Author: Rick Mc

A great capture by Hsu-Ta.

Waiting on Flickr

What is she thinking?

Do we instruct what mental key words to focus on at this moment?

What if there is a long delay?

I don’t seem to recall this routine from the Athens Olympics.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I’m not sure where that animation comes from. abcd tells me it’s from the Athens 2004 playstation game.

It was posted by brunab1 from Brazil.

Amanda Turner wrote a great article for International Gymnast magazine:

The numbers tell the story of Aljaz Pegan’s incredible career.

The venerable Slovenian has competed in 14 world championships — every one since his first appearance in 1989.

Six times he has competed in the high bar final at worlds — winning four medals, including the gold in 2005.

He is ranked No. 1 on high bar in the FIG World Cup points system; with more than 750 points, he has nearly 300 points more than the next highest gymnast.

photo – gymnasticsonline.co.uk

But for Pegan, the only unimpressive number in his career is 0. That’s the number of Olympics he has been in. Four Olympics have passed since his first world championships appearance, three have passed by since his first world championships final and one has passed since his first world medal.

At the 2007 World Championships in Stuttgart, he barely missed qualifying to the Olympics. It was the first time that the qualifying system, which traditionally grants berths to the strongest teams and all-arounders, allowed individuals to earn berths to the Olympics by winning an apparatus gold medal. But Pegan won the silver on high bar in Stuttgart, and although it was another world championship medal, it wasn’t enough to earn him a trip to Beijing.

At age 33, Pegan points out that trying one more time to qualify to the Olympic Games in 2012 may be unrealistic.

So for the next five months, the most important number for Aljaz Pegan is: one. There is one single remaining berth to the 2008 Olympic Games, a wild card spot to be decided in April by a Tripartite Committee made up of one member each from the FIG, the IOC and the 2008 Olympic organizing committee. It is the number one that keeps Pegan’s Olympic dreams alive today.

In this IG Online interview, Pegan talks about his numbers, his Olympic hopes and the efforts he and his country are making to convince the Tripartite Commission that he is deserving of its selection. …

IG Online Interview

As I’ve said before, Aljaz Pegan should get that wild card. More details.

P A R A L L E L B A R S

China’s LIANG, Mingsheng and FENG, Zhe (- with the highest a-score of 17.0) swept the gold and silver medals in the parallel bars final at the third part of the pre-Olympic finals.

photo

Placing third in the event was the p.bars finalist of the 2005 and 2006 Worlds, YANG, Tae-Young (KOR), who had ranked first in the qualification round (- … two judges awarded him 9.10 his B-score reached 8.950, higher than that of China’s Feng Zhe). …

Results, Parallel Bars
1. LIANG, Mingsheng (CHN) – (16.8) = 15,800
2. FENG, Zhe (CHN) – (17.0) = 15.775
3. YANG, Tae-Youjg (KOR) – (16.8) = 15,750

H I G H B A R

1. KIM, Jihoon (KOR) – (16.5) = 15,425
2. HOSHI, Yosuke (JPN) – (16.4) = 15,150
3. TANAKA, Kazuhito (JPN) – (16.2) = 15,000

GYMmedia.com

The meet is finished. Final scores: GymnasticsResults.com (P Bars and H Bar missing as I write. They should be posted shortly.)

I expected Fabian Hambuechen to easily win Horizontal Bar. But he had a strange “ping” on dismount, falling.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

After the chaos in the qualification, the men’s final resumed its normal order, when world champion Ye Shuai of China emerged the winner, followed by world bronze-medalist Ueyama Yasuhiro of Japan and Dmitry Ushakov of Russia.

Roundup: Tournament full of ups and downs but highly successful

Full results, photos and commentary are linked from that, the official site.

FIG president Bruno Grandi no doubt had to deal with a number of problems over the past week. Including FIG being blasted in the press by Canadian coach Dave Ross and others.

read Grandi’s comments – Venue operation not perfect but good enough

Looks like they will be completely ready for the Games in 2008. That’s why they call it a “test meet”. To work out the problems. Trampoline only became an Olympic sport in 2000.

China’s Cheng Fei won the balance beam title, her third gold medal of the tournament, as the “Good Luck Beijing” competition concluded on Monday.

Winning even her “bad” apparatus at the Olympic test meet — she has stopped competing bars — the Chinese Olympic Team captain will be under some pressure leading up to the Games.

Cheng, who had qualified eighth to the final after falling in qualifications, won the gold despite a large wobble on her tucked full and watering down her usual triple-twisting dismount to a 2 1/2.

“I got a gold medal today, but I believe my strong points still lie in floor exercise and vault,” she said. “But through today’s competition, I gained confidence. Although balance beam is not my preferred apparatus, I am always ready to compete for the team.”

Cheng said she doesn’t plan to add more difficulty to her routines, and that her winter training will focus on her psychological stability.

