Ann Lovell, who has lived in Asia for 8 years, posted a terrific series of visuals. Great colours.
The Beijing Chinese Acrobat Show features the countries top gymnasts, many whom are just children.
Author: Rick Mc
Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.
host UTAH wins NCAA qualifying flight
Only the top 3 teams from this second qualifying session advance to the Super 6 Team Finals.
Utah Fan favourite Kristina Baskett started with a fall on FX. The loud home crowd grew nervous.
But the Utes really impressed me. They got stronger as the evening progressed.
Actually, the second session was notably weaker than session one. Consistency, difficulty and artistry were not as stunning. There were fewer HITS and STICKS overall.
But the Super 6 is “sudden victory”. Everyone starts over from zero.
It’s going to be a great fight.
new media artist Pam Rocks
Who does Cirque du Soleil boss Guy Laliberté call when he wants something “special”?
Pam Rocks of Moment Factory.
Directing insane multimedia shows and events is all in a day’s work for Rocks.
She describes some of her favourites to plan: Guy Laliberté’s private parties (a.k.a. “test runs” for the Cirque du Soleil), which have involved a “virtual Guy” and a 100-foot dome turned into a smoking pumpkin, crystal ball, enchanted forest and “rocking cathedral.” …
Currently, most of Rocks’ contracts (about 70 per cent) come from the “New Adventures department” at Cirque du Soleil, a place where the interactive arts (video, lights and live performance) are pushed to extremes, and where there’s room to play under a big budget. …
Those in charge of lighting and special effects are at least as important as choreographers.
Courtney Kupets – felt like a little kid
The top AA score in the NCAA TEAM competition (first session) was Courtney Kupets of Georgia.
She was solid as a rock.
But that’s not how she felt:
Question: “Talk about your all around performance, since it looks like you’re on your way to another individual title.”
Answer: “I was kind of nervous today. I felt like a little kid competing for the first time. As a team, we really got into it and today was all about the team and what I could do individually to help the team.”
The pressure is unbelievable in the qualifying round.
teams qualifying to NCAA finals
After the first of 2 qualifying sessions three teams move on to finals:
Team ranking results.
A few wobbles and missed landings made the difference.
Florida was definitely my favourite team to watch: energetic, artistic, enthusiastic.
But Georgia was more polished, I thought, More exacting.
Congratulations Nebraska! They had dynamite tumbling and vault.
WOW. What a meet. I could not be more impressed with NCAA Championships and the young women who qualified to get here.
making sense of NCAA scores
I learned a long, long time ago how to keep track of the insanely high scores.
Simply drop the 9:
9.75 = 7.5
9.825 = 8.25
9.95 = 9.5
Easier to keep straight?
NCAA meets are more about the show than accurate ranking of the athletes. More a performance than a competition.
Thankfully the judges have given very few impossible 10s over the past 2 years.
prediction – Georgia will win NCAAs
Check the time stamp on this post. Only the first preliminary rotation of 12 is finished.
George put on a BEAM CLINIC. (One fall.)
They look awesome.
NCAA Championships 2007 home page.
photo is Grace Taylor – Georgia
NCAA veteran coaches challenged by protégés
For so many years, Utah’s Greg Marsden, Georgia’s Suzanne Yoculan, Alabama’s Sarah Patterson, UCLA’s Valorie Kondos-Field and a handful of other coaches have been the faces of success in collegiate gymnastics.
They are credited with building the sport into what it is today, a fan-friendly, increasingly popular sport that draws some of the world’s best athletes.
They’ve been around so long, some of the newer programs that have benefitted from their success are now in a position to beat them.
Florida coach Rhonda Faehn (UCLA), Denver’s Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart (Florida), Stanford’s Kristen Smyth (Cal) and Oklahoma’s K.J. Kindler (Iowa State) are all coaches who came from successful programs as athletes and have guided their teams to the 2007 NCAA Championships as coaches.
Faehn, in her fifth year, has the top-ranked Gators positioned to become the first team other than Utah, Alabama, UCLA and Georgia to win the national title since the event was sanctioned by the NCAA in 1982.
Salt Lake Tribune РNCAA GYMNASTICS: Veteran coaches now being challenged by prot̩g̩s
Rhonda Faehn – Gator Zone
LIVE from Salt Lake City
The Women’s NCAA Championships starts today. I’ll be posting live from the venue.
I arrived yesterday in time for the third of 3 training sessions. The gym was surprisingly quiet, I thought, and relaxed. Girls looked fit and ready to go. Very few did full routines.
Like the Men’s competition, this meet will be very tight:
Parity was the most commonly used word Wednesday afternoon during the gymnastics media session at the University of Utah.
Nearly all the coaches and many of the athletes used it to describe the 12 teams competing today through Saturday at the Jon M. Huntsman Center. …
Nebraska coach Dan Kendig was easily the most diplomatic, saying, “Any athlete here is capable of sticking a 9.85 routine. That translates to a 197 score. Those (squads) who stick landings and put it together will advance.”
Jon M. Huntsman Center – home of the Utah Utes
Most impressive of the home winning streaks is the national record 170-meet streak that the gymnastics team compiled from 1979-2002. No other team in any NCAA sport had ever won that many consecutive regular season home competitions. The streak was snapped in the first meet of 2003 by eventual NCAA champion UCLA.
Utah’s diehard gymnastics fans have helped the Red Rocks attract the highest average attendance in the sport in 20 of the last 22 years. Since 1992, Utah’s attendance average at has never dipped below 9,500 and its 10-year attendance average is over 10,000 fans per home meet.
quadruple twist FX – Kent Caldwell
Kent Caldwell is a Floor and Vault specialist with University of Michigan in the NCAA.
In this routine he mounts with quad, dismounts with triple.
Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.
Compare Kent’s excellent performance with two attempts by Nastia Liukin. (She has done it better.)
nastia liukin quad twist – YouTube
Nastia Liukin 2005 US Classic FX – Quad twist ATTEMPT – YouTube
Gymnastics Coaching.com 