Author: Rick Mc

From Cirque Casting:

Thank you for your questions about the casting for the Cirque du Soleil and The Estate of Michael Jackson shows!

We are currently in the early creation stages; therefore we don’t have specific information to communicate at this point. More details will be available in the coming months; in the meantime, we invite you to apply online and your profile might be presented to our creative teams if it meets their needs!

Sounds like there was a mad rush of interest in working for that particular show. I’m not at all surprised.

Click through to the link at the top of the page if you deserve to work with the King of Pop.

Looks like hosts Great Britain will win the Team competition. Russia, the pre-meet favourites, sadly could not travel to the competition. It would have been close, I think.

…
5 in a team, 5 to compete each apparatus and 3 scores to count. FIG Junior Code, prohibited skills, short routines and C dismounts. A new game to be played. …

Great Britain holding an unprecedented 9.7 point lead after the second sub division. For GBR now a long wait until ten o clock this evening. France and Switzerland will have to have something special to shift the British boys sitting team 1st and ranks 1,2,3 5 and 8. This is an amazing team.

Sam Oldham (GBR) “I think we’ve done really well. It was nerve-wracking at first but its great to have friends and family cheering you on and once the first piece is out of the way the nerves go.It’s going to be a long wait to see if we’ve won but things look good at the moment.” …

There’s so much good news out of the UK these days. Kudos and congratulations.

British Gymnastics – GBR boys take strong lead after 2nd subdivision!

Photo from From the album: Junior Men’s Qualifications by British Gymnastics on Facebook.

Robbie Popkin posted a short clip of Oakville Gymnastics Bars training.

Hey, why the “cut” in that regrasp, Robbie? … Creative editing? … UPDATE – coaches confirm she did catch several that day.

The coach on screen is former Olympic gymnast Lorne Bobkin.

related – Bars training in England: Aasha Kimpton el-grip giants and layout Geinger

Is she only 10yrs-old when this video was taken? … Amazing.

• NCAA’s live streaming Semifinal 2 – CBS College Sports All-Access. Fast internet connection recommended. 7PM EST time start.

• official competition website

• live scoring available linked via www.GatorZone.com

• excellent live blog by Anne Phillips on Gymnastike.

Leave a comment if you have any problems. Or find other good links.

If you couldn’t care less about this meet, Longines will be posting results from European Championships all weekend.

There’s no open wifi at the NCAA Championships.

Aunt Joyce phoned text messages to Catty Comments, who posted them on Aunt Joyce’s Ice Cream Stand.

Click through if you’d like to see his typical catty, funny and insightful opinions.

Texting out is one workaround. A laptop tethered to a phone … Or a laptop and MiFi would be another.

What’s a twitter hashtag for this meet?

That might be the best way of all to follow several live bloggers at once.

Here’s UCLA coach P.J. Irvin in podium training at the end of vault training. The beatboard on top of the horse.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

Not great here. But he had 3 of 6 girls “stick” at their last meet. 50% is a good stat in competition.

You’ve likely heard the buzz about Anna Li and Vanessa Zamarripa considering a return to Elite Gymnastics.

It’s a long shot, at best, for any College gymnast to qualify for the American National Team.

Vanessa should be training only for the NCAA, I feel. But a Senior like Anna is certainly free to do as she likes.

From the USA National Team point of view, why not look at College girls?

If I was Marta Karoli, I’d be phoning Brandi Personett right after her final competition this weekend.

If there’s one competitor the other girls at Championships would point to and say: “She’s a stud”, it’s Brandi.

Her last 1/1 twisting double layout on Floor in podium training today was as good as any I’ve ever seen, anywhere. Here’s some video of that skill captured by Anne of Gymnastike.

Here’s my thinking:

• Russia is the team to beat at Olympics 2012
• the USA has almost no chance to have a higher start score (Bars will be far lower)
• China and (likely) Russia will have higher execution scores

The best chance for the USA to win in 2012 is consistency. In a 3-up, 3-count Team Final, the States might make up the difference if their opposition falls twice, perhaps even only once.

And who’s more consistent than a College gymnast?

How many Beam routines has Anna Li done in series without a fall, for example?

Again, it’s a long shot. But worth a phone call. Bringing some very experienced College gymnasts to camp might help the up-and-coming younger kids.

Update: Here’s one vault from podium training. (I didn’t think Brandi did any great vaults this day. … Saving it for the competition, we assume.)

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

Brandi’s been training a double twisting Yurchenko. She’ll take your call, Marta.

Click through to British Gymnastics TV to watch the interview with Fabian Hambüchen.

A long bus ride from Germany to the U.K.

Like everyone I’ve met, I’m happy to have traveled to Gainesville, Florida, the birthplace of Gatorade, my first time here.

The weather is excellent this time of year. Venue superb.

Head Coach Rhonda Faehn obviously has an excellent team putting together this meet.

Today is podium training. I watched UCLA, LSU, Missouri and Florida.

Love Florida! They do a lot of difficulty. Unfortunately, though ranked #2, it’s going to be tough to win with that much difficulty. Can you stick double back off beam?

The smart dismounts are gainers from beam. And double layout from bars.

For all the importance and attention spent on landings in College gymnastics, the girls are not all that much better than in F.I.G. competiton.

UCLA Vault coach P.J. Irvin put a beat board on TOP of the horse, having the girls do standing somersault landing drills higher than they would simply from standing on the horse itself. Good idea.

LSU looked surprisingly loose and relaxed. Mizzou looks good, especially on Bars. Unfortunately one of the girls “pinged” winding up for double layout. (She looks to be O.K., but a fall like that can shake up the whole team.)

UCLA continues as the team of destiny. It’s their meet to lose, I reckon. The choreography of their Floor routines is the single rotation I’m most looking forward to seeing.

They’ll be more coverage of this meet online than ever before. This is the last year of Super 6 Team Finals, Friday. Next year they will move to a Final 4 Team Final, with live T.V. coverage (hopefully).

Thursday is the best and most nerve wracking day:

• NCAA’s live streaming Semifinal 1 – CBS College Sports All-Access. Fast internet connection recommended.

• NCAA’s live streaming Semifinal 2 – CBS College Sports All-Access. Fast internet connection recommended.

Live scoring available linked via www.GatorZone.com

Heart attack at age-89.

Rest in peace.

… “It’s hard to describe in a few words how important his presidency has been,” Pound said.

“Clearly he’s one of the three great presidents of the IOC” …

Dick Pound – CBC – The passing of The Lord of the Rings

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