Author: Rick Mc

UCLA posted a season-high 196.725 to easily defeat Arizona (193.8) in a dual meet in Tucson on Friday night. Bruin sophomore Vanessa Zamarripa won the all-around with a career-high 39.675 and captured first place on bars (career-high 9.95) and beam (9.95). She also picked up a season-high on floor with a 9.9. …

UCLA Bruins

more photos by cloud hidden

I’m still projecting the Bruins to be the team favourites come SHOW TIME in Gainesville, Florida, April 22-24, 2010. They’ve got depth and star power.

But who will be the top all-arounder for UCLA?

Who can challenge LSU’s Susan Jackson?

I should be picking 2008 Olympian Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs. But I find myself cheering for the charismatic Miss Zamarripa. She reminds me of Kristina Baskett, my favourite from last season.

Leave a comment (aren’t comments great?) if you’ve got your own prediction on team or all-around.

It’s one of the major plot lines in the TV show Make It or Break It.

But how many gyms, in reality, have such an unenforceable restriction?

A gymnast from Tennesse recently had that rule imposed. And started a thread on the Chalk Bucket forum.

In fact, at her gym the rule is in effect for competitive and non-competitive kids.

Like that’s going to work.

Great theme for an event.

The No. 14 Missouri gymnastics team will face New Hampshire starting at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday. The No. 17 Tigers wrestling team will start its meet with No. 9 Oklahoma a half hour later. Both teams will be competing simultaneously on the Hearnes Center floor. …

Missouri gymnastics and wrestling teams host Beauty and the Beast meet

Wrestlers and gymnasts will not be holding hands entering the arena this time.

by site editor Rick McCharles

95% of people don’t read the comments on this site. They are “buried“. You must make a special effort to find them. Or to comment.

I like it this way. But the topic is controversial:

If you’ve been following the blogging and social media scene over the last five or more years, you know that there’s one heated debate that keeps on showing up: the debate about comments on blogs. Should blogs have comments? Should these comments be moderated? When has a comment gone too far? Judging from a couple of recent events, it’s once again time to rethink these issues.

Popular gadget site Engadget has recently shut down comments. It’s a temporary measure, it says, but the blog took it because the “tone in comments has really gotten out of hand.” …

A New Debate on Blog Comments is Brewing

The main purpose of comments on Gymnastics Coaching is to share information. Or, more often, to correct a mistake that’s been posted.

If you want to debate Nastia vs Shawn ad nauseum, head over to one of the gymnastics forums. If you want to get nasty about it, there are invitation only private forums. If you can find them.

Congratulations!

Arkansas posted the all-time highest score in school history and recorded top 10 scores in three events as the No. 7 Razorbacks recorded a 197.025-196.425 victory over No. 16 Auburn on Friday in Barnhill Arena. …

The previous record was 196.950 set in last year’s NCAA Championship Session II to send Arkansas into the NCAA Super Six. Arkansas recorded the top score in the nation a week ago with the 196.750 total in the win over No. 12 Kentucky.

“We have been trying to get this record for the last two years,” co-head coach René Cook said. “To do it tonight at home was great. We had a great environment and this just keeps building our confidence.” …

Magee won the all-around with 39.625 points while winning bars (9.925) and beam (9.950), and tying Pisani for the title on floor (9.875). Pisani won the vault title (9.950). …

First-ever 197 leads No. 7 past No. 16 Auburn

I had a feeling this might happen.

Predictable in that this College gymnastics season has been so unpredictable.

… “This is a huge victory for us in our gymnastics, but it is also a confidence booster,” LSU head coach D-D Breaux said. “A win like this does so much to validate how we are training and what we are doing in preparation for the end of the season. It is all about getting to the end of the season healthy, and we are really excited to be at this middle point of our season and turn the corner on a real positive note.” …

Gymnastics Topples No. 1 Alabama at PMAC

Even more interesting to me is the juggernaut that is Susan Jackson. She’s just unstoppable. Last weekend she defeated the #2 all-arounder of 2 weeks ago, Florida’s Ashanée Dickerson. Tonight she defeated the #2 all-arounder of last week, Alabama’s Morgan Dennis.

