Year: 2010

by site editor Rick McCharles

Matthew Miscisin authored The Big Book of Gymnastics Games:

While growing up in a family of ten children I had an abundance of early lessons in cooperation and competition. …

Matthew sent me a copy for review. It’s excellent.

But what I got was much different than expected. From the title – Big Book of Gymnastics Games – I expected traditional warm-up games like those in Rushkin’s Up Down All Around lesson plans. And in Dave Adlard’s Cool Games DVDs.

Not.

Matthew’s “Games” are mostly contests and drills. With FUN names like:

• Cartwheel of Doom
• Human Catapult
• Flip-Flop Factory

It could be called Big Book of Gymnastics Contests for Serious Skill Development.

Matthew:

One of the biggest challenges a gymnastics coach faces is motivating the students to perform a skill or exercise with enough repetition to produce mastery. Another challenge is motivating the students to put 100% of their effort and concentration into each attempt …

If you want to have more FUN at training, this text is highly recommended.

Amazon

Retail price is $25 plus about $3 standard shipping (in USA), $7 priority shipping and about $14 international shipping. It is also available at the wholesale price of about $15 domestic shipping included (media mail) through Gymnasticsman.com.

You can also download games one-at-a-time for a dollar each.

The review copy will be donated to Keith Russell‘s library at U of Saskatchewan.

Al Fong:

… We have drills using panel mats as vaulting boards because sometimes our athletes don’t put 100% effort into their punches off the vault board. How do we know if they do or not? One way to find out. We take the vault board away and have them vault without it. It really makes them work.

Then put the board back in and watch them punch off the board to the ceiling. …

Who needs a board anyway!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

A collection of past issues is posted online

Note that some old links to specific Technique articles no longer work.

Everyone is surprised at what a success YOG turned out to be. It looks like the Youth Olympic Games are here to stay.

I’ve not heard of a single overage athlete scandal.

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

Better athletes will be coming to the next Youth Olympics, IOC president Jacques Rogge said Thursday. ..

The head of the U.S. Olympic Committee on Tuesday blamed scheduling conflicts for the Americans’ woeful performance in the inaugural Youth Olympics, where their gold medal tally is less than Hungary and Azerbaijan. …

The Youth Olympics, which closed Thursday, were dominated by China, which won 30 gold medals and 51 overall. Russia was second with 19 gold medals and South Korea was third with 11.

The United States won only four gold medals, and U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun said earlier this week that scheduling conflicts had kept some top American athletes from competing in Singapore.

The Youth Olympics featured 3,600 athletes aged 14 to 18 from 204 national Olympic committees competing in 26 sports. …

“These Youth Games have definitely exceeded vastly my highest expectations,” Rogge said. “I did not expect this level of perfection in organization. Hats off to Singapore for what they have done.”

Rogge says Youth Olympics to have better athletes

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

The inaugural youth winter games will be held in Innsbruck, Austria, in 2012 and the summer games in Nanjing, China in 2014. Lillehammer, Norway, which hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics, is the only city that has expressed an interest in hosting the 2016 winter games, and has until November to submit a formal bid, the IOC said.

related – Missing top talent hurts US team at Youth Olympics

The final Summer 2010 episode of the hit gymnastics television show Make It or Break It …

The show will guest star Gymnastics Coaching great Béla Károlyi. He will play the father of The Rock coach Sasha Beloff.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Mark Folger posted a great story about Bela coaching recreation adult gymnastics at Oklahoma University.

The most decorated gymnast in University of California history, Tim McNeill, will rejoin the Golden Bear program as its men’s gymnastics coach …

McNeill, who graduated from Cal in 2008 as a five-time NCAA champion, spent the 2009 season as a graduate intern with the Bears before training full-time with the U.S. National team this past year. …

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

“Being the head coach at Cal is absolutely my dream job,” McNeill said. …

McNeill replaces Barry Weiner, who retired from his position as head coach in June after posting a 19-year record of 266-111-1, which included NCAA championships in 1997 and ’98. …

Former Cal Great Tim McNeill Named Men’s Gymnastics Coach

I’m assuming this means that Cal has survived and will contend the NCAA again this season. Congratulations.

And assuming that Tim will retire as an athlete. He’s got big shoes to fill at Cal. But at least he knows the Weiner system.

The IG interview with Adrian Stoica, president of the International Gymnastics Federation Men’s Technical committee is now online.

IG editor Dwight Normile asks all the right questions.

Stoica confirms that he plans to run for F.I.G. President one day. (I’d vote for Slava Corn.)

Stoica also defends the current Men’s Code of Points, explaining that eventually coaches will invent shorter routines with fewer execution deductions. That’s not what’s been happening, so far.

There’s been a big increase in C, D and E parts. Gymnasts are trying to win by getting the highest start values.

Stoica agreed with Normile that the rules on Horizontal Bar are flawed. Changes will be seriously considered for after London.

Click through to the September 2010 issue of International Gymnast. It’s a great interview.

The big news:

… Two-time Olympian Anna Pavlova (Orekhovo-Zuevo/Khimki) was sixth, tying Nabiyeva for the high score on balance beam (14.500). Pavlova, who suffered a torn ACL dismounting beam at the 2008 DTB Cup, announced her plans for retirement this year.

“We decided that she wanted to participate, to see her friends,” said her mother and coach, Natalia Pavlova. “In two weeks she turns only 23, but the injury has affected her. This year will be her last in elite sports” …

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

Russia Cup Qualifying

WAG
1. Mustafina 59.821;
2. Nabieva 59.151;
3. Semenova 56.967;
4. Elizarova 56.040;
5. Afanasyeva ;
6. Pavlova 55.184

MAG
1. Belyavskii 88.900;
2. Khorokhordin 88.700;
3. Ignatiev 87.900;
4. Pakhomenko 87.700;
5. Deviatovskii 87.600

Via The All Around Gymnastics News on Facebook

… “Russia has begun to recover a leading position in women’s gymnastics and the Russian women will challenge for the gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games,” Russian coach Valentina Rodionenko said. “We can confidently say that the crisis in women’s gymnastics is over. In men’s gymnastics, we still have problems, because guys mature later. It takes more time. At the next world championships our goal is gold in the women’s team competition, which we have not won since 1991. …

read more on IG – Mustafina, Belyavsky Lead Russian Cup Qualifications

Last night we enjoyed the show at Wynn, the other water show in Las Vegas.

Here’s a recent backstage profile:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

We had the chance to say hi to Kristina Baskett. She’s actually leaving the show, headed off to Los Angeles for some, I assume, stunt work.

The newest circus water show is opening in Macao.

The best Floor / Vault gymnast of the past decade has been issued a “severe warning” by the International Gymnastics Federation.

His crime?

… for failing to comply with the procedures governing the fight against doping. …

FIG – Marian Dragulescu warned

Here’s the official letter from the Disciplinary Commission (PDF)

Nobody believes Marian Dragalescu is a doper. … It’s more that his Federation and the F.I.G. cannot keep track of if he’s retired, or not. … And where he’s living at any given time.

Isn’t that the Federation run by Adrian Stoica?