… a three-time World Champion on the vault (2005–2007) and 2006 World Champion on floor exercise. She was a member of the gold medal-winning Chinese teams for the 2006 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Aarhus, Denmark and 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. She was also a member of the silver medal-winning Chinese team for the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. …
Photos linked to her Facebook.
From the Facebook album: Women’s Qualification by Grace Chiu GraceClick
From the Facebook album: Apparatus Finals Day 3 by Grace Chiu GraceClick
She’s still planning to try for London, last I heard.
Jordanian gymnast Ali Al Asi has been just crowned Best Arab Athlete 2010 by HE Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Governor of Dubai and Deputy of the United Arab Emirates, at its recent meeting in Dubai.
With this award, Ali goes down as a legend in Arab sports. He owes this honour to his outstanding Rings results for the 2010 season and, more particularly, to the title he claimed over Japan’s Kazuki Machida, China’s Hong Kong native Kiu Chung Ng and the Netherlands’ Jeffrey Wammes at the 2010 FIG World Cup in Qatar.
The Best Athlete 2010 jury selected the Jordanian gymnast from among 132 Arab athletes from a variety of disciplines in contention for this prestigious award. …
Does anyone (aside from the Dutch Federation) believe this story?
… Van Gelder was poised to make a storybook comeback at the October World Championships after winning gold on rings at the Ghent World Cup in September. But he withdrew from the competition days before it began, and the Dutch announced he had again been using cocaine.
Van Gelder has since come forth and said that his “confession” of cocaine before Worlds was false, and that he had had problems dealing with the pressure of performing in a Worlds at home so soon after making his comeback. …
Banker Andrey Kostin was elected President of the Artistic Gymnastics Federation of Russia (FSGR) for a second term on December 15. The 54-year-old ran unopposed and was elected unanimously. …
Rodionenko credits Kostin and his bank for the resurgence of Russian gymnastics. Funding National Team and buying apparatus for Round Lake and gyms around the country.
Bruno Grandi has done everything possible to “fight injustice in judging“, including getting rid of the perfect 10. (And adding Reference Judges.)
Yet in Women’s Artistic F.I.G. judging, they still cannot fairly rank girls on Execution scores.* Any beginner 10yr-old gymnast could have ranked the Floor finalists at World Championships 2010 more accurately.
Even with Nellie Kim phoning the Head Judges every second routine, the Bruno Grandi system still is not working.
We need more transparency.
Can we post all judges, all execution scores, for every routine at World Championships Tokyo online?
Linking routine videos to those scores, when possible?
(Realize there’s a downside, should it be possible. If any of the judges care, this will make them even more defensive, “boxing” the execution score even more than it is now. Every HIT routine will get 8.80, regardless of quality.)
* I’ll concede that the Difficulty score does rank gymnasts fairly, at least in terms of the very crude table of difficulty values.
Seems the Keanu Reeves gymnastics film Flying (1986) (Dream to Believe and / or Teenage Dream) may have even been worse than the worst gymnastics movie of all time, Gymkata.
… feel good story about a teenage gymnast aiming for the championship despite an abusive stepfather, an ailing mother, and injury. …
