Author: Rick Mc

There’s not much talk in Tokyo about the American team being “weaker” after the injury to Rebecca Bross. They are so deep that the change in line-up probably only makes a difference of a couple of tenths.

Rebecca dislocated her kneecap (surgery Aug 25th), much like what happened to Christine (Peng Peng) Lee in May.

Here’s Christine a few days ago (far left), the patella still taped for safety.

Today she did full mock meet without tape. Added double layout on Floor. Landed Yurchenko 1 1/2 twist. That’s about 4 months since the injury.

Bross will be back. And soon.

Canada looked great on the competition podium today, by the way. All 7 gymnasts hit Bars, Floor and Vault (I believe). Beam … Well, you don’t want to peak too early. 🙂

related – FIG – Canada ready to soar in Tokyo

Last year Kyle Shewfelt donated $10,000 to the Right to Play charity.

Now he’s found a new needy organization — Gymnastics Canada.

Kyle:

I have decided to run the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront 5K on October 16th to raise funds for the next generation of Canadian Gymnastic Superstars!

My goal is to raise $10,000 (all of which will go towards the Canadian National Teams) and I need your help over the next 2 weeks to achieve it.

To donate, please click on the link below:
KYLE SHEWFELT SCOTIABANK TORONTO WATERFRONT 5K

Good news: I give you permission to share the link with any gymnastic fans in your network 🙂

Extra good news: Online donations of $25 and over will automatically receive an official electronic tax receipt.

kyleshewfelt.com

You might wonder why an organization listing 21 employees (full and part time) doesn’t have a National Training Centre. It seems inevitable in socialist sports government organizations that administrators in office chairs are priorized over coaches and athletes IN the gym.

The solution?

I like the American model. USAG has never received a penny of federal tax revenue. Canada needs more entrepreneurs with new ideas. People like Kyle Shewfelt.

Support his cause if you can.

Gymnastics Canada is in the midst of a quadrennial planning process. But I’m not convinced there are any BIG gains to be made via Sports Canada.

One of the most eye catching gymnasts at Worlds is 27-yr-old Vasiliki Millousi from Greece.

Wonderfully feminine. Wearing slippers, so graceful, she’s like a Rhythmic gymnast.

Click PLAY or watch her Beam from earlier this year on YouTube.

Vasiliki … was a beam finalist at the 2011 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships.

Sadly, she just landed lock-legged on Vault. What else? … Handspring front. I hate that landing.

She wanted to walk it off, but the coach wisely insisted she ICE. Hopefully it’s just a minor hyper-extension.

… that was one TERRIBLE vault rotation. Many of the Greek girls were spotted. Many dangerous landings.

Ready and steady on Beam and the incredibly “springy” competition Floor.

They stag leap, Sissonne or do some random flutter kick out of near every landing, forward or backward. I can’t believe FIG is going to allow this trend to continue. (Though, actually, double pike to immediate split jump does look cool.)

Lauren is #1 on Beam and Floor at this meet according to the numbers.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

Personally, I’d wager a Chinese gymnast will win Beam.

On the floor Peggy Liddick is large and in charge. Very much like Marta with the Americans.

Couch Gymnast is live blogging their training RIGHT NOW on Facebook.

… Update: Bars did not exactly go to Peggy’s plan. Wait ’til tomorrow.

Brigid McCarthy/The Couch Gymnast has a photo slide show on Examiner.

Don’t use those pics anywhere else without Brigid’s permission. (She’s very easy to work with.)

That stupid bird is here. 🙂

Photographer Grace Chiu can’t be far behind.

She got legs.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/Nzk5NTA4MjQy?related=1

Watch more video of World Gymnastics Championships Tokyo 2011 on gymnastike.org

Team USA slept in today rather than train 8:30am. Smart. Reward the girls for doing such good routines yesterday.

USA is out coaching the other WAG nations, so far as I can see. Though it helps to have legs like Aly on your team.

Spanny Tampson has an amusing video of Worlds 2011 contenders on Facebook. Seems she could not get it on YouTube. Therefore, no embed code.

Leave a comment if you know a way to embed Facebook videos.

This is going to be huge.

Official PREVIEW video just released. Premiered today in Montreal. Tickets & Info.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’ve been waiting on Cirque to use swinging rings.

Perhaps the best thing I saw on Day 1.

Click PLAY or watch her on YouTube.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/Njg5NTA4Mjc0?related=1

Watch more video of World Gymnastics Championships Tokyo 2011 on gymnastike.org

My reaction was — I don’t think Uchimura or Charlie Tamayo could EVER have trained to do a routine something like this. And I’d rank them the two most “talented” gymnast ever.

She never does less than half a routine.

Peng Peng Lee’s Bhardwaj is superb, too. And there’s a guy doing Tippelt on P Bars pretty much to handstand. From Austria, perhaps. There are so many guys training shirtless simultaneously on all events that it’s tough to keep track who’s who. (The ladies basically only compare abs.)