Everybody loved Julianne back in that era. We boys loved how she mounted with mixed grip jam cast, like a boss.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: Gymnastics
Beam Queen Bootcamp
October 14-15 in Zionsville, Indiana – InterActive Academy
October 21-22 in Chandler, Arizona = Gold Medal Gymnastics
Beam Queen Bootcamp is a two-day camp that travels to interested gyms to help gymnasts with beam. The camp’s rotations can differ depending on the available staff. The first camp included rotations for beam skills, beam dance, choreography, upgrades and drills, games, and confidence training. …
Samantha Peszek Gives Back To Gymnastics Through Beam Queen Bootcamp
Gyms interested in hosting a Beam Queen Bootcamp can email BeamQueenBootcamp (a) gmail.com.
WHY I liked Worlds Montreal
Yesterday I documented the weird and flawed arena. AND linked to the shocking injury list as well as other major complaints.
Here’s what I liked about Worlds 2017 …
It was memorable.
Glasgow inspired razzle dazzle. The big screen worked well.
Announcers were OK, better than Glasgow. Personally I enjoy listening to CA.
It was well attended by North Americans. I caught up with hundreds of friends and acquaintances. It was a treat to have Worlds back in North America.
The nearby INS Gym hosted Canadian team camps in conjunction. There were a dozen of other nations there, too, all getting to meet each other.
Montreal is a fun tourist city. Most visitors have a good time.
Judging was — perhaps — better than I can recall at any other Worlds. Europeans 2017 was laughable, I thought. But there was not much glaring injustice in Montreal. Most arguments were over a tenth or two.
Should Ellie or Oksana have been 4th on Vault, for example.
FIG judging rules are stupid, of course, and should be fixed. E score is weighted too low compared with D score. But that’s an issue separate from this particular competition.
related – This Code has simply made the sport too difficult for the majority of countries.
Beam scores were far too low relative to Vault scores. You must lower Vault or raise Beam. That’s obvious.
Lower Vault. Doubling the deductions would bring that apparatus in line with Beam.
https://twitter.com/uncletimmensgym/status/916724096498655233
I sat in front of Beam for the entire meet. To be fair to the judges, aside from Pauline, there were very routines without obvious form, balance, angle and rhythm deductions. It would have been smart to put a very clean, low difficulty routine in front of that panel. I can’t recall one.
There were few very weak routines considering this is individual Worlds. Two Tsuk pikes, I recall, for example. Fewer than usual for the first Worlds of the cycle.
Gymnasts were very well behaved at this Worlds. No incidents in the corrals that I recall. Everyone very friendly.
Montreal history. Nadia 1976. Worlds 1985 in the same Olympic complex. (Worlds 1985 was far worse than 2017, by the way.)
GymCastic videos. I’m a big fan of GymCastic audiocasts. But the GymCastic videos are even better. Social media was excellent at Worlds 2017. Those who couldn’t attend still had a good experience online. FIG LIVE scores mostly worked this time.
Fans and gymnasts were able to rub shoulders more than I can ever recall at Worlds. Every time you turned around in that arena you’d spot a famous gymnast.
Longines didn’t bungle the Elegance Awards. Kenzo and Brooklyn were very good choices. (Though I would have preferred Yul and Brooklyn.)
For me, personally, a big highlight was having media tribunals at field of play level was fantastic. Normally we are way up high with a long range, impersonal wide angle view. (Text media like myself were happy. Video / photo media were not.)
The Acrobatic Sports Symposium October 5-8th held in conjunction was excellent. Every Worlds should have a coach education event. (Judges do have clinics at every Worlds, by the way.)
I liked Montreal. And I expect Stuttgart 2019 to be as good or better. That city has an excellent reputation for hosting big meets.
I’ve toured the ultra modern Qatar venue. Expect a smaller, more intimate event. Not anything on the scale of Glasgow or even Montreal. Audiences will be smaller, I assume, so that might work.
XIAO Ruoteng World E-score Champion
Everyone. Everyone has flagged Yul as the breakout star of Worlds 2017.
But I was wrong in a post from Oct 11th. Of the top 10 AA Yul did not win the E-score. Dwight Normile noticed I had the incorrect Pommel E-scores. IG posted corrected ranking.
XIAO Ruoteng won the AA and won E-score. #respect
Here’s my corrected list (including FX and Vault line deductions in the E-score). Please double check it.
I ranked the top 10 AA finalist E-scores from this FIG results page .
Click PLAY or watch Yul on Facebook.
compete in New Brunswick, Canada
Fundy Invitational Jan. 26-28, 2018.
World FX Champions Mai and Kenzo
The two World Floor Champions dated a bit in High School.
Simone plans to compete in 2018
Sordid history of ‘The Big O’
Now that Morgan Hurd and the rest of the world survived Worlds Montreal, let’s talk about the Big O. It’s been called the “greatest white elephant of a stadium ever built“.
And it’s still under construction though the 1976 Olympic debt was finally repaid some years ago.
The roof has broken and been repaired many times over the years. Chunks have fallen.
