Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin both had good showings at last week’s training camp at the Karolyi Ranch. Shawn’s natural strength is allowing her to do almost all of her skills already. While Shawn said she mostly did conditioning and limited skills, other coaches were impressed.
Nastia did bars and beam at camp and her body is slimming down into form. …
… Florida looks awesome. I think the team looks so much calmer than last year (I’m not as nervous watching them). However, they have only had one away meet so it will be interesting to see whether they can keep up this performance level on the road (and throughout the season). Also, if they go into Nationals as a big favorite it will create a big pressure situation that this young team will have to handle.
Alabama:
This is the first time I’ve seen them this year. I thought they would be more polished, but I think they have a lot of potential, especially when Priess gets back into the lineup. Priess, Hoffman, and Stack-Eaton anchoring the lineups can bring in big scores, and the freshmen have a lot of potential as well. …
Here’s who qualified for the Winter Cup Final, to be held Saturday night:
Jake Dalton
Danell Leyva
Glen Ishino
Steven Legendre
Andrew Elkind
Paul Ruggeri
Wes Haagensen
Tyler Mizoguchi
CJ Maestas
Alex Naddour
Cale Robsinson
Jesse Silverstein
Josh Dixon
Joseph Hagerty
Jesse Glenn
Sho Nakamori
Daniel Ribeiro
Ian Makowske
Luke Stannard
RJ Heflin
Donathan Bailey
Mel Anton Santander
Sam Mikulak
Chad Wiest
Stacey Ervin
Alex Buscaglia
Ty Echard
Tim Gentry
Max Mayr
Jeffrey Treleaven
Alexei Bilozertchev
Dylan Akers
Jordan Valdez
Jon Martin
Jonathan Horton
Eddie Umphrey
Jake Martin
Sean Regan
Chris Turner
Steven Lacombe
Chris Stehl
Adam Hamers
Craig Hernandez
Big names missing for one reason or another include: Jon Horton, Chris Brooks, Brandon Wynn, Tim McNeill and Sasha Artemev. Actually, Jon is listed for Finals though he competed only Rings in prelims. Sasha sort of competed 3 apparatus in prelims.
It’s great to see Sho Nakamori back in mix, coming back from injury.
The latest in the ongoing Know a Coach series – Texas Dreams’ Kim Zmeskal Burdette.
… Zmeskal-Burdette was born in Houston, Texas on February 6, 1976. She trained as a gymnast under Bela Karolyi from a young age …
By the age of thirteen, Zmeskal-Burdette was a rising star, as well as U.S. Junior National Champion. Two years later, she shocked the world by becoming the first American woman to win the World Championship All-Around gold medal. …
FIG posted the year end letter from our International Gymnastics Federation President.
One highlight:
Universality
… I do not personally remember a single Final in which eight gymnasts of varying nationalities participated on three different apparatus! And yet, it happened in Rotterdam in the Men’s Floor, Vault and Pommel Horse Finals. Eight nationalities; wonderful! …
Here’s the most controversial section:
Maturity
Much like good wine, gymnasts improve with age! That’s what Rotterdam statistics are saying with an average age participation of 18.14 for women and 23.10 for men. …
Among the issues hashed out during my election campaign in 1996, gymnast age carried a great amount of weight. And I took every possible opportunity to show, proof in hand, that precocious activity is harmful to the health of our athletes and takes away from the artistic aspect of gymnastics. Particularly in women.
A brief look at the stats: Stuttgart 1989, average age 16.67. London 2009, average age 18.79. …
Any gymnastics coach will confirm that a skinny girl age-15 weighing 82lbs is far safer doing high difficulty gymnastics than a young woman age-19 weighing 110lbs.
Female gymnast do not ‘improve with age’. Not, at least, in Grandi’s open ended code that provides a huge incentive to add difficulty in order to increase start score.
He can’t have it both ways: ‘well-rounded athletes’ are the ones most easily injured doing the most difficult routines.
Alicia Sacramone and Beth Tweddles are exceptions, not the norm.
Read the entire letter for yourself – Letter from the President – Happy New Year!
Here are some ‘well rounded gymnasts’, the body type Grandi wants competing FIG:
The NCAA has a very high injury rate competing much less demanding rules and only training 20hrs / week.
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A similar disconnect between Grandi’s code and his values …
Bruno quoted in the Russian magazine GIMNASTIKA
… The Russian gymnastics which we saw at the European and World championships in 2010 – especially from the women – is very beautiful. It is truly a comeback. The search for harmony in joining execution and composition and music in the routines. In this sense, Aliya Mustafina (and not only she) showed a return to the values which were always visible in, and an achievement of, your school.
Gymnastics must definitely remain artistic and not give in to acrobatics.
And the rules need to reward the aesthetic part if we do not want to lose the face of our sport. …
Gymnastics Coaching.com 