LSU senior Susan Jackson won an all-around showdown with Dennis. Jackson, ranked No. 1 in the nation in the all-around, finished first. Dennis, ranked No. 2 in the nation in the all-around, finished third (39.4). Alabama sophomore Ashley Priess finished second (39.45). …

No. 1 Alabama gymnastics team falls on road to No. 12 LSU

Gymnastics Examiner predicted that some of the top teams would bust out 197+ team scores last weekend. Seems Blythe was 1 week early.

… Shayla Worley finally seemed to live up to expectations, scoring a 9.95 on floor, as did McCool. All the girls got above 9.8, including Hilary Mauro who, though not the best or consistent gym dog, seems to have been picking up a lot of others slack this season.

Grace Taylor got a 9.95 on beam …

Couch Gymnast – FINALLY…. THE DAWGS BITE BACK…..

Nice to see Shayla finally step up. She was called out by Aunt Joyce this week, and would have faced a lot more of that kind of heat if the National Champions had had another disappointing meet.

… “Tonight felt so amazing,” said senior Courtney McCool. “This is who we are. We are Georgia. Every week we can make history, and we have control of that. It’s just what kind of history we want to make, and this was the start of the history that we want everybody to remember for this team.” …

Gym Dogs Down Kentucky With Season-High 197.200

Many have been waiting years for this. Former Cuban World Championships medalist Charlie Tamayo competed as a “guest”, scoring 13.100 on Floor (with problems) and 15.8 on vault. Tamayo defected to the U.S. during 2003 Worlds in Anaheim and is seeking U.S. citizenship.

From Don Eckert:

Charlie is coming off an injury and wasn’t able to train like he wanted but his talent is obvious and I would love to see him train the way that other have the privilege in this country because of their college/parent or help from USAG. I really believe he could help the USA team but has to prepare properly to do so.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

He certainly doesn’t look 100%. But I’m glad he finally competed in an American meet.

Charlie is a superb coach. Living now in San Diego, he’s available for camps and clinics.

related – more Tamayo – human highlight reel

Winter Cup is a National Team selection meet.

Former Oklahoma standout Chris Brooks sits atop the leaderboard after Thursday’s preliminary round at the men’s Winter Cup Challenge in Las Vegas, Nev.
Brooks, 23, scored 88.3 to lead U.S. champion Jonathan Horton (86.5) and 2009 World team member Danell Leyva (86.1). Stanford junior Tim Gentry was fourth (85.6) followed by Jake Bateman of SCATS (85.35). …

read more on Gymnastics Examiner – Chris Brooks leading Winter Cup after preliminary round

I tried to follow live scoring on USA Gymnastics. But the Flash system used was frustrating and confusing. (Better are the results on PDF.)

Watching the live scoring page, it looked like Horton had won. (Jon stayed on Pommel, so I assumed he would win. Especially since Brooks sat on Pommels.)

Luckily, @StickItMedia was tweeting live results.

Media coverage seems lackluster, perhaps because it was a Thursday night competition. Any women’s college dual meet gets more attention.

Some (seemingly random) videos were posted on the USAG YouTube channel.

I’m waiting to see Cuban Charlie Tamayo’s vault (15.8) and U.S. acrotumbler Kalon Ludvigson’s 14.2 on floor.

The best news was from Andy Thornton:

… The thing that actually excited me the MOST about this competition was to see that there were 127 total gymnasts on roster! This has to be the biggest Winter Cup ever, and the first (I believe) to require THREE preliminary sessions. And in an age when we can hardly find 15 healthy female elite gymnasts to go out and compete in a competition, that number is absolutely staggering. …

USA Men’s Gymnastics is Booming!

Why would a lawyer give up her career to open a new gym?

Find out in a brilliant documentary profile on a new club in Norwich, England, the Norfolk Academy of Gymnastics.

http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js

Congratulations to Head Coach Sara-Jane Inglis. Yours is an inspirational story.

What do you think of British Gymnastics TV?

These are by far the best promo videos I’ve seen produced by any National Sports Governing body. Thanks Gareth Finchett, Production Editor of BGTV.

British Gymnastics is really on the rise!