Inside it’s a massive, confusing maze of dead end concrete space. The only way to get around efficiently is by bicycle or golf cart.
Judges and media had only 2 slow elevators to get to the field of play. After a week I finally found a random set of stairs and used those instead. It’s very easy to get lost.
Many have commented on how few washrooms are available in a complex that size. Eventually some Men’s toilets were switched to serve the ladies.
I was relieved there weren’t more problems.
So … I’m sure the City at various times considered tearing down The Big O. Personally, I’m glad they didn’t. It’s weirdly beautiful. And there are plenty of attractions nearby that I enjoy. Especially the new Gymnastics facility in the tower. A Gym was proposed way back in the late 1970s. The INS Gym will be a great resource in future.
If interested read more in The Guardian – The 40-year hangover: how the 1976 Olympics nearly broke Montreal
The Montreal Olympics left the city with a C$1.6bn debt, a string of corruption scandals, and a creeping sense of economic and social decline. Forty years on, how did the city survive?
On 17 July, with Queen Elizabeth, Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau and 73,000 people looking on, the Greek athletes who traditionally led the Parade of Nations came up the ramp toward the Olympic stadium to find their way almost blocked by construction workers.
Out of sight of the cameras and the throng inside the stadium, the staff were frantically wielding shovels and brooms to clear away the building debris left from the manic push to complete the facility on time. In the final scrambling months before the Games, 3,000 labourers had worked in teams 24 hours a day to make it possible for the Olympics to begin at all. They barely succeeded. …
The Olympics can no more run a deficit than a man can have a baby
I survived Montreal Worlds
One of the most popular memes from Worlds 2017.
The number of meet-ending injuries was shocking.
But was the number of injuries at 2017 Worlds more than usual? I’m not sure. I recall some very bad Worlds.
FIG tracks those numbers. In the past I’ve seen the FIG Worlds medical report. It won’t be published for some weeks, I expect.
But I’ve not seen that report released publicly for many years. I’ve requested a copy from one of the FIG Medical Commission.
This year meet ending injuries were suffered by some of the highest profile gymnasts: Kohei Uchimura (ankle on Vault in competition), Ragan Smith (ankle in training), Larisa Iordache (Achilles on Floor in training), Vanessa Ferrari (Achilles on Floor in competition).
Social media is the main source of competition information for many people. Injuries were very quickly communicated from those in the arena. More so than in the past. Five major injuries occurred in one subdivision of MAG preliminaries. That set off the gymternet alarm. Ready to quit the sport, I had to take a long walk to calm down.
In the cases of Vanessa and Larisa Achilles rupture was predictable. Both arrived in Montreal knowing there was a chance it could happen. I can’t blame the venue. The same thing happened to Alicia Sacramone at Worlds Tokyo 2011.
Those who jumped on the Montreal broke the gymnasts meme reminded me of the old similarly wrong over-simplification: Marta broke the girls.
Gymnastics is a very dangerous sport. It’s most dangerous when athletes used to landing on mats in the pit have to try to stick a Vault on competition mats. It’s Russian roulette. Audrys Nin Reyes was a favourite to medal on Vault. He was injured on landing just like Kohei.
Kyle Shewfelt had 2 serious injuries over 3 Olympics. One landing on competition Floor. The other landing a competition Vault. (Kyle said Kohei’s injury looked similar to his on Vault.)
If you worry about the health of your favourite gymnast, worry most when they compete Floor and Vault. They are much, much safer training in their own Gym.
Was lighting in the training Gyms or competition Gym a factor?
Possibly. But not a big factor I don’t expect.
Was insufficient practice time in the competition Gym a factor?
Yes. In my opinion.
That facility sat empty much of the time before the start of competition. Why not offer a second podium training? Why not allow more time / gymnast? FIG could easily correct this for Doha.
Podium training was bungled too for some gymnasts. Petrounias, for example. Lack of chalk and timing errors are the fault of the organizing committee. Not FIG.
Did the gymnasts have enough time on the new Gymnova equipment?
No, in some cases. The U.S. men had not used the Gymnova vault horse before arrival in Montreal. Donnell Whittenburg, one of the favourites, said he couldn’t get used to it in time.
On the other hand, some nations planned to get time on the Worlds equipment. China spent a week training on Gymnova in Alberta before arriving Montreal, for example. Smart. Japan and Brazil trained at INS Montreal before the official Worlds training gyms opened.
Russia said gymnasts were not allowed to prepare WAG Bars for their teammates. That’s a big safety concern, in my opinion. FIG should reevaluate that rule immediately.
But were the Montreal Worlds cursed?
Was the venue too old and flawed?
No. It was a far better than average World Championships. I congratulate FIG, the Worlds organizing committee and all those volunteers for getting 99% of things right.
If you disagree, please leave a comment.
related – Spotlight Gymnastics – The flip side of the medal – Montreal 2017
ideas for new skills on Pommels
JessicaTalksMensGym.com … a proposed new website for GymNerds has a few more suggestions for Max Whitlock.
Could you put any of these on horse?
Gymnastics Coaching.com 