Author: Rick Mc

NCAA Utah star confirms what most expected:

… Utah senior Ashley Postell has decided she isn’t going to pursue her hopes of competing in the 2008 Olympics because she realized she doesn’t have enough time to get her routines in order.

“That ship has sailed,” she said. “I don’t have enough extra time to work on other skills and do things I need to do for the team. My routines would have to be twice as long as they are now and it’s too much to do in a month.”

Salt Lake Tribune

I asked Men’s NCAA Champion Casey Sandy about his upcoming preparations for Canadian Olympic trials. Casey will take a “couple of day off” to rest and catch up on school. Then back to training for Beijing.

Sho Nakamori, David Sender, Jon Horton and others in the NCAA — all in the same boat. Their ship has not yet sailed.

It’s much easier for a male gymnast to switch gears for international FIG competition because they need make fewer changes to their College routines.

1. Oklahoma – 363.200

2. Stanford – 362.750

3. Illinois – 359.750

4. Penn State – 357.650

5. California – 356.150

6. Michigan – 354.250

CONGRATULATIONS to the Sooners. And my apologies for not realizing they could increase their Team total almost 6pts from their 357.500 qualifying score.

Oklahoma finished on Rings, hitting some great sets for the victory over hosts Stanford.

Taqiy Abdullah-Simmons

CSTV recap, notes and quotes

Shawn Johnson <— the real deal

seriously.

The Hardest Vault in the World
The Hardest Beam Dismount in the World
The Hardest Bar Dismount in the World
The Hardest Tumbling Pass in the World

cccam on WIDLES

Yes, I know Shawn’s gymnastics is “unconventional”. So was Mary Lou Retton. There are many parallels between the two.

But Shawn Johnson is the most complete all-around gymnast under the current, crazy set of rules which will be applied in Beijing.

ClayBabe6 has a well-edited Shawn montage called So Far Away:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Live.Breath.Love.Gymnastics

Money in the bank. Hitting routine after routine.

Just how Casey did it all year.

Consistency. And no weak apparatus. He was ranked in the top 10 in all 6 apparatus on GymInfo.

Casey finished with 91.35 in victory.

Congratulations to Casey and the coaching staff at Penn State.

He’s the first Canadian to win NCAA’s since Jason Hardabura (Nebraska) in 1999.

Coach Randy Jepson quipped that Casey is the “Rodney Dangerfield” of gymnastics. That he “gets no respect”.

He’s in the record books now. That’s respect.

That’s my prediction. Barring an earthquake, the favourites will win tonight at home.

UPDATE: An earthquake did rock Stanford. An earthquake called the Oklahoma Sooners. Stanford finished in second place, upset by OU.

The competition is only just beginning here in San Jose. It’s already getting LOUD.

This Stanford team has everything. One of the deepest College teams of all-time, perhpas. And they know it. One of their mottos for 2008 is “The Start of a Fearsome Reign.”

This really could be the start of a dynasty.

To outpoint Stanford one the 5 other teams will need a BEST performance of the year, I think.

Cal Berkeley Head Coach Barry Weiner said last night that his team is going to “let it all hang out”.

Their star, Tim McNeill, who competed only Pommels in preliminaries due to back pain, is going back into the line-up today. Cal has the green light to throw their best stuff. Their going to need it to have a chance.

The best coverage of the Men’s NCAA Championships, by the way, so far has been on Inside Gymnastics:

No. 1 Stanford easily led all qualifiers on Thursday, with solid, polished performances. (They didn’t count a miss all evening.) Redshirt junior Sho Nakamori, who contributed a near perfect high bar routine, among other super-clean sets, led the all-around standings with a 90.35, his highest all-around total ever. Teammate David Sender also did the all-around for an 89.6, including a 16.2 vault (very high, but big step forward).

Cardinal coach Thom Glielmi elected to use the qualifying competition as a dress rehearsal for finals, going with the same line-up he plans for this evening. “This is the first time [this season] we went with the full line-up,” he said. “Some of the individual routines weren’t as sharp as we have had in previous meets, but the depth of our line-up, and the difficulty that the team brings, [still allowed us] to break our team’s personal [scoring] record.”

