men’s event finals (vault, bars, high bar)

… Tickets will go on sale again in the second half of March. …

FIG – Two more days of competition for 2010 Artistic Worlds!

I’m hoping to attend this time around, the 42nd annual.

The weekly Gymnastics Examiner post is packed with links:

Zhang Nan, Longines, Dynamics Unlimited Gymnastics, Wu Jiani and Li Xuejiu, Fu Bo, Kristina Goryunova, Nastia Liukin & Jared the Subway guy, Grace Taylor, Hollie Vise, Sarah Shire, Dominic Morris, Viktoria Komova, Marissa King, Cameron Rogers, Beth Tweddle, Danusia Francis, … and many more.

new English Champion Danusia Francis

Click through for details – The gymnastics week in review

I don’t know about you … but I’m ready for the “playoffs”.

This Women’s College gymnastics season has been the most exciting in years, but hurry up with the Conference, Regional and National Championships.

Manual on Handstands thinks that one of these 5 teams will win the Team Championships 2010:

Alabama: Not Invincible …
Oklahoma: Can they stay undefeated? …
UCLA: Finding consistency …
Florida: Don’t count them out …
Georgia: Needs a road win …

The winning team at Championships must hit 24 for 24.

UCLA I’d call the favourite. But can they hit 24 routines under pressure?

If you believe in momentum, pick Oklahoma. It seems to be their year.

I think Alabama has a good chance to hit 24 routines. If they do, it will be tough to beat the Tide.

Who do you predict to win? Leave a comment.

Gymnastike has up-to-date team rankings with video links, if you want to compare.

AshleyakaFlipper is a drama queen. But she’s got a superb touch editing gymnastics video.

This is reportedly her last montage ever.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Her computer hard drive crashed, many thousands of video clips lost. I left a comment recommending she sign up for Carbonite or Mozy, the two leading online back-up solutions.

… Is your computer backed-up?

ACTOR. CHOREOGRAPHER. DANCER. FREERUNNER. INSTRUCTOR. MARTIAL ARTIST. STUNTMAN.

This traceur has a serious career. He’s one of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD), for one.

Click PLAY or watch Travis on YouTube.

Travis-Wong.com

(via FlipCatch)

Kudos to Full Twist for turning up an excellent resource for coaches, interpretations on the International Code.

This document called Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Help Desk has the intention to clarify and give examples of the different rules of the FIG WAG Code of Points.

The goal of WTC is to reduce different interpretations of the rules, therefore provide a more objective work of the judges. …

WAG Help Desk

It’s a supplement to the code. Here are samples of the kind of “Help” included:

This document would be useful for any Artistic WAG coach. Download a copy to your computer: WAG Help Desk (PDF)

As a PDF document online, it will be inexpensive and easy to update.

Congratulations to the by FIG WTC for putting this together. Good work.

A happy follow-up to the disappointing story of how Canadian coaches opted not to put blind skier Brian McKeever into the line-up during the Vancouver Olympics.

… As Brian McKeever and his brother Robin raced toward Paralympic gold in the cross-country freestyle Monday, the announcers warned the raucous crowd to stop cheering and just wave to keep them on course.

But there was no silencing the spectators at Whistler Paralympic Park, who screamed wildly and flailed cowbells in support of the brothers from Canmore, Alta., who scooped up the country’s first Winter Paralympic gold medal on home soil.

“It wasn’t a quiet stadium when we rolled through so that was a lot of fun,” McKeever, 30, said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s quiet or not. I can see (a bit) so I just follow Robin.” …

read more – Vancouver Sun – For Canada’s Brian McKeever, it’s ‘a lot of fun’ winning nation’s first Paralympic gold

I still feel it was a massive coaching blunder not to compete McKeever in both Olympics and Paralympics.

Bridget Sloan tweeted the bad news that David Beckham tore his Achilles.

I always think of that as a gymnastics injury.

… David Beckham says he is determined to make a “swift and full recovery” from the ruptured Achilles tendon that has left his dream of playing in a record fourth World Cup finals for England in tatters. …

Times Online

Update: Full Twist has more information on the injury.

One of the feel good gymnastics stories of the year. The big comeback of Hollie Vise for Oklahoma. She competed the all-around for the first time in her College career, scoring 39.600.

How sweet after all the troubles she’s known.

Click PLAY or watch Hollie’s Bars on Gymnastike.

(via Aunt Joyce – Ms. Vise If Ya Nasty)

As a trivia side note, when I started my first gymnastics website (for Kyle Shewfelt in 1999), I identified Hollie’s as the best gymnast website online. It’s almost unchanged today, 11yrs-later. I still like it.

Check it out – HollieVise.com

Sometimes nice guys finish first.

With the recent success of Bridget Sloan, Coach Marvin Sharp has made a name for himself in the world of elite gymnastics. Marvin talks about how he got started in coaching gymnastics and why he ultimately decided to open his own gym.

Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike

Marvin is the Head Coach of Sharp’s Gymnastics in Indiana and the personal coach to 2008 Olympians Bridget Sloan and Samantha Peszek. Marvin has been coaching Bridget for 13 years and in October of 2009, he coached Bridget to an individual World All-Around title.

Gymnastike – Get to Know Coach Marvin Sharp