Month: March 2010

Gold Women’s Vault and Bronze Beam Medallist at the recent FIG World Cup in Doha (QAT), the South African wonder Jennifer Khwela was given a triumphal entry at Durban International Airport …

… Jennifer’s success is even more inspiring when seen against the backdrop of where she grew up and trained. Her success is a triumph for her entire Township community, an inspiration to the youth of South Africa, and a personal victory for a young woman who laboured patiently alongside a coach who never once doubted her abilities, Julie Adamson Schürman. …

read more – FIG – Jennifer’s triumph!

Will be hosted at Westpoint.

April 15-17, 2010

It’s located about 50 miles north of New York City.

Travel options: JFK Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Airport, Stewart Airport

NCAA – Men’s Gymnastics

I’m feeling guilty for not having covered more of the Men’s NCAA gymnastics regular season. This was a great year.

My only excuse is that the MAG College teams produce so little information. Greg Marsden links to more articles, photos and video of his women’s team, Utah, each week, than all the Men’s teams combined.

Stick It Media is frustrated, at times, simply trying to get basic information on men’s regular season meets. Happily, Blythe Lawrence has persisted too on Gymnastics Examiner covering the Men’s 2010 NCAA season. Thanks.

Track those two sites if you want more on the Men.

ABC Afterschool Special – The Gymnast (1980)

If you like Aunt Joyce, you should check out Spanny Tampson’s Big Fake Smile. Funny, but sometimes profane. Big Fake Smile posted a detailed review of a Gawd awful gymnastics TV movie not starring Kurt Thomas.

Now, in light of other more horrifying, craptastic gymnastics-themed after school specials, what we’re about to see here isn’t that bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s BAD, but not as disturbing as the previous one. This one actually had Cathy Rigby as a consultant, and it shows, however slightly. I don’t know what was going on during the 80-84 quad to make people think that the public needed to be enlightened to the atrocities in gymnastics, but there seemed to be this epidemic of hating the sport.

Well, perhaps this video will explain to us just why training in gymnastics is the worst thing you could ever allow your children to do, ever.

As always, let’s start at the beginning. …

Click PLAY or watch The Gymnast – part 1 on YouTube.

• “The Gymnast” Part 2
• “The Gymnast” Part 3
• “The Gymnast” Part 4
• “The Gymnast” Part 5

If you can’t bear to be reminded how bad T.V. was back then, simply read the summary:

Big Fake Smile – it is the closest the irish will ever get to christmas

Update: After watching this voyage back in time, rapt, I’ve decided it’s not totally without any redeeming qualities. In fact, there’s even some truth in the dynamic of the older, bigger girl being pushed by the up-and-coming “hot shot”.

The acting is less two dimensional than expected. (O.K., perhaps it’s only 2.1 dimensional.)

Certainly there are fewer gymnastics “errors” than on any episode of Make it or Fake It.

Feel free to weigh in in the comments, if I’m too lenient nostalgic for the days when girls weighed in publicly.

From MostepanovaFan.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Who did the handspring double front dismount in 1987? (time 3:10) … Oksana Limaryova?

INSANE. … Almost as insane as choosing Meatloaf as a background track. LOL

Gymtruthteller makes a good point:

… in 2010 the event bringing the US down big time is the Uneven bars and bringing back Nastia for one event is not going to help the US beat China or Russia who have some amazing up and comers on the uneven bars …

For many months now I’ve been predicting that Russia will be the team to beat in London. And it’s possible that China will put together a strong team, and HIT, as they did in Beijing. Bars is the highest scoring apparatus. (I’ve more faith in the Russian program, though.)

Gymtruthteller feels the American National program needs to address the problem by promoting gymnasts with potential on Bars. And by having specialist Bar coaches work with them and their coaches.

Get rid of the flexed feet on releases, for example.

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

Related:

• Gymtruthteller – Marta needs to wake up before 2004 happens all over again

• IG forum discussion – United States- Bars

When a comeback by Nastia or Chellsie Memmel (montage video) is your plan to beat Russia, you’ve got serious problems.

