Author: Rick Mc

As part of a regular series, Anne Phillips visited controversial Cuban American coach Yin Alvarez to see just what makes his athletes so successful.

Workout Wednesday with the Universal Guys

… Last year the small gym in Miami was home to 3 US Junior National Team Members in Danell Leyva, Edward Mesa, and Max Mayr. …

This workout was filmed January 12, a few days after their home meet, the Universal Invite. Typically theses guys train twice a day, and this is footage of their morning workout.

One of the cool things you’ll notice in this video is the huge amount of support these guys have for each other. Everyone helps each other out. They’re like a bunch of brothers.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike

A few weeks after this filming, Danell Leyva finished 2nd at Winter Cup Nationals and was named to the Senior Team.

Tom & Reiko Beach are celebrating the release of their 100th instructional gymnastics DVD.

Newest release: Coaching Etiquette by Beth Gardner

CONGRATULATIONS.

Starting late in 2004, they’ve grown GymSmarts into by far the biggest and best distributor of gymnastics videos in the world.

 * * * * * * *

DVDs from GymSmarts SALE until 3/31/2009:

Get $5.00 off your order of $25 or more use
Promo code: FACE1
or
Get 10% off your orders of $75 or more.
Promo code: FACE2

The FACE refers to their new Facebook page – GymSmarts Community – Gymnastics. (Be sure to join that group if you are a Facebook addict.)

GymSmarts home page

This is the first “sale” I can recall of GymSmarts videos, by the way. If you’re ever going to buy, now’s the time.

I don’t have a good feeling about this quadrennial for the Canadian team. We still have not named a new National Coach. A training camp scheduled for Vancouver was cancelled.

I dunno …

Brittany Rogers placed 9th at the American Cup this past weekend, a disappointing result and meet for the highly touted Canadian gymnast. She was quite upbeat, however, in an interview with Live.Breath.Love Gymnastics:

… you need bad days to have good days, unfortunately this was one of my bad days …

And now — perhaps bigger news — Brittany’s lost a teammate.

… Charlotte Mackie moved from Omega Gymnastics to Surrey Gymnastics to train under David Kenwright. It’s a reunion for Charlotte, who, along with sister Gael Mackie, were once coached by Kenwright at Omega. Kenwright has coached several top Canadian women, including 2-time Olympian Kate Richardson …

Gymn.ca

official website – Charlotte Mackie

Sister Gael Mackie competes for Utah.

I’ve seen it done by Ayaka Sahara on the MostepanovaFan Bars Dismount Guide video.

Here’s Level 10 gymnast Nicole Meiller doing it at the end of her routine in 2006.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via eeyoretumbles on Chalk Bucket)

Leave a comment if you recall any other female gymnast competing triple twist.

UPDATE: perfect10n notes that it was competed by Spain’s Elena Gomez though she fell on it in this 2003 competition.

Marcie Somerville competed it at JO Level 10 Nationals in 1994.

And Judy Holmes reminded me that Jamie Kvicala from my own club, Altadore, competed it way back in the early 1990s. Thanks Judy.

Also, Reneta Kiss of Hungary competed it in 2000.

Ends today.

Still my favourite competition anywhere.

We were honoured to have Valeri Liukin attend with his AWESOME WOGA kids.

I posted photos to our club flickr account.

And a few to the GWGF Facebook page.

We finally got 2004 Olympic Floor Champion Kyle Shewfelt down for the meet this year. He was a HIT with one and all, truly one of the best spokespersons for our sport.

Kyle was celebrity Olympian along with Shannon Miller, Jason Gatson and others.

Congratulations to Meet Director Dave Adlard and his funtastic team of volunteers. I’ll be there next year, for sure, Dave.

official website – GreatWestGymFest.com

I put up a (roughly edited) Great West Gym Fest video on YouTube which gives you a flavour of the CRAZY FUN we have at this competition.

