Year: 2011

Stick of the Week.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://videoplayer.flocasts.org/player.swf

I could do without the comic intro.

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. …

read more on Full In Full Out

Click PLAY or watch a Gymnastike interview on her World Championships win in Indianapolis 1991.

http://videoplayer.flocasts.org/player.swf

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:

V: Botterman
UB: Curtis
BB: Zakharia
FX: Botterman

Click PLAY or watch them on YouTube.

The NCAA has a very high injury rate competing much less demanding rules and only training 20hrs / week.

_____

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. …

read more

Most agree with Grandi on this point. … But Nabieva is on the Russian team for her high start scores, not her artistry.

In 2011 high difficulty score is the way to win, despite what the President of the International Gymnastics Federation says.

The only way to fix the problem is to weight the execution score higher than it is now. Sadly, I don’t see that happening any time soon.

@StickItMedia and @USA_GymEvents had terrific LIVE coverage on twitter.

USAG is posting routines, seemingly randomly, on YouTube.

Overall, pretty good online coverage. Kudos.

My biggest complaint was the lack of LIVE combined results. Each session was posted separately.

Click through to the official website results page for details.

Update: USAG posted a wrap-up:

Jake Dalton of Reno, Nev., leads the all-around after preliminary competition at the 2011 Winter Cup Challenge at the Las Vegas (Nev.) Sports Center. The competition concludes with finals on Saturday, Feb. 5 at 7:15 p.m. PT.

Dalton, who competes for the University of Oklahoma, posted an 88.100 in the first day of all-around competition, recording the top score on floor exercise (15.900). 2010 World horizontal bar finalist Danell Leyva of Miami/Hilton HHonors, finished in second (87.450) and posted the highest score on high bar (16.000). Glen Ishino of Santa Ana, Calif./University of California, Berkeley, finished in third (86.900). …

read more – Dalton leads 2011 Winter Cup all-around after preliminaries

I’ll be posting highlight routines all weekend.

Huge routine. But I’m still not a fan.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

7.400 difficulty.
Exec: 8.300 7.550 8.500 9.050 8.850 8.60

Who’s right? … the 7.55 or the 9.05 … ??

Is there some way to put this guy on the team?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

6.80 difficulty, 9.20 execution.

Not at the level of the World Championships finalists. But by far the best routine of the meet on pig, so far.

Artemev did not compete Pommels.

For fun, try this …

Click this link. Let the page load.

Qwiki is a multimedia website which links a robotic reading of a text summary drawn from any chosen Wikipedia article with still and moving images drawn from many sources across the web.

… It is backed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim …

Qwiki won the TechCrunch Disrupt Award in 2010

Actually a Kaz + 2/1 twist. … Or, even more accurately, 1/4-on, 2 3/4-off.

He’s currently leading the Vault standings at Winter Cup. And has been rocking this world class vault all season.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (from 2010)

Competition in progress.

official website – live scoring

The updated list has just been posted.

WOGA has 5 gymnasts, the most of any club. That’s not counting Nastia.

Cassie Whitcomb announced her retirement from international gymnastics, yet is still listed on the Team.

Are they hoping she changes her mind?