Posted by The All Around Gymnastics News on Facebook:

Alexander Alexandrov names Russian training team for Europeans: Ksenia Afanasyeva, Ksenia Semyonova, Tatiana Nabiyeva, Aliya Mustafina, Anna Myzdrikova, Ekaterina Kurbatova & Ramilya Musina.

The International Gymnastics World Cup program has been floundering, I feel, since F.I.G. cancelled the World Cup Final, one of the few incentives for the best gymnasts in the world to attend.

How will the International Gymnastics Federation respond to this issue?

André GUEISBUHLER, FIG Secretary General included this information in one of the recent news bulletins:

… The Executive has ruled in favour of a new format and regulations for Artistic Gymnastics World Cup events, both per apparatus and for the All-around competition. The project will take effect in 2011. Among the new aspects featured are two competition levels (A and B tournaments) and prize money of up to 100,000 CHF for A tournaments. One trophy per year will be awarded per category. …

FIG Office Lausanne (SUI), February 26, 27 and 28, 2010

That’s about U.S. $100,000.

Who will put up the cash? Sponsors at each event, if they can be found, I assume.

Is anyone still living the pretense of Nastia Liukin returning to training?

An outside observer would not easily conclude she was a gymnast by checking her Twitter page.

I’m thrilled for the financial success of both Nastia and Shawn Johnson, but they both are guilty of SPAMMING their fans with too much marketing, not enough content on websites, twitter and Facebook.

Expect increasingly a backlash against both “brands” from their core fan base, gymnastics people.

And at what point in living the lie of a “possible comeback” will their agents relent, letting each tearfully, reluctantly retire. … Perhaps on Oprah. Think of the ratings!

… If you’re still a diehard Nastia supporter, be sure to become a fan of her new Supergirl Facebook page.

… prediction by site editor Rick McCharles:

UCLA will win the Team competition. Vanessa Zamarripa will win the all-around.

This is the most difficult College Gymnastics Championships season to forecast, in years.

If all 12 teams at nationals hit, I feel that UCLA, Florida or possibly even Georgia would score highest.

Florida could benefit from “home court advantage”.

But it may well be that, under pressure, consistency will turn out to be more important than the potential for really high scores. A safer bet to hit near perfectly would be Oklahoma or Alabama.

As Oklahoma coach K.J. Kindler said, the team competition is wide open.

The first challenge will be getting through to the Super 6. Any team in Finals could win it all. I could see Stanford or Oregon State atop the podium, no problem.

Best for the sport would be to have a new team win Championships. Anyone but G.A.U.U. (Georgia, Alabama, Utah, UCLA).

The all-around competition at NCAA Championships is far less important than Team. I recall when Tasha Schwikert won in 2008. She looked despondent because her team had a disappointing meet.

At the beginning of the season I would have predicted Shayla Worley or Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs to be the top AA gymnast of 2010. But that title is really up for grabs, too.

Many feel that Vanessa Zamarripa has momentum and the kind of star quality needed to be named National Champion. She was finally ranked #1 on GymInfo March 29th.

Here’s little Vanessa as a Level 10 in 2005, representing Midwest Twisters.

Region 5 has produced a lot of great gymnasts. Vanessa one of the best.

related – playlist of all 24 routines from UCLA at Pac-10 Championships 197.350.

From Mark Folger:

How does a child benefit from doing something well?

• A sense of accomplishment
• Motivation to continue the activity
• Developing passion for an activity
• Learning to set goals and be a progressive thinker
• Learning the process of accomplishment
• Recognition from parents, family and friends
• Determining a career path (depending on the activity)
• Friendships with other children who share common interests
• It’s fun to do something well

This list could become very large, so I’ll stop here. …

Actually, Mark doesn’t stop there. Click through to read the whole post. A great message

FOLGER’S GYMNASTICS – Is There Anything Better than Watching Kids Excel?

YOUTH SPORTS BLOG FOR COACHES, PARENTS, GYMNASTS AND GYMNASTICS FANS.

photo – Sonya

This video is not acrobatic sport specific, but gives a glimpse into why people are proud to work for Cirque du Soleil.

The only other companies I would put in the same league for innovation and quality are Apple and Pixar.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It helps that owner Guy Laliberté priorizes the art far, far ahead of the business.

disclosure – I love Cirque