… Of all the amazing features of this meet, most amazing of all was the logistics of running 6 Sessions in one day.

That’s less than 2hrs / session! (Obviously judges are not allowed to go to the bathroom.)

Have you ever heard of another meet that runs 6 flights of competitors in one day ??

I was in the middle of a gym meet. And missed the TV broadcast.

But the competition sounds less a let down than usual. Especially the come-from-behind victory of Hambuechen.

Men’s All-around
1. Fabian Hambuechen (GER) 90.650
2. David Sender (USA) 90.450
3. Joseph Hagerty (USA) 89.550
4. Koji Uematsu (JPN) 89.350
5. Benoit Caranobe (FRA) 88.650
6. Yury Ryazanov (RUS) 86.900

Women’s All-around
1. Jordyn Wieber (USA) 60.200
2. Bridget Sloan (USA) 59.600
3. Kim Bui (GER) 56.000
4. Rebecca Downie (GBR) 55.600
5. Amelia Racea (ROU) 55.150
6. Kristina Goryunova (RUS) 54.600

official website

I once coached 3 young women 5′ 10″ and taller at the same time.

They were IMPRESSIVE on Beam and Bars, let me tell you.

Haley Cameron is 6′ 2″ tall (1.88m) and competed all-around Level 7 in California.

But who were the tallest International gymnasts ever?

Double Olympian Jana Komrsková was 1.67 m (5.5 ft) tall.

Katheleen Lindor, another Olympian, stands at 5’6″. She had to have the bars adjusted for her in Beijing!

But the tallest I could find on the internets was …

Marie Sophie Hindermann, a German Olympian … at 5’7″

Here she is at the 2007 Worlds Event Finals on Bars. Click PLAY or watch the IMPRESSIVE routine on YouTube.

Past & Present Gymnastics lists more – The not so tiny tumblers?

There must have been taller. Leave a comment if you know of any.

Sandra Izbasa (1.64m – 5′5′’) is likely the tallest Olympic gold medalist. Along with Svetlana Khorkina who was about the same height.

UPDATES from commenters:

A Canadian gymnast, Cara Pomeroy, is 5′9″.

She was Canadian National Bars Champion on more than one occasion (beautiful Stalder and Endo Work, Giant Full to Gienger, Flyaway Double Twist Dismout), and did well in the all-around (won medals at National Championships on Floor and Beam).

Cara went to University of Illinois on a full Scholarship…And scored a 10.0 on Bars in NCAA competition.
===

Ashley Miles was probably the tallest in elite gymnastics and to compete at a World Championships at 5′7″-5′8″.

23 February 2009 – by Regional Qualifying Average

full rankings – GymInfo

Georgia is #1.

Despite resting some of the big guns, Stanford still scored a season high against California, gaining a spot on UCLA.

The high flying Bruins were forced to count a fall on beam in a loss to Nebraska.

Florida, with another year’s best team score over Alabama, continues to dig out of a deep hole.

Steve McCain interviews the “next great thing” in USA gymnastics. The 2009 American Cup Champion.

She’s quite eloquent.

Click PLAY or watch it on the USAG YouTube channel.

Click through for more interviews from Chicago.

Wow.

Huge upset.

We had Oregon coach John Carney scouting our meet, the Great West Gym Fest before flying out to this competition.

But his hot team was defeated by the Washington Huskies!

… Washington tallied a season-best 196.000 for the evening. Illinois came in second with 195.900 and Oregon State finished third with 195.800. Eastern Michigan totaled 191.475.

“We’re going to enjoy this one tonight,” said Bowers. “This felt really good. For our seniors, this is the highest score they’ve ever had. They’ve never beaten Oregon State in their four years and not in the three years I’ve been here, so this is huge for us, for our team and for our program. I’m just thrilled. I’m not surprised that we could do it. I’m just so glad that we finally did.”…

GymDawgs Down No. 9 Oregon State, No. 14 Illinois