Author: Rick Mc

British Gymnastics:

1988 marked 100 years of gymnastics in Britain – get a glimpse of how the sport has changed in this exclusive event held in the Wembley Arena.

Click PLAY or watch it on BGtv’s YouTube channel.

British girls wore leotards for the first time in … 1960.

USA and British Gymnastics are the two best organizations for posting video.

How does your nation compare?

When’s the last time you saw double pike dismount with toes pointed? 🙂

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (15.067)

I understand she’s the current Jr. national champ on Vault and Bars, age eligible for Rio. Second AA Jr for girls aged 13 and under.

See Couch Gymnast – 2013 Chinese Junior Nationals: Recap and video

via GymFever

That’s a new kind of embedded video.

A few of the high difficulty sets we might see at Worlds.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’m guessing Aliya will up her difficulty for Apparatus Finals, assuming she qualifies.

Chinese National Games

AA (unofficial) calculated from Team Finals competition.

1.) Shang Chunsong 56.901
2.) Lv Jiaqi 55.401
3t) Huang Qiushuang and Zeng Siqi 55.334
5.) Xiao Kangjun 54.868
6.) Liu Tingting 54.735
7.) Yao Jinnan 54.068

via GymFever

The AA Final is coming up.

The toughest division to win in Canadian Men’s Gymnastics is the youngest (age-12 and under).

In 2013 the winner was Elijah Thompson, coached by Miguel Costante & Scott Rayment at Calgary Gymnastics Centre.

Results (PDF)

Watch an interview by 2004 Olympic Floor Gold medalist Kyle Shewfelt.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Kyle was the one who inspired Elijah to start his own Right to Play page.

Elijah’s raised nearly $4000 for the charity.

A group of athletes and coaches from Alberta trained in China this summer. They told me the biggest gap between the Canadians and Chinese boys of the same age is Parallel Bars. Since their return, Elijah’s working hard to upgrade P Bars and H Bar.

China not nearly as weak in the AA as we thought.

The All Around Gymnastics News:

The top 3 at Chinese National Games MAG AA final score above 90 points

1. Zhou Shixiong 90.269
2. Liu Rongbing 90.135
3. Deng Shudi 90.035

Click PLAY or watch Zhou Shixiong’s H Bar from earlier this season on YouTube.

Worlds 2014 will be held in Nanning, China.

Featuring Igor Radilov, London Olympic Bronze medalist on Vault.

This is good. High production values.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

via GymFever

China is Stepping it up on Bars. Their best chance for medals at Worlds are on Bars & Beam.

Those convinced that Kyla Ross can win a Bar medals at Worlds postulate that the Chinese girls with higher start values and more real difficulty will miss.

Perhaps they’re right.

Click PLAY or watch Shang Chunsong on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch He Kexin on YouTube.

This is a very, very important competition in China. Not a meet to try new upgrades.

Zeng Siqi’s routine is weak. I assume she won’t be doing Bars at Worlds. (VIDEO)

Australian Gymnastics Blog:

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013

This week marks 10 years since an Australian gymnastics team (or individual) first medalled at a world championship.

Our purple-clad women’s lineup pulled off the unthinkable in the team final (technical infractions to an opposing team notwithstanding) and snatched a third place podium finish …

Belinda Archer, Jacqui Dunn, Danielle Kelly, Stephanie Moorhouse, Monette Russo, and Allana Slater (honourable mention to an injured Lisa Skinner) completed the four rotations commendably, finishing on beam …

read more – Back In Time To Anaheim

In Canada we envied the Australian system. Dana Brass and I both made research trips Down Under to study what they were doing right.

…

It looks like no Aussie women will compete at Worlds 2013.

Brigid McCarthy explains why.

The Australian Sports Commission’s new ‘Winning Edge Strategy’.

It looks like a loser to me.

Antwerp would be an ideal meet for young candidates for Rio to gain experience. Make it self-funded if money is the issue.

We have a similarly overly elitist initiative in Canada called ‘Own the Podium’.

If medals are the ONLY goal, Canadians should focus on easier-to-win Winter Olympic sports like luge and skeleton.

That would be stupid federal policy, clearly.

Those sports have very few participants. Soccer and Gymnastics have millions of participants.

The societal payoff in terms of health and fitness is far greater in some sports than others.

Olympic medals are not equal.

This is a good example of how socialist government control of sport is inefficient. I envy the USA for not having to rely on the whims of whatever politician happens to be in power.