Year: 2010

Alex easily wins Sr. Men’s Tumbling prelims at #CdnGymChamps.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Great form.

Stu Cram captured this. I assume it’s QUAD SYNCHRO. … A new discipline?

Shout out to the Men’s Senior Tumblers. Everybody hit. A great show in prelims at National Championships. (#CdnGymChamps)

I’ll link to video if I can get my hands on it.

Click through to YouTube to watch the Gymnastics Canada video being shown before each rotation at National Championships. (CdnGymChamps)

It features plenty of footage from Oakville Gym Club.

#CdnGymChamps

Just got an email from Kyle. He’s psyched for the radical new event with his name on it, especially the exposure it will give one of his favourite charities: Right To Play.

I talked to Tony and Lisa Smith, University of Calgary Head Coaches, offering to volunteer. This is a gigantic upscaling of what’s already one of the biggest competitions in Canada. They could have thousands of participants the first year!

The official Festival website is not LIVE yet. But you can get more information by emailing: kyleshewfeltinvite@gmail.com

Ask to be put on the mailing list.

____

Kyle will arrive Thursday to do commentary on the first ever Web Broadcast of the 2010 Canadian Gymnastics Championships.

Thursday, May 27
6:30 – 9:00 pm
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics (WAG) Junior & Senior All-Around & Men’s Artistic Gymnastics (MAG) Senior All-Around

Friday, May 28
6:00 – 9:30 pm: Trampoline Gymnastics (TG) Team Finals

Saturday, May 28
2:30 – 6:00 pm: WAG, MAG and TG senior Finals

Barabus.TRU.ca/gymnastics (Please note this link will not be live until the date of the first broadcast)

A well edited year end highlights video showing why College gymnastics is so FUN. Stanford finished 4th at Championships. Janinga had a great final Senior meet: 3rd AA and Bars champion.

How did they celebrate? A team trip to Disney World in Florida.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (10min)

That’s posted on Senior Tenaya West‘s YouTube channel.

… I’m going to miss Tenaya’s wonderful smile next season.

I’m going to miss Stanford Assistant Coach Mike Lorenzen, too. He’s decided to “graduate” to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, taking a job as Director of Sport Strategy for USA Fencing.

Next season?

Stanford’s got some great recruits, including Kristina Vaculik.

1. Madeline Gardiner (Cambridge Kips), 56.2;
2. Kristina Vaculik (Gemini), 55.65;
3. Dominique Pegg (Bluewater), 55.4;
4. Jessica Savona (Oakville), 53.85;
5. Bianca Dancose Giambattisto (Gym-Richelieu), 52.45;
6T. Carrina Lo Bello (Gemini), 51.3;
6T. Nansy Damianova (Gymnix), 51.3;
8. Sydney Sawa (Calgary), 51.0;
9. Coralie Leblond-Chartard (Gymnix), 50.9;
10. Kristin Klarenbach (Champions), 50.4.

full results (PDF)

official results page

All of Grace’s photos are posted on GraceClick.com.

No way to sugar coat it. … Senior Bars was a splatfest.

Did 3 Senior gymnasts not fall. Or was it only two?

The atmosphere of this competition was somewhat gloomy. I don’t know why. The venue is great.

Coaches are not confident in the Canadian National Program. Many are not confident the Women’s team can qualify in the top 12 for the 2012 Olympics. Some of our top girls will be gone to College. And we’re not sure our up-and-coming kids will be ready in time. Funding for WAG was cut after our team did not qualify for Beijing.

Something has to happen. Change the program for 2012. … Or cut bait. Shift our limited resources to qualification for 2016.

My list of surprising competition highlights were only three:

• Madeline Gardiner – Floor – fantastic!
• Rochelle Hurt’s triple turn on beam (I love that trick!)
• Jessica Dowling – unique talent

After the meet I ran over to Jessica and her coaches to say how much I enjoyed her gymnastics. (I hope it helped. She had a rough meet.) Jessica is the smallest Senior gymnast by far, with a great “look”. Her future is bright.

The best coverage of this meet is on Gymnastics Examiner:

• Live blog: 2010 Canadian Nationals, senior women’s qualification
• Madeline Gardiner leads qualifying at Canadian Championships

One apparatus that has not suffered from the most recent version of the Code of Points is Parallel Bars.

I agree with Andy Thornton who writes:

… Overall I’m impressed with how this event is progressing…we’re seeing an incredible variety of skills, including support swinging skills, upper arm skills, release elements, giant and peach elements, and lots of originality. I think the code is actually working quite well here. …

Andy linked to this example. Click PLAY or watch Anton Fokin – 2010 Moscow World Cup Parallel Bar Finals – on YouTube.

See more on this American Gymnast post – Some innovative men’s p-bars routines from Moscow!

Last quadrennial we saw far too many double saltos. Composition seems about optimal to me this cycle.

Top 3 Junior WAG gymnasts in prelims.

full results (PDF)

Sabrina Gill rocked it for a 56.350. CONGRATS.

related – Sabrina Gill For 2012 Olympics Facebook page

Details on Blythe Lawrence’s Gymnastics Examiner LIVE blog.

breaking news at the #CdnGymChamps …

Beginning in 2011, the Jurassic Classic will be known as the Kyle Shewfelt Invitational, in honor of the 2004 Olympic floor champion, Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique announced today.

The first Shewfelt Invitational will take place March 25-27, 2011 at the University of Calgary, where Shewfelt trained for the Beijing Olympics under coach Tony Smith.

The flier given out for the Shewfelt Invitational promotes it as “a giant celebration of gymnastics” in support of the sports organization Right to Play, which mobilizes athletes and volunteers to encourage sports and youth development in developing areas. …

Click through to Gymnastics Examiner for the biggest news – Presenting the Kyle Shewfelt Invitational Festival of Gymnastics

Trampoline sports, gymnaestrada, rhythmic and cheerleading will be added. Jurassic will now be a festival, not simply a gym meet.

After 3 Olympics, Kyle finally retired. He’s doing online gymnastics video coverage commentary at the Canadian Championships.

related – KyleShewfelt.com

#CdnGymChamps

… that’s the hash tag for anyone posting to Twitter. (Search for those posts on the Canadian Gymnastics Championships on Twitter search.)

I arrived mid-day, but still have not seen much gymnastics, too busy catching up with old friends on the sidelines.

Venue looks great, everyone thrilled having the meet hosted in Kamloops, pop. about 80,000.

Stu Cram has been watching the athletes. Here are a couple of pics he posted to Facebook.