Year: 2011

A Vicar Does A Cartwheel In Westminster Abbey After Prince William & Princess Catherine Leave The Abbey

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

via Gymnastics Examiner Week in Review.

Married. And with a 7-year-old niece gymnast, Kerri, now age-33, was recently inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame.

read the interview – What’s up with Kerri Strug

Can you settle a bet?

It turned out that Kerri did not need to take her second vault at the 1996 Olympics. Team USA would have won the Gold without that score.

But when was that certain?

Click PLAY or watch those Vaults on YouTube.

Wikipedia says: “Galieva performed after Strug, and therefore Strug needed to land a second vault on her feet in order to mathematically clinch the gold.”

Is that true?

And, if it was early enough to scratch her second vault, could anyone, even Bela, have convinced her not to vault? … She was still trying to qualify for the AA.

Okanagan Gymnastics Centre empties, cleans and maintains their two pits twice each year. It’s a gorgeous, bright facility. (more photos)

We had the idea to pitch this to the Mike Rowe’s Dirty Jobs TV show.

Couch Gymnast recommends this edit – A Truly Fabulous Floor Montage.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That’s by Nade00. Thanks.

And more. … Hollie Vise may be there.

Lehigh University’s Stabler Arena, Bethlehem, PA, August 27, 2011

Evolution will have a cast of Olympic and world-renowned male and female athletes competing on two eight-person teams. The athletes will compete in a nonstop “skill-for-skill battle” backed by a production that will electrify and overwhelm the audience

WGF Evolution Tickets have gone on sale – www.wgfevolution.com

By the way, International Gymnastics Camp is looking for a Graphic Designer. As you can see on their site, IGC does very cool work. Closing date for applications May 7th – travis @internationalgymnastics.com.

The greatest Chinese specialist of all time is competing again. She’s targeting the World University Games, scheduled for August in China.

… Not quite her peak form yet, Fei did perform well in the both VT and FX – the only two exercises she participated in yesterday’s test.

Couch Lu also pointed out the issues the team has: too many apparatus specialists , lack of strong AAers and strong vaulter. …

Chinese Gymnastics Blog

Some video was posted too.

He Kexin showed double twisting Yurchenko, however. And is quite strong on Floor.

In another Chinese Gymnastics Blog post, MAG judge Shao Bin is confident on defending himself in Lausanne this week. It’s the Disciplinary Investigation on his changing scores at the Asian Games, escalating a Chinese gymnast (Zhang Chenglong) to a tie for Gold on Floor. It’s been referred to as a score fixing scandal though Shao Bin strongly denies it.

You can imagine how happy Beijing is with the International Gymnastics Federation these days. Adrian Stoica lodged this complaint after the meet, rather than handling it on site. At the time. … Not to mention China being stripped of the 2000 Olympic medal.

Two Quads in his free program. Respect.

… though his 11-point lead was so big he could have won without them on Thursday, he held nothing back once the music started, landing a quadruple toe loop to open and following that up with a quadruple toe-triple toe combination.

The rest was nearly as eye-catching, the only obvious blemish a stumble out of a triple axel midway through his program set to music from “Phantom of the Opera” by Andrew Lloyd Webber. His point total of 187.96 points was a world record …

NY Times

Click PLAY or watch his Short Program on YouTube.

I know gymnastics coaches who would prefer to compete in Tokyo (rather than have it moved to Moscow) for the Gymnastics World Championships. Is there really any problem with Moscow?

Russia has mystique.

Lincoln, Neb. – Nebraska Head Coach Dan Kendig announced on Thursday that assistant coach Tim Garrison will be leaving the NU women’s gymnastics program to take the reins as head coach at Kentucky.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for him to be able to head up a program that will be committed to getting better,” Kendig said. “I think he’ll have the ability to do that. He has a great game plan put together. The University of Kentucky should be very excited. They have a great coach, and good things are going to happen.”

… Garrison coached 10 NCAA All-Americans on vault and floor at Nebraska and helped the Huskers match their best finish in school history at the 2011 NCAA Championships with a fourth-place showing.

“We lose a great coach who has done an outstanding job for our program,” Kendig said. “He will be hard to replace. He is going to be greatly missed, but he definitely has a really good opportunity ahead of him. I am excited for him.”

Garrison Named Head Coach at Kentucky

Good call. Tim’s a great coach.

This is still the single most amazing phenomenon in Collegiate gymnastics …

Getting thousands of fans out for a mid-season dual meet.

via GymInfo

Utah had 15,558 for one meet.

Firstly, all Alabama athletes and staff are safe after the recent tornado in Tuscaloosa. That’s a relief.

Alabama senior Kayla Hoffman has won the 2011 Honda Sports Award in gymnastics, given annually to the nation’s top collegiate female gymnast.

The Honda Sports Award is given annually to the top women athletes in 12 NCAA-sanctioned sports, along with automatic eligibility to become a “Top Three” finalist for the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year. Hoffman was voted over three other nominees for the 2011 award: Michigan senior Kylee Botterman, UCLA senior Brittani McCullough, and Penn State sophomore Sharaya Musser. …

USAG

We might be surprised that the NCAA Champion Kylee Botterman didn’t get it. Personally I’m happy to see Kylee share the wealth.

See Kayla’s Gymnastike interview.

The Honda Award is based on the results of national balloting among 1,000 NCAA member schools as part of The Collegiate Women Sports Awards program, now in its 35th year

American Honda Motor Co., Inc. has sponsored The Collegiate Women Sports Awards Program for 26 consecutive years. Honda has donated over $2 million in grants and sponsorships to universities over the course of the program.

… She was named the 2011 SEC Gymnast of the Year and the SEC Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year, becoming the first in league history to win both in the same season …

Roll Tide

Sharaya Musser has quite the back story:

… on Sharaya’s 16th birthday, Jan. 26, 2007, the young gymnast got a Staph infection, with the bacteria Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus putting her in the hospital for 10 days and doctors giving her a 20 percent chance of survival. …

She’s still affected to this day.