tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … and more
NBC has a format that has not much changed over the decades.
Personally I tend to watch other broadcasts as NBC normally shows the fewest routines. And I’m there for the Gymnastics, not the fluff.
That said, there are a lot of good points in this petition applicable to all broadcasters. I signed.
Read it on Change.org.
Nikita Nagornyy and Lilia Akhaimova who were supposed to represent Russia at the American Cup on March, 7 have announced on their Instagram accounts that Russia will withdraw from the competition due to coronavirus fears. …
Earlier, Angelina Melnikova was not allowed by the national team to participate in a Serie A competition in Italy. …
Valentina Rodionenko officially confirmed that Russian gymnasts also withdrew from the Tokyo World Cup. …
Chinese gymnasts were not allowed into Australia to compete the Melbourne World Cup. Iranian gymnasts did get in.
Certainly the World Cup Olympic qualification system is blown out of the water. FIG must revisit the qualification system and make a decision on alternatives.
https://twitter.com/russiangymstan/status/1233356796791836677
https://twitter.com/LubaBaladzhaeva/status/1233379596118171651
If you (like me) are still confused about American assignments following Winter Cup, those were decided by MPC on Saturday, February 22st.
In the minutes the stated objective of the AA World Cups is to “earn +1 for Olympic Games with top 3 finish cumulative results from American Cup, Stuttgart, Birmingham and Tokyo Cup.”
Motion: Assign Shane Wiskus to Wild Card position at American Cup (with Sam Mikulak)
… Assign Yul Moldauer to Stuttgart AA World Cup.
Assign Brody Malone to Birmingham World Cup.
Assign Sam Mikulak to Tokyo Cup.
Read the minutes.
That decision was unanimous.
Apparently there were no updated, published documents giving direction to the committee, a big oversight on the part of USAG MPC.
Poor planning.
Very poor communication.
Fixing this should be job #1 for new USAG Men’s Vice President Jason Woodnick.
As USAG has declined to comment on the issue publicly, the best coverage I’ve heard was by Kensley Behel on GymCastic podcast episode 413.
Kensley attended Winter Cup and has been in direct communication with USAG.
Seems USAG MPC bungled the selection process for upcoming World Cups.
Yul’s coach Mark Williams responds.
Click through to read the 5 tweets in that thread.
Here’s what they recommend in Canada.
Responsible NSOs (National Sports Organizations) recognize the importance of a sound team selection policy to ensure that the best athletes are indeed selected for optimal performance of the team, and also to avoid disputes leading up to a major competition.
The criteria must also be communicated to the athletes long before the start of the qualification period.
The entire training program of athletes will be based on meeting these criteria to secure their selection to the team, so it would be unreasonable to communicate these criteria only a few weeks or a few days before.
Of course, once a team selection policy approved and published, the NSO must ensure that it is implemented as intended.
read more … Team Selection
Though the gymternet mainly heard about the screw-ups at the annual U.S. Men’s selection meet during the Olympic year, Kensley was there — as usual — and found the competition much improved in many ways.
Click through to this Twitter thread to read her positive comments.
Greg Marsden asks that question on Twitter. And got PLENTY of feedback.
It was inspired by the scores last weekend of Utah at UCLA.
Spencer felt it was the most over-scored rotation of the year so far. A high bar.
Here are the judges. It seems there is no oversight for College officials.
Where to start?
For an organization that already has little trust with membership, communication could not have been much worse at the (otherwise excellent) Men’s Winter Cup in Las Vegas.
Now Tuesday morning and I’m still not 100% sure what happened.
It seems the USA MPC had not documented their World Cup selection system in advance of Winter Cup.
Why, you might ask.
Yet USAG had to earlier put forward nominative entrees for the 4 AA World Cups either Sam or Yul were assigned to all four.
Not many — including Yul’s Mom — knew they were only nominative.
Now — after the Winter Cup — MPC is considering replacing Yul for some of his nominative assignments.
It’s a mess. More self-inflicted wounds for USA Gymnastics.
Click over to Gymnastics-Now for an update through Tuesday, February 25th.
Student athletes shouldn’t have to hide who they are.
Click PLAY or get a glimpse behind the scenes on Twitter.
The Pride Meet was Feb. 9th vs. #20 Arizona. 🏳️🌈
Break the Fall by Jennifer Iacopelli was released Feb 18th.
I finished it in less than 24 hours.
That’s surprising since I’m decidedly NOT the target audience for Young Adult / Teen romance.
This novel is heavy on Gymnastics, light on the typical YA cliché teen crushes and rivalries.
Jennifer: For me, when writing sports fiction, the sport itself is what the plot will stem from, so it’s almost impossible for me to write a book about sports that doesn’t heavily include the competition, practices and training that would be a major part of any athlete’s life.
Often we’ll see books about an athlete that’s injured or an athlete that had to give up their sport as an exploration of their identity away from the thing they love, but that’s been done so much, I’m more interested in what it takes to strive to compete at the highest levels, to try to win and what happens when you do (or don’t). …
And the Gymnastics is well informed.
I assumed Jennifer was an ex-gymnast or coach, but she’s actually a kick-butt librarian. Her sports were tennis and softball.
Jennifer: “… what I worked on the most was making sure the gymnasts were portrayed as realistically as possible, in and out of the gym. …”
The American National Team Director is lead away in handcuffs, accused of tampering with drug test results. Later charged with sexual assault.
When the rest of the Federation supports him, the equivalent of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee suspends the equivalent of USAG and delivers the U.S. Olympic team to a new coach only weeks before the Tokyo Olympics.
That’s a good plot device.
Jennifer loosely based the new Olympic coach on Kim Zmeskal.
She was inspired to write a Gymnastics novel after following the Nassar / USAG scandal: “… people in a position of power abusing athletes or failing to protect athletes from abuse …”
The story starts at Olympic trials 2020. Ends on the last day of Apparatus Finals in Tokyo.
If you are wondering whether your gymnasts should read this book it does have a lot of profanity. And there is discussion of sexual abuse though none of that is graphic.
The audio version is available on Scribd and Audible.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 