Author: Rick Mc

@collegegymfans:

Men’s NCAA Prelims: Michigan 353.45, PSU 353, Stanford 348.5. Those three teams advance to the team finals.

Examiner:

It wasn’t always pretty, but it was enough.

The talented Michigan men’s team overcame a few bumps on several events during the first of two sessions of Super Six qualification at the NCAA Gymnastics Championships at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

In spite of falls of pommel horse and high bar from talents that included Olympic reigning U.S. Junior champion Adrien de los Angeles, Michigan posted a season high 353.45 to lead the field so far at the NCAA Championships. …

Michigan men lead first qualifying session at the NCAA Gymnastics Championships

Examiner LIVE blog

full results

While the NCAA Men are competing in prelims at Oklahoma, the Women are adjusting to the podium at an independent arena, the Gwinnett Center, in Duluth, Georgia.

Independent, yes. But many Athens Georgia fans are already here. Loud and proud.

I watched 8 of the 12 teams in podium training. It’s not at all clear that Florida or UCLA will win. There’s plenty of parity. The top 12 teams from regular season all qualified. And all look good on different apparatus.

The Team I know least, for example, is Ohio State, qualifying to their first NCAA Championship in 22 years. And I now know Ohio State has fantastic tumbling. Double front. Kicking out of Double pike. Impressive stuff!

This competition may well be decided by Beam wobbles. And Vault landings. Any of the 12 could get through to the Super 6 Team Finals, if they hit.

See more of Nathan’s Utah photos on The Gymnastics Project.

Anne is on the Floor for Gymnastike. She can post podium training video, but not competition routines. That’s likely your best link.

Greg Marsden on Facebook:

Check out former Utah Gymnastics team member Kristina Baskett in this Sony commercial.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

1) Strong competition
2) Survival

… Six current members of the U.S. national team will compete this week at the NCAA meet, where six teams will advance from Thursday night’s qualifying round for a shot at the national title on Friday.

For a few nights, that group — Michigan’s Sam Mikulak and Adrian De Los Angeles, Illinois’ C.J. Maestas and Paul Ruggeri III, Oklahoma’s Jake Dalton and California’s Glen Ishino — won’t be focused on Team USA but on the NCAA trophy. …

… And yet, the college side of the sport is struggling. Still a prime-time draw during the Olympics, there are only 17 NCAA teams in the country in all divisions — 16 at the highest level and one Division III team.

Washington Post

Ruggeri won the Nissen-Emery Award, a gymnastics equivalent of Football’s Heisman.

I’ve slowly been posting ideas shared by Al Fong and the GAGE staff at their recent clinic. But some of the most important are already online …

Sara Gill on GymDynasty:

… The three days I was there I never saw a child cry one tear. In fact not one child was “yelled at”, or “criticized”, or “belittled” in front of their peers. Instead calm voices explained the correction of a skill or if a change in behavior was needed it was done quietly and to the point. …

… Numbers, numbers, numbers! It is not a secret to be successful in gymnastics one must do a routine over and over to make it his or her best. What is lacking from gyms however, is efficiency. Use every bar, every beam, any floor station you can think of to maximize your time on each event. Instead of having a group of gymnasts in line doing one routine at a time …

What Al Fong Helped me Remember…

Exactly right.

Al Fong has been called the toughest coach in America. He called himself “… the poster boy for everything gone wrong in gymnastics.”

But that’s not the Al Fong we saw at GAGE.

I was very impressed with what we saw at GAGE. Those gymnasts have a fantastic program.

By the way, Sara Gill is a consultant for girls aspiring to Collegiate Gymnastics. Check out recent posts promoting two of her clients:

• Natalie Gervais Stays on Top!

• Sydney McEachern takes 1st place at Manitoba Championships

… slow motion video of 2011 World Champion Danell Leyva performing a Giant Diamodov on Parallel Bars in August 2011

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

U.S. Olympians will be decked out in all white at the closing ceremony at the London Games.

The USOC debuted the closing ceremony and Olympic village attire it will provide athletes Wednesday, 100 days before the start of this summer’s games. …

SI – U.S. Olympians to wear all white at 2012 closing ceremonies

McKayla Maroney, Alexandra Raisman and Jon Horton are Ralph Lauren models.

(via Examiner)

The Balance Beam Situation:

… there are as many as 20 legitimate competitors for the All-Around title. Now, I am not that charitable, so I’m going to eliminate some of those from consideration pretty easily. But I do think there are about 7-10 gymnasts who can reasonably imagine taking the AA title. …

The Frontrunners:

Jaime Pisani (Arkansas) – The top-ranked performer for most of the season, Pisani has to be considered the favorite, as much as we can have one in a competition this tight.

Kytra Hunter (Florida)

Jessie DeZiel (Nebraska)

Sharaya Musser (Penn State)

Sam Peszek (UCLA)

Vanessa Zamarripa (UCLA)

Geralen Stack-Eaton (Alabama)

The Nationals Scene: Individual All-Around

CalicoIzzy has Jamie a slight favourite, as well.

I stopped by the Arena tonight. Podium looks awesome. But I’m disappointed by the lack of publicity / signage for the event.

For Katelyn Ohashi.

Valeri Liukin:

… refused to link Ohashi’s name with the 2016 Olympics, saying instead that he prefers to take things one year at a time. …

“Of course Katelyn is a very talented gymnast. She’s not little anymore — next year she’ll be eligible for the World Championships,” Liukin said when asked to evaluate her talent. “Her senior career will start next year, so we’ll be getting ready for Worlds.” …

Examiner – two minute chat with Valeri Liukin

For Nastia, it’s only 100.

Friends who visited WOGA recently tell that Nastia looks in great shape. Still, qualifying for the American team is a long shot. I’d say she’d need to be top 3 Bars and Beam to be selected.

(via USAG on Facebook)

At his recent clinic at GAGE, Al explained his elaborate “trench” pit. This it the 5th version and he’s finally happy with how it works.

Note the free standing elevated chalk box.

Those segments are 8ft long, wide enough to leave a 2ft channel.

The white base spotting box is the minimum height you’d possibly ever want to use. The yellow pieces can be stacked as high as needed for the height of the gymnast. This day it was set so the tallest girl in the gym could swing.

The blue mat in-between is custom made to fit.

Construction is layers of rigid foam, glued together. Then topped with carpet bonded ethafoam from an old roll strip.

Al’s gym makes their own covers having purchased a $1600 industrial sewing machine.

A contractor friend of mine priced out one of the yellow sections at less than $200 including handles and perhaps even a zipper closure. GAGE has dozens. Each is light enough to easily be moved by two small kids.

Al finds this system far superior to the below ground channel pits.

Leave a comment if you’ve an opinion. Or any alternative this useful.