Author: Rick Mc

Canadian coach Katrina on her new blog Inside the World of Gymnastics posted a reality check for all those young girls who want to be the next Nastia Liukin.

9 years of age: 18 hours per week
10 years of age: 20 hours per week
11-12 years of age: 22 hours per week
13-14 years of age: 25-28 hours per week
15-17 years of age: 30-36 hours per week

OK … those hours are near maximum for gymnasts in the free world. (Shawn Johnson did fewer, for example.)

But if you plan to win an Olympic medal on Beam, best compare your performance with Nastia’s at age-12.

Click PLAY or watch her at the 2001 WOGA classic on YouTube.

read the entire post – Inside the World of Gymnastics – How do You Stack Up?

I’ve added a link in the right hand navigation under BLOGS.

Sugar and Spice.

Stanford Women’s Gymnastics- first home meet of the season
January 22nd

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Gymblog picked Alexy Bilozerchev as one of 12 up and coming gymnasts to watch in 2009.

If he turns out to be half as good as his father / coach, Dmitri Bilozerchev, that was a good call.

Yet in one of the strangest gymnastics stories of 2009, Alexy walked out on his teammates at Ohio State at the start of the season. (That’s about the worst thing you can do in the NCAA.)

International Gymnast posted an article stating that Bilozertchev “remains focused on upcoming national and international opportunities,” which includes next month’s Winter Cup. Bilozertchev mentioned some “unresolved issues” at Ohio State, but didn’t elaborate. He continues to train under his father with the OSU Boys Club Team, and he will compete at Winter Cup in a separate session than the Ohio State men’s team.

Stick It Media

His Dad continues to coach both OSU and Alexy — separately — at a club.

My post on Martin Luther King day called black NCAA gymnastics coaches generated quite a few comments.

My premise was that there were fewer black Women’s Artistic Head Coaches in the NCAA than there should be. I questioned whether coaches of colour are getting equal opportunity for employment.

Perhaps it’s not as big a problem as I ASSumed.

Tiff wrote to give a shout out to Wayne Wright.

Wayne Wright is in his seventh season as the head coach of the San Jose State women’s gymnastics team. The Spartan program has made significant strides during Wright’s tenure, breaking school records, winning conference championships and receiving team invitations to the NCAA West Regional. …

Wright helped lead the 2006 Spartan team to its second team appearance at the NCAA West Regional. San Jose State finished fourth, the best in program history. The Spartans broke the school vault team and individual records during the year. …

Before he began collegiate coaching, Wright served as program director and head coach of the Kokokahi Gymnastics Center in Kailua, Hawaii, developing Class I National Junior Olympics gymnasts. He also worked with U.S.A. Gymnastics at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and was on the floor when the team won the gold medal. …

bio

Fan sites for American gymnasts:

Jonathan Horton

Justin Spring

Both were developed by Gymfantastic Designs.

My club is really looking forward to our only meet in the USA this season.

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. (Spokane airport.) GWGF is February 20-22nd, 2009.

CDA Press

Confirmed – For the first time 2004 Olympic Floor Champion Kyle Shewfelt will be attending.

larger original – 2006 World’s – Grace Chiu

It’s a FUNtastic weekend of gymnastics.

official website – Great West Gym Fest

host club – Funtastics

Another excellent video from Coach Sommer of GymnasticBodies.

Ag walks are an excellent finishing element for building support girdle and core strength. …

The Ag Walk in rear support pushing forward as demonstrated in this video clip is the hardest of the Ag Walk variations….

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

We do similar drills in my gym every day. Instead of a Frisbee, we use small lunch trays. They slide very well on our carpeted mats.

more conditioning videos from Coach Sommer on YouTube

UPDATE – a short video of the clinic on YouTube. Thanks Juanita Ostrem.

Whatever happened to American Elite coach Hal Halverson?

He retired. Travelled around the world visiting gymnastics friends. And finally settled in a small town in Wyoming.

But Hal could not relax. He’s running a small gym as a “hobby” now. I happened to hear about a recent clinic he hosted:

… Over the weekend the center, which works out of the Seventh Day Adventist Church’s gym hosted more than 50 gymnasts from across the state in a two-day clinic that included advice from several notable coaches, including Wei Huang, a former Chinese national team member. …

Buffalo Bulletin

The wonderful Aussie Olympian Dasha Joura has a talented younger sister – Natalia Joura.

But in the recent Australian Youth Olympic Festival Natalia had a rotten meet.

Sadly, she was injured under-rotating double pike dismount on Floor. In the words of one observer there, the treatment she got from the coach after the injury was : “disgusting beyond words”.

See for yourself. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Another spectator, quoted on Australian Gymnastics Blog:

Saddest moment of the day had to be when Natalia fell on her last pass on floor and hurt her ankle. Her coach was sitting only a few steps away and could clearly see that she was in pain but did nothing to assist her. She limped a little bit then was forced to crawl to him. Whilst sitting next to him he continued to ignore her. …

I recommend Natalia find a new coach. One that cares for the person, not only the performance.

… Unfortunately her coach is Vladimir Joura, her Father.

A Sport TV reporter just mentioned 6 Cheer deaths in the USA since 1982.

Is that true?

I would not be surprised.

… A recent study found that cheerleading injuries more than doubled between 1990 and 2002. Over that period, 200,000 youthful cheerleaders had to be treated in hospital. Most were minor cases, but more than 50 involved “catastrophic injury”. …

Out of America: Cheerleading has become a matter of life and death

Leave a comment if you have links to statistical research.