“My biggest pressure comes from the younger athletes,” she said. “They are improving rapidly, and at the same time, there is little room for me to improve. I really feel anxious about it.”

Australia’s Lauren Mitchell finished second, one tenth behind Cheng. …

Top qualifier Chellsie Memmel won the bronze with 15.300.

For videos, photos and more, visit the official event Web site: gymnastics2007.org.cn/ga/en/

International GYMNAST Magazine Online

The meet is finished. Final scores: GymnasticsResults.com

Valentin Uzunov, editor of the excellent Gym Press on-line magazine, has added a blog:

GymPress.net

Update your link to the new URL.

It has an RSS feed, so I can keep track of what’s new in New Zealand between issues.

You can download the newsletter (free) there. Valentin is planning many new features. He’s one of the most active coaches on the net, a video expert.

For a sample post, check out the feature on 16-year-old Misha Koudinov from North Harbour Gymnastics who attempted to qualify for the 2008 Olympics.

He is the best prepared male gymnast, for his age and physical maturity, this country has ever seen.

The Gym Press: Happy Birthday Misha

For the 2000 Olympics, New Zealand qualified a “Wild Card”, Kiwi David Phillips, who trained with us at Taiso in Canada. David finished a very respectable 52nd All Around. He had a fantastic career.

That same year, Kyle Shewfelt from Canada qualified last minute, the youngest male competitor in Sydney.

Unfortunately, the even younger Misha did not get through to Beijing. But we’ll be looking for him next quadrennial!

I’ve posted a number of times on the EVILS of fast food.

But athletes need food fast. What should they eat?

Sports Girls Play (a coach and Mom) recommends smoothies:

One of the challenges I face as a parent of an athlete is making sure her body gets the right nutrition through out the week. Add to that she is a very picky eater and lactose intolerant and you can see why it is a challenge. One of her favorite snacks/mini meals is a smoothie. Smoothies are great because they are portable, you can sneak in all sorts of good for you ingredients, and they are fun!

Since my daughter is lactose intolerant I have to be careful what I use as a base for her smoothie. She can handle yogurt in small doses but is not a fan of it. The recipe we use most often is very basic:

* Fill blender half full with frozen strawberries and a fresh (or frozen) banana
* Add a 1/4 cup of calcium fortified orange juice
* Blend until smooth, adding a bit more juice as needed.

Because the strawberries are frozen, you don’t need to add ice.

Our Favorite Quick Snack – Smoothies

That blog had another great post recently: Parenting an Athlete – Pushing the Limits.

A superb resource on the Gymnastics Revolution club website has photo sequences of basic gymnastics skills on the 4 women’s apparatus.

Here’s a sample screenshot from the Wolf Jump on Beam page:

Gymnastics Revolution – Gymnastics Interactive – Wolf Jump

Gymnastics Interactive is a descriptive set of information about many common skills. It is NOT meant to be a teaching or coaching aid, nor does it represent the only accepted methods for performing skills.

Related posts:

My reaction when I read this posted by kat on Gym Chat was, Guinness has got it wrong:

“Octavian Belu in Guinness World Records as World’s most successful coach”

– published in issue 4075 page 10 at 2007-12-03

Surely Leonid Arkaev, past Head Coach at various times of both Mens and Women’s Soviet, United and Russian National Teams has had far, far more champions.

Most Successful Coach-world record set by Octavian Bellu

[Dec 1]

BUCHAREST, Romania–Octavian Bellu, 56, Romanian gymnastics coach, has set the world record as the Most Successful Coach: 16 Olympics Gold Medals and a total of 279 medals at World and European Championships and Olympic Games.

Highly successful, Octavian Bellu led the Romanian gynastics team to five world and two Olympic titles, as well as coaching numerous individual gold medalists – since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, Romania has been the most successful women’s gymnastics power.

…

Octavian Bellu was head of the national team, with interruptions, between 1988 and 2005. He has been the coach of the Romanian Women’s Team since the defection of Bela Karolyi for political reason in 1981.

…

Octavian Bellu was appointed as the new president of Romania’s sports governing body

World Records Academy

Personally, I’m not a big fan of Bellu though, obviously, I admire the results of Romania, a sports mad, but small and impoverished nation. It’s astonishing what they have accomplished.

Leave a comment if you know anything else — or have statistics — comparing Bellu and Arkaev.

UPDATE: Kat did some further research, confirming that Arkaev won about 400 Olympic, World Championships, and European Championships medals, about 150 of those gold. As far as the team medals are concerned, every single medal isn’t counted, but rather one per team. link – Gym Chat

If we compare only medals won by the women’s teams, it would be closer.

Octavian Bellu bio – Romanian-Gymnastics.com

Note: Bellu is a more correct spelling than Belu, though both are used.