As part of Beauty is #NOCOMPETITION, Simone has been animated along with other Olympic athletes.
Click PLAY or watch a teaser on Twitter.
Category: ethics
solar powered Gymnastics Clubs
Buckeye Gymnastics and Cheer in Ohio generates over 50% of their electricity from solar.
During the months of July and August when the AC runs most of the time, over 85% of the electricity required is generated from the roof. They even sell power back to the grid.
I’ve heard GymCats in Vegas and Kid’s First in Cincinnati generate solar power, as well. Leave a comment if you know of more Gymnastics clubs that do so.
Thanks Dave Holcombe.
Hardy Fink’s last day at FIG
Hardy Fink was the Director of Education and Academy Programmes for FIG. He organized, amongst other things, FIG Academies, FIG Age Group Programme and Olympic Solidarity courses. All things education for 7 FIG competition disciplines – ACR, AER, MAG, PK, RG, TRA, WAG.
For some years Hardy had been asking for a transition plan to a successor. It’s a massive job and not many in the world have the experience, knowledge and contacts to make it work.
Hardy has attend more World Championships & Olympics than anyone, for example. Stuttgart was his 32nd Worlds in series.
Nobody has yet been named by FIG.
The only positive note is that Hardy has been asked to consult with his replacement over the next couple of years. In my opinion, that would be essential or FIG coach education opportunities will plummet.
- ACADEMY STATISTICS BY CONTINENTS to February 18, 2020
- AGE GROUP STATISTICS BY CONTINENTS to February 21, 2020
related – Dvora Meyer’s recent interview with Hardy (for subscribers)
Petition to improve NBC Gymnastics coverage
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.
Russia withdraws from World Cups – FIG must respond
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
USA MAG international assignments
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.
National Team Selection policy
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
some GOOD news from Winter Cup
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.
can #NCAAGym judging be improved?
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.
USAG blunders this weekend
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.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 