Year: 2010

Real life in a real gymnastics club. This just might be my favourite yet of all of Michael’s movies.

from the Gymnast Crossing blog by The WordSmith from Nantucket

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

From the Beatles show LOVE in Vegas.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via gymnastics24-7 on Chalk Bucket forum)

Like Couch Gymnast, I was both surprised and impressed.

Nellie Kim is the current F.I.G. President of the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee.

Nadia’s greatest rival, back in the day, Nellie was the first international gymnast to compete Tsuk 1/1, gainer full off the end of Beam and aerial cartwheel to back tuck.

John Crumlish posted a terrific interview. She makes a lot of sense:

…

IG: What do you think can be done to make gymnastics not only less confusing for media, but more popular to the public, and as popular as it was when you were a gymnast?

NK: I think we are promoting a negative attitude against gymnastics ourselves. I don’t say the FIG, but people who are criticizing gymnastics. For example, how can we request our girls the same as in rhythmic gymnastics – choreography, dance, artistry and feminism on floor — if at the same time they have to do power tumbling in the routine? Because, without power tumbling, it becomes a rhythmic gymnastics routine.

Sometimes, instead of saying how good we are and looking for positive moments, we are saying something negative. We should talk more positively and about how strong our sport is. We should bring respect to ourselves, our gymnasts, coaches and judges, and not punish, punish, punish. In Russia there is an expression, “If you don’t like yourself, nobody else will.” You are the first one who has to respect and love yourself. …

read more – IG Online Interview: Nellie Kim (Belarus/FIG)

On the other hand …, she doesn’t sound like the kind of leader taking decisive action to correct our many problems.

It’s easier than ever before for you and I to criticize what you don’t like about gymnastics. And praise.

Keeping silent will not help the sport progress.

Click PLAY or watch her Tsukahara with 1/1 twist on YouTube.

Three months after Games, window of opportunity appears to be closing on medalists.

How much are you willing to pay for a Winter Olympic Gold medal?

http://view.picapp.com//JavaScripts/OTIjs.js

… The Globe and Mail contacted nine Canadian individual gold medalists from the 2010 Games, including the two-woman bobsleigh team of Kaillie Humphries and Heather Moyse. Gold-medal-winning teams such as men’s and women’s hockey, men’s curling, and relay troupes in speed skating and short track were excluded because their medals were not as immediately identifiable with one athlete.

Asked how much the medals would be worth to them in 2010, the athletes gave a range of responses, though most were in the low five-figures, with several responding $20,000.

Moguls champion Alexandre Bilodeau wouldn’t provide specifics, but an informed source said he stood to earn about $200,000 this year. He and skeleton champion Jon Montgomery, who stands to make about the same, are the only gold medalists negotiating endorsement deals, and some athletes, such as speed skater Christine Nesbitt, do not even have agents. …

Globe Sports

(via Sport At Its Best)

Hmm. Not boring.

These previews are rekindling my interest in the TV show.

http://a.media.abcfamily.go.com/a/embededsfp/2.6.3/SFP_Walt.swf

One of the best known gymnasts today, … due to the 3 Bars skills with her name on them.

Click PLAY or watch her AWESOME 2000 routine on YouTube.

One of the great innovators.

How does she feel about getting a Bronze Olympic medal at VISA Championships?

Find out from an interesting article in her local paper:

Ten years after Elise Ray and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team finished fourth in Sydney, Ray and her teammates are being awarded a bronze medal after an age infraction by the Chinese was discovered by the International Olympic Committee.

“At first I thought, ‘There is no way this is going to happen,'” said Ray, who coaches with Hampstead-based Carroll Gymnastics. “I was just shocked. It’s pretty wild.” …

Missing out on a medal was heartbreaking for Ray, who was 18 at the time. She nearly gave up the sport.

“I was very deflated,” she said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to do it anymore.”

Ray didn’t let up, however, and continued her career at the University of Michigan, where she became the most decorated Wolverine gymnast of all time.

Ray captured the NCAA all-around national title her freshman year. She then flipped, twisted and spun her way to national titles in the beam in 2002 and the bars in 2004. In 2005, she led the Wolverines to the Super Six finals where she took home a silver medal on the beam.

“Michigan was a healing experience for me,” Ray said. “It brought the fun back to it.”

Ray, a 14-time all-American, graduated with an English degree, but she wasn’t ready to give up gymnastics. She spent the next two years performing in Las Vegas for Cirque Du Soleil.

“I loved performing. The work was unbelievable, but Vegas was not my city,” Ray said with a laugh.

So she went from the neon lights of Vegas back to Maryland. She has been with Carroll Gymnastics, which practices at Four Seasons Sports Complex, for more than two years.

Ray found a passion for coaching immediately. …

read more

This is GIULIANO STROE from Romania, born 18/06/2004.

Embedding this video is disabled. Watch it on YouTube.

Kelly Manjak sends us the link.

More photos of Giullinao. His “schools” listed are … Gymnastics and Weights.

Scary? … He’s got a younger brother training with him.

Yellowknife Gymnastics Club completes the first gymnastics pit north of 60!!!!

Nice.

But I wonder if there are more northerly pits in Russia or Scandinavia.

My home gym, Altadore, completely renovated both pits. New foam base. New edging. New (mostly) foam cubes.

They had considered the new Jim Walker pit system, but eventually opted for the simpler upgrade.

So true.

This from luvgymnastics in Australia.

… You know you’re a gymnast when/gymnastics is life, the rest is just details!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Kendra Wilkie Street on Facebook)