Couch Gymnast has been posting predictions on what gymnasts will be sent to Worlds in Tokyo:
• USA
• Romania
• Russia
• China
Team USA is my strong prediction to win. But Romania may be the big happy surprise of World Championships 2011.
For once we’re not hearing endless stories of crisis out of Romania, just before the BIG meet. The small pool of Romanian elite gymnasts seems to be happy, motivated and relatively healthy. So far.
Leave a comment if you’ve a strong prediction on the WAG Team podium. Or, even more important, the top 8 who will qualify directly to the Olympics.
Being healthy and psyched for the BIG meet is critical.
Some coaches are better at bringing kids ready to “bring it” than others.
Some gyms always seem to peak too early in the season. Or their kids are injured at just the wrong time, before the BIG meet.
The final episode of Workout Wednesday before the 2011 Visa Championships in Saint Paul features the team with the most qualifiers (7 Juniors), Texas Dreams. …
On the Men’s side, Matthew Rusk again is posting a detailed preview:
Competition for the AA title has grown into an unexpectedly hot race this year. Few could have conceived Jonathan Horton not making a “three-peat” when he became the first man since Paul Hamm to win a World Championship AA medal back in October. Despite a thumb injury, he would be triumphant once again at the American Cup in Jacksonville, where he took home his third American Cup trophy.
Yet two back-to-back competitions—the Glasgow World Cup and the Japan Cup—have been disastrous for the Olympic silver medalist and call into question his preparation for these Championships.
Much was made of Horton’s rivalry at last year’s Nationals with Danell Leyva, but Leyva, who finished over two points behind Horton, wasn’t at the level to challenge the reigning Champion. This year he is, actually to the point of perhaps being considered the favorite. Vast improvements on floor and vault, decent pommels, commendable parallel bars, and storied high bar work make the 19-year-old Leyva every bit a challenger to even a peaked Horton.
Yet, August 19th could come and go and neither man would be the winner: both athletes could be upstaged by an even younger upstart. John Orozco …
Brigid has an excellent update on super talented Aasha Kimpton from the U.K., who just might be the whole package: flexible, artistic and powerful.
… She has mastered a “sparkwheel” on beam, which is a Gainer aerial cartwheel, a move that has not yet been competed in Britain and had to to be valued by British Gymnastics, where it was rated a ‘D’ skill. …
US Champion turned coach Kim Zmeskal-Burdette will be coaching a large team of 7 gymnasts at this month’s Visa National Championships.
The 7 members of the Dream Team to compete in Saint Paul are: Kennedy Baker, Kiana Winston, Peyton Ernst, Nica Hults, Dare Maxwell, Bailie Key, and Macy Toronjo. Zmeskal talks about each of the 7 qualifiers and their expectations for Championships.
In total, Texas Dreams qualified 8 athletes to the Visa Championships, but Chelsea Davis is off to start her collegiate career at the University of Georgia.
The psychology of free climbing is something for all coaches to consider. It’s the ultimate.
Catherine Destivelle (born 24 July 1960) is an Algeria-born French rock climber and mountaineer. In 1992 she became the first woman to complete a solo ascent of the Eiger’s north face. …
Destivelle has been the subject of several documentaries, including French director Rémy Tezier’s, Beyond the Summits (Au-delà des cimes), which won the award for best feature-length mountain film at the 2009 Banff Mountain Film Festival …
She was age-28 (1987) when she free-climbed an overhanging sandstone cliff in Mali.
The sports (being considered) are: baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, sports climbing, squash, wakeboard and wushu, one of which could be added to the 2020 sports programme to be voted on by the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires in 2013.
… Catherine eventually slowed down, after one 20m+ fall and becoming a Mom.
A site called Online College Courses posted a provocativeoverview of the American legislation. Likely you won’t agree with all of these summary points:
Many schools still don’t abide by the Title IX law
No school has ever lost federal funding for violating Title IX
Women are not inherently less interested in playing sports than men
For every new dollar going into college athletics at the Division I and II levels of college athletics, male sports receive 65 cents. Female sports receive 35 cents
Title IX hasn’t radically changed how college athletic programs are managed
Title IX doesn’t only apply to athletics or females
Title IX doesn’t force schools to cut men’s athletic programs
There are fewer female coaches today than there were in 1972
… I have mixed feelings about Title IX myself. The intent of reducing discrimination (by discriminating) was noble, but I agree it’s not worked particularly well.
On the other hand, what would NCAA sport look like right now if Title IX had not been brought into law?
Better? Worse? … or somewhat the same?
What women’s collegiate sport needs is not more legal protection, but more great builders like Greg Marsden at Utah. His team had had the highest average attendance of any NCAA woman’s sport last year (13,503) and the third highest WAG team GPA in the country. No credit to Title IX.
He’s developed a product that fans want. … And he knows what his athletes want.
Jenn Isbister posted an excellent catch-up interview with one of my favourite gymnasts of all time.
Yvonne is working for Cirque, loving life … and is engaged to be married (to a former French gymnast) May 2012.
I particularly enjoyed Yvonne’s reminiscences of choreographer Antonia Markova.
One of Canada’s most successful gymnasts, Yvonne Tousek was perhaps also its most creative. Known the world over by her avant garde floor routines, she qualified to the floor finals at the 1