Entries from August 2011 ↓

The new Google +1 button has been added to the bottom of each post.

The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” … Your +1′s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.

Google is rolling out new features to the +1 button. Here’s a video explaining how it will work once it gets to you.

The Men’s Code of Points is far less criticized than the Women’s.

It seems that Men can better handle the extreme demands of 6 apparatus, 10 counting skills.

Horizontal Bar will be the first apparatus, I think, where we’ll see an 8.0 difficulty score. (18.0 maximum score)

Here’s one out of 7.8.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’d love to see Rybalko devalued. That will reduce Horizontal Bar start scores and encourage connected releases.

Coach Donny Gardiner at Avant Coeur taped money on to his floor pommel horse.

If you make Magyar travel to the middle, you win $1.

To the end, $5.

Simple.

… stamps to commemorate the opening of “Artistic Gymnastics World Championships Tokyo 2011” …

2011tokyo.com

Leslie King for USAG:

Rebecca Bross asked USA Gymnastics to distribute the following statement to the media on her behalf.

Rebecca … will undergo surgery on Aug. 25 to reset and stabilize her right kneecap, which was dislocated on Aug. 20 at the Visa Championships. She is expected to return to gymnastics in two months and to be back to 100 percent in time for the start of the 2012 competitive season. Rebecca extends her thanks and appreciation for the notes and well wishes from fans, friends and family.

Great news. The recovery is much quicker than ligament damage.

This will give her a chance to fully recover everything else. And make a plan to peak for London.

Peng Peng Lee had a very similar injury in May. She’s competing in Trials for Worlds this weekend.

Of the 4 favourites* to win World Championships in October, Jordyn Wieber is the only one not to be recovering from serious injury.

That makes her, in my mind, the girl to beat.

John Geddert summed it up succinctly: “She did exactly what we came here to do,” he said of his protegé Jordyn Wieber, who won her first senior U.S. title here Saturday night. …

Geddert said he and Wieber will now focus on ironing out the little details of her routines in order to get ready for October’s World Championships. “We haven’t even tried to stick landings yet because that’s really taxing on the body,” he added. Geddert also addressed the possibility of a second vault to go with Wieber’s impressive Amanar, his reaction to Bross’s vault and how he planned to fete Wieber’s victory.

On what he and Jordyn Wieber will be working on now:

“Obviously consistency on beam, that’s going to be important …

read more on Gymnastics Examiner – John Geddert: Jordyn Wieber ‘sent a message’ to the world

Click PLAY or watch a Wieber montage on YouTube.

related – Examiner – Shawn Johnson: ‘I’m going for World team now!’:

… Encouraged by a hit performance at this week’s U.S. Championships, Shawn Johnson is tentatively hoping for a trip to Tokyo.

“I’m going for World team now!” a smiling Johnson, bubbly as ever after a six-for-six performance at the U.S. Championships, deadpanned in her perky way. “I’m like all motivated and everything!” …

Updatea:

• Rebecca Bross only dislocated her kneecap. Good prognosis.
• Larisa Iordache, Diana Chelaru, Sandra Izbasa and Beth Tweddle opting not to compete Romanian Championships this weekend

* Mustafina, Komova, Bross, being the others.

The “boom” of the kaboom kills your rotation. … Unless you got talentz.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Yep. He tried quadruple back.

Wearing wrestling shoes as he’s training “wall tramp”.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

A Maryland acrobatics team featured on an America’s Got Talent (season 6) promo.

USA Gymnastics on Facebook:

Current T&T competitor (and coach) Tristann Brown and fmr jr. elite athlete Alicia Grant are in the group Gymkana in the semi-finals.

Click PLAY or watch them on YouTube.

More build-up than act, this still wows the general public. Click PLAY or watch Sandou Trio Russian Bar on YouTube.

Cassie Craig is a former Level 10 gymnast from Tops Gymnastics in Centerville, Ohio. (Her married name is Cassie Sandou).

August 19-21, 2011, Tel Aviv

Looks like it was a good meet. Here were the top 10 all-around, including international guests.

Full Results (PDF)

You might be able to watch this video about the competition.

gymnicetic:

According to the Russian sports website sport.ria.ru Valentina Rodionenko announced the names of the gymnasts who will train for the World Championships:

Viktoria Komova, Anna Dementyeva, Ksenia Afanasyeva and Yulia Belokobylskaya will train all four apparatus, Tatiana Nabieva will focus on vault and bars, Maria Paseka on vault and floor. And Alena Polyan who finished first on floor at the Universiade is also in the training team as well as Yulia Inshina – they both will prepare themselves as alternates for the team.

read more on gymnicetic

Gymnastics Examiner commentary.

Men

Emin Garibov
Sergei Khorokhordin
Nikita Ignatiev
David Belyavski
Denis Albyazin
Andrei Cherkasov
Anton Golotsutskov
Konstantin Pluzhnikov

(via THE ALL AROUND)

See 2 more New Tokyo Posters (via GymNiceTic)

An injury on TV to one of the top gymnasts in the world sparks discussion on how it might have been prevented.

NewsTimes.com – Bross’ status for worlds unknown after knee injury

Personally, I thought Rebecca’s bad landing off Beam was extremely dangerous, too. She really did looked primed for injury at VISA Championships.

George Novak, former FIG judge, doesn’t comment often. But when he does, we should listen:

… If a clean 1.5 TY would beat a sloppy DTY, or a clean DTY would beat a sloppy Amanar we would not have kids pushing for the extra tenths that they so desperately need to to be on top. …

That’s it in a nutshell. Thanks George.

But instead of communicating that obvious instruction to every judge, FIG is instead “simplifying” the judging regulations for the 2016 cycle after Bruno Grandi referred to the 2012 Code as a ‘time bomb‘.

How is that simplification going?, you might ask.

Queen Elizabeth doesn’t have much faith in the process:

… Around 200 pages of text were produced about the women’s Code alone. The Code itself is a document of some 192 pages of densely packed text, tables and symbols, and to make things worse it is supplemented by a misleadingly named ‘Helpdesk’ of some 58 pages, which is supposed to be a condensed, easy-to-use guide, but which in fact adds new ideas to the original core Code as well as possible new variations in interpretation. All in the name of ‘simplification’. …

I’m not optimistic that the major problem with our current rules — too much credit for difficulty — will be solved.

There is one bit of good news:

… Instant Replay and Control System “IRCOS by FIG”, jointly developed by the FIG and its partner Longines, recently underwent substantial modification. …

… users will be glad to hear is that from now on, scores given by reference judges will be visible on the screen. …

FIG

Recall the reference judges at Worlds in Rotterdam? … I didn’t think so. Their influence was far from transparent.

Perhaps in Tokyo Nellie Kim will be making fewer phone calls to her Judging Panels if there’s more transparency in scoring.

(via Full Twist)

My best guess is that FIG will throw more hours, paper, technology and money at the much criticized WAG rules … and that we’ll still have dangerous Amanars beating good YDT vaults in the Rio Olympics.

Gymnastics rules change could improve safety. But I’m predicting they won’t.

Facebook is the worlds largest collection of disorganized, impossible to search, photos.

I rarely donate photos to Mark Zuckerberg, instead linking to pics in my Flickr account.

… But I have to admit this new thumbnail preview format Facebook is rolling out looks great. One of the few “improvements” ever that I would instantly call an improvement.