Just before Kyle Shewfelt stepped on to the Floor in Finals at the Athens Olympics, he looked to his coach of 16yrs for some final words of advice.
All Kelly Manjak said was … “I love you.”
A Couch Gymnast post considers this fascinating topic – The Most Important Relationship in Gymnastics….
![](<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2008/08/21/shawn-johnson-is-a-star-on-cctv/"><img src="http://gymnasticscoaching.com/new/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Shawn-and-Chow.jpg" alt="" title="Shawn and Chow" width="283" height="373" class="alignright right size-full wp-image-30153" /></a> "Shawn and Chow")
Galina Marinova: Mohini Bhardwaj, Sam Shapiro, Mattie Larson
Mihai Brestyan: Alicia Sacramone
Cassie Rice: the Schwikerts, Cassidy McComb
Nicolae Forminte: All those Romanians
Yevgeny Marchenko: Carly Patterson, Hollie Vise, Nikki Childs.
Kim Zmeskal Burdette and Chris Burdette: Chelsea Davis
Carol Angela Orchard: Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Peng Peng Lee
Boris Pilkin: Svetlana Khorkina
Valorie Kondos Field: all those UCLA Bruins
It’s a good read for every coach – The Most Important Relationship in Gymnastics….
Ju Ping Tian, the dragon lady, is on the list, as are many, many more.
I’m not sure there are all that many commonalities. Every different successful coach – gymnast relationship is … different.
4 comments ↓
male gymnasts don’t seem so dependant on the coach as females.
No. They’re just as dependent, they just don’t make it as obvious. I’ve worked in both a girl’s gym and now a guy’s gym. The dependence is there (at least at the young ages) it just has subtle differences in how it plays out.
It depends on what kind of dependence you are talking about. Female elite gymnasts are younger than many males, so having some kind of gap in what they take responsibility for makes sense.
I think that gymnast coach relationships, like any relationships, cannot easily be judged by outsiders. How an athlete and coach act within competition means that judgement can be made about competition coaching, but not day to day training. When I sang seriously, people assumed that my teacher was serious because she was quite stern when I performed, but she wasn’t like that at all in lessons.
You’ve referred to Ju Ping as the dragon lady, and while she may have been intense or fierce, this woman was loved by her gymnasts. An article not long ago showed that Alex Croak still thinks of her as a mentor and they’re still in contact. The AIS girls worked better under her than they did when Kaladinski came along.
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