Author: Rick Mc

I spoke with one of the Men’s judges returned from the Olympic test meet. He said it was a great trip, well organized, superb venue — but that the Men’s competition was incredibly relaxed. Everyone knew that it was a “test” and not a serious competition. Few arrived in Beijing in top “shape”.

Next …

Absent from last week’s “Good Luck Beijing” tournament, Japan’s top stars geared up for the Toyota International Invitational, which began Saturday in Toyota City, Japan.

But despite the presence of superstars Hiroyuki Tomita and Hisashi Mizutori, each two-time world all-around medalists, the foreign guests were the best on the first day of competition.

Mizutori won the silver on men’s floor exercise and tied for third on rings with teammate Takuya Nakase. Tomita was fourth on pommel horse.

Korean Kim Dae Eun won men’s floor exercise over Mizutori and Germany’s Marcel Nguyen. On pommel horse, Hungary’s Krisztian Berki led a European sweep of the medals, topping Great Britain’s Louis Smith and Romania’s Daniel Popescu.

Former world champions Yuri van Gelder (Netherlands) and Dimosthenis Tambakos (Greece) finished 1-2 on still rings.

In the women’s competition, only four gymnasts competed in the vault event. Germany’s Oksana Chusovitina won easily, topping co-silver medalists Keiko Mukumoto (Japan) and Alina Kozich (Ukraine) by more than a point.

On uneven bars, Ukraine’s Irina Krasnyanskaya defeated Romania’s Steliana Nistor and American Bridget Sloan.

International GYMNAST Magazine Online

The competition is not yet over as I write.

Yuri van Gelder (Netherlands) and Krisztian Berki (Hungary) have not qualified for the 2008 Olympics, I understand.

Yuri van Gelder

Krisztian Berki

photos – Samantha Davies

No, not competing at the Olympics.

… It is expected that more than 200 Olympic cheerleading team members will be selected by April next year. …

The cheerleading teams will shoulder the performance tasks for the volleyball, basketball, football, and athletics competitions at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Olympic cheerleading teams begin performance tour – The Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Hard work for hard work sake, is foolish.

Coaches, above all, need to work smarter, not harder.

Agony

The best coaches work smarter and harder, of course.

The last word on “kip machines”. From coach Brian Bakalar:

We use ropes, and kip drills, and kip swings, and have even created different “bungi” spotters and bouncers to help put the gymnast through the kip motion. In the end, there simply is no substitute for the coach. While spotting may be tiresome for the coach, and in fact, back breaking at times, it remains the best proven method for teaching the skill. The coach’s responsibility as a spotter is to adjust the level of help inversely with the gymnast’s ability to perform the skill.

Gymnastics Revolution – Parents – Kip – Gymnastics

One day, I’m sure, coaches will use a “kip machine” that can progressively reduce assistance, eliminating the need for spotting.

Related posts:

What?

Will this make any difference to training?

China’s gymnastics coaches will be forced to sign contracts promising not to let their athletes get injured before the Beijing Olympics, team leader Zhang Peiwen told Friday’s China Daily.

China will be relying on their gymnasts for a bumper haul of gold medals at next August’s Games, and officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of the injury which has kept double Olympic champion Li Xiaoping out of competition this year.

“In the coming days, all the Chinese national coaches will sign contracts with the gymnastics administrative center to prevent serious injuries from happening before the Beijing games,” he told the paper. “We don’t want injuries to destroy our prospects for the Beijing games. I hope we can reduce injuries to a minimum by signing these contracts.”

The Chinese team for the world athletics championships earlier this year signed contracts committing them to minimum achievements in Osaka, and Zhang said his gymnasts would also sign a commitment not to use drugs.

“I do not mean our gymnasts will take drugs intentionally, but I am just afraid that they might take them by mistake, such as unauthorized nutritious medicines,” he told the paper.

“The purpose of signing the contract is to give all gymnasts a warning and to avoid any accidents.”

Zhang, speaking at a test event for the Beijing Olympics, said he was pleased with how things were going with eight months to go, even though Li Xiaoping’s recovery was “slow”.

“This is our best Olympic preparation ever,” Zhang said. “Apart from Li, none of the team is troubled by injuries. They can put their best efforts into the coming winter training camp.”

China won eight golds at the 2006 world championships and another five at the Stuttgart worlds earlier this year as well as dominating the Olympic test event.

Zhang was particularly pleased with Lu Bin, who returned from more than a year out injured, to win four titles last weekend.

