Year: 2011

One of the Urban Trees on San Diego Bay’s Waterfront.

“Handstand” by Daniel Stern

The artist reflects on his career in theater and films in this eight-foot bronze sculpture that depicts a man performing a one-armed handstand balanced 12 feet above the pavement. His hope is that people who see the artwork will get a feeling of motion, joy, color, chaos, balance, humor, danger, possibilities and impossibilities.

An unusual edit, the forest Parkour does not start until 5min in.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Meet the Magic is the theme of Gymnaestrada 2011.

Swiss star Ariella Kaeslin (Käslin) announced her retirement from competitive gymnastics Monday at a press conference, just 12 months before what would have been her second Olympic Games. …

Kaeslin leaves the Swiss women’s team far stronger than she found it. During an international career that lasted more than a decade, Kaeslin set a stupendous number of firsts for Swiss gymnastics. She was the first Swiss gymnast to win an all-around medal at the European Championships (bronze in 2009), the first to win a European title (vault, 2009) and the first to win a World medal (silver on vault at the 2009 Worlds). …

read more from Blythe Lawrence, Special to Universal Sports – Gymnast Kaeslin shocks with retirement announcement

In 2010 she was voted “Swiss Sportswoman of the Year”. It is a bit of a shock here in Lausanne.

via THE ALL AROUND on Facebook.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

She got a 6.2 start one day, 6.5 the next.

More videos from that competition on Couch Gymnast.

Participants, organisers and spectators at the 14th World Gymnaestrada were all anxiously observing the skies on Sunday afternoon. With a thunderstorm and heavy rain hanging over Lausanne during the day, the risk of a soaking during the Opening Ceremony scheduled for 4pm was very high!

However, it seems the Organising Committee had a direct line to the weather Gods as, just one hour before the big show, the sun came out and blue skies opened up over La Pontaise Olympic Stadium. …

… the 55 international delegations marched in one after the other, waving their national flags, clapping and entertaining the crowd with scattered gymnastic and acrobatic performances on their way around the stadium. …

read more on FIG – Heavens smile on opening extravaganza

It’s a blast marching in as I recall from 1975 and 1982. Watching 19,000 people march-in is not nearly so entertaining. After France I went wandering around the stadium, catching a nap in the sun at one point.

The background music didn’t help, the most current musical selection being Y.M.C.A. (1978). All in all, not much has changed since march-in 1975.

Best dressed, I thought, were Qatar in traditional desert costume. Those nations each person carrying a flag were impressive: Germany and Austria, for two.

The Top Secret Drum Corps from Basel stole the show, as they did last year at the Edinburgh Tattoo. The only performance to get a standing ovation. The Swiss Airforce buzzing the audience was a thrilling finale, too.

I had assumed FIG MTC had stopped increasing the start values for new more difficult vaults as a safety precaution. I was wrong. This Vault was valued out of 7.4. Stoica and the MTC were there. It looks like that will be confirmed.

(Nastia was there too, Shawn at home training to compete 3 apparatus at Covergirl Classic.)

… The biggest news of the Korean Cup was the unveiling of South Korea’s Hak Seon Yang’s new vault, a handspring 3/1 stretched.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That was linked on Full Twist, a post including some event Finals results.

Leave a comment if you have seen Hoon Ji Kim’s routine on H Bar 7.1 D score, execution 8.775. Or Zhang Hongtao Pommels, execution 9.350.

Read more on THE ALL AROUND – Korea, China dominate Korea Cup

Here is the top American Bar Bar worker right now, so far as I know. And she is working more difficulty. Anna’s signature monster Tkachev has not been added yet, for example.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/NjE5NDk5NzA0?related=1

Like many of us in July, Brigid the Couch Gymnast is away from home – in St. Petersburg, this time.

She posted an assortment of links, all interesting including this from Russian Head Coach Alexander Alexandrov:

“The Americans have a good team. Maybe their current gymnasts are not as pretty as Nastia Liukin, but they are pretty powerful and have good routines. And they have a pretty big choice, something we unfortunately can’t say about our team. And as far as China is concerned, well, you can only say one thing: China is China.”

Team USA has depth. And discipline. They will be the favourites in WAG Team and AA at World Championships. …. On the other hand, China is China. They are the only other nation that can challenge for Team, I think.

Alicia is doing Floor at VISA Championships. Three apparatus puts her in far stronger position to be named Captain of the American World’s Team.

I was charmed to see this, Meryl Streep doing a Cartwheel.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

A must read – Couch Gymnast Miscellany……

Sergei Rumbutis (Russia) from way back when.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Sergei now coaches in Sweden. His daughter Julia competes.

Via the WTFgymnasticsvideos YouTube channel.

As a judge I almost always deduct for this error.

It results from the feet being apart on the board. And the athlete using torque to generate the twist in the preflight.

From the earliest stages of training, we should focus on making that split as small as possible. And bringing the legs together as quickly as possible.

“Fly Round-off” drills from a trampoline, for example.