Overall, Stanford earned a whopping 363.85, their highest score of the season, while Illinois surprised some with a near-perfect night for second overall (359.3), including a meet-high pommels performance from freshman Daniel Ribeiro who earned a 15.7, more than a point better than any athlete in session one. …

read more … Inside Gymnastics

What do you say to the media when your team wins the preliminary competition by a whopping 4.55 points?

Click PLAY or watch Head Coach Thom Glielmi on YouTube:

He told reporters during a visit to Italy there was “not a single word of truth” in the tabloid news reports.

The papers linked him to 24-year-old former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, who is now a member of parliament. …

Never mind.

… “I don’t think I will offend anyone if I say that I, personally, consider that our Russian women are the most talented and the most beautiful,” he said standing alongside Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

“If anyone can compete with them, then it might be Italian women,” he added in response to a Russian reporter’s question on the rumours. …

BBC

(via Difficulty Plus Execution)

Earlier in the day #1 ranked Casey Sandy from Penn State had scored 90.15.

Stylish, artistic Sho Nakamori from host Stanford in the second session scored 90.35, his highest all-around of the year.

buy this photo – 26 January 2008 – Hector Garcia-Molina

Sho and Casey will fight it out in the AA Final with, amongst others, David Sender and the surprise of the AA meet to me, Greg Stine, from Air Force. Why don’t you know Greg’s name? He was away for 2yrs on his mission with the LDS Church.

… The Cardinal will return to Maples Pavilion tomorrow night at 7 p.m., looking to win its first NCAA Championship since 1995. … ESPN2 will be televising the event on tape delay on April 24. …

Top-Ranked Stanford Wins NCAA Qualifier, Moves On To Friday’s Team Finals

Bart Conner has arrived. This must be an important meet.

Related: Stanford’s Shining Son – Inside Gymnastics. A nice feature on Sho.

There has been a lot of nonsense written about the Olympic torch relay.

It’s no sacred cow. The torch relay was invented by Hitler’s film maker Leni Riefenstahl for the 1936 Games in Berlin. (Hardly a regime with whom the Chinese organizers want to associate.)

Did no one in Beijing foresee that over 130 days, 85,000mi, there might be protests?

Why take the torch into Tibet?

That’s simply asking for trouble. The worst is yet to come.

Perhaps we should be listening to this guy …

New York Times

That’s exactly right. Support the Olympics. Support the right to protest. Non-violent protest, of course.

1980 Olympian Ron Galimore ran the torch in San Francisco.

“It was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Galimore, who is the vice president for events, Olympic relations and men’s program for USA Gymnastics.

I would too, if offered the chance. For me it would be honouring sport. Not somehow indirectly supporting the totalitarian Chinese government.

Arguably the world’s best ultra-long distance runner, Dean Karnazes, spoke out strongly on his blog as to why he ran.

But if you refuse to carry the torch. Boycott the Olympics. Remove every product made in China from your home — I’ll support your right to do that too.

Just wrapped up the post competition press conference.

Qualifying to the Team Final Friday:

Stanford 363.85
Illinois 359.300
Oklahoma 357.500
Penn State 357.300
Cal Berkeley 357.100
Michigan 354.300

As you can see, Stanford dominated the preliminaries. Their best score of the year. But the first meet with their top line-up in place. Head Coach Thom Glielmi has had to juggle this season to accommodate the National Team commitments of David Sender and Sho Nakamori.

Thom was pleased, but reminded that “anything can happen” in the NCAA.

It’s “sudden victory” format. Teams start over again from zero.

Personally, I was impressed with the artistic and technically excellent gymnastics of Cal. And even more impressed with the fight and enthusiasm of Illinois. They did a fantastic job.

Head Coach Yoshi Hayasaki – Illinois

I’m quite disappointed that Minnesota did not get through. They are a great team.