“That was a remarkable achievement,” Zhang said. “Faced with serious injury, he did not give up. I just love that spirit, and that will inspire the whole team to better prepare for the Olympic Games.”

But Lu’s heroics will not be enough to guarantee him a spot in the squad for the Beijing games, Zhang said.

“Even Lu knows only next year’s form counts.”

WCSN.com: News

Delegations are organizing for the 11th Pan American Maccabean Games, Buenos Aires 2007 which begin soon.

International sports competition for Jewish people the world over. We’ve had many gymnasts compete Maccabea over the years.

The Games offer, amid a strong Jewish framework of continuity, a first-class social, sport and cultural experience by creating environments of fraternity, emotion and happiness that can remain in our memory and in the friendships forged among people and institutions.

panamericanos 2007

We’ve linked to this article before.

Coaching to Overcome Fear, by Alison Arnold Ph.D.

Having the patience to deal with an athlete (most often) irrationally fearful is one of the greatest challenges for the coach.

Balking on skills. Suddenly afraid of “easy” elements like backward handspring or backward giant.

Where does this come from? And how should we handle it?

Fear can arise from many sources. Sometimes it is a result of a past fall, injury, or trauma. Other times, it arises out of low self-confidence. Whatever the source, one major cause of fear in gymnasts is out of control thinking. Out of control thinking leads to out of control performance. The root of most fear and balking are thoughts that are negative and catastrophic. So this means, helping your athletes create disciplined, positive, thinking patterns will lead to disciplined, positive, performance. What are our athletes thinking as they are standing on the beam for 15 minutes trying to throw a series? Most likely, their thoughts are about crashing, falling, or other fantasies of what MAY happen. This out of control, negative thinking is a major cause of the fear/balking cycle.

How to create disciplined thinking.

Headgames

Alison Arnold Ph.D. is a sport psychology consultant for USA Gymnastics. A former gymnast, she views training the mind as important as training the body.

Another excellent instructional article for parents posted by Brian Bakalar:

… Over the last several years, gymnasts have moved away from “static” stretches, where a gymnast simply sits in a split position, allowing her legs to stretch. Instead, a more dynamic approach is becoming more common for developing flexibility in the split position. …

… At Gymnastics Revolution, our gymnasts use these, and some other methods for attaining their splits. However, a far more important aspect of the development of flexibility lies in the mind of the gymnast. We challenge and motivate our athletes to develop flexibility on their own time. There simply isn’t enough time in the gym to work on every single skill every single day. We have found that engaging the gymnasts in a challenge, or sometimes just clearly requiring the work, has produced very good results in flexibility. Gymnasts who take their careers and training seriously are willing to do the work required, and this includes their flexibility.

Gymnastics Revolution – Journal

My Kinesiology professor many, many years ago told me that anyone could do full splits. Brian includes that point of conventional wisdom, as well:

Unlike many elements in gymnastics, a split is an attainable goal for anyone.

I no longer believe that to be true. Several athletes I’ve known over the years could not have been more determined, nor persistent — yet they did not get splits to the point of being able to compete them without deduction.

For good or for bad, flexibility is less important today than it was in the past. Inflexible gymnasts can become specialists.

Related posts:

Only this year have I started to understand Rhythmic competition. It is far more complicated and demanding than outsiders might guess.

Of all categories, team is most impressive to me.

Perhaps spurred on by the earlier success of their compatriot, Olga Kapranova, who won gold in the individual all-around final, the Russian team made sure it would be a double-gold glory for their country, by winning the final with a score of 35.075.

…

read a detailed account of the finals – Event review – Group all-around – 2007 Rhythmic Gymnastics International Invitational Tournament

Russia

China was a surprise third place. I would expect the Olympic host is rapidly improving at this sport.

China

Rhythmics individual competition was added to the Olympics in 1984. Team in 1996.

Former world champion Olga Kapranova won the individual all-around title at the Good Luck Beijing 2007 Rhythmic Gymnastics International Invitational Tournament. The Russian scored 73.825, while Olympic bronze medalist, Anna Bessonova, could only manage 70.25 to finish in second place, after making a big mistake in the hoop while Aliya Garayeva claimed bronze. …

Event review – Individual all-around – 2007 Rhythmic Gymnastics International Invitational Tournament

Olga, on her birthday:

“I spent a good time and enjoyed a very good birthday in China yesterday, since I celebrated it during this Invitational. What’s more, I won the gold medal. …”

Full results are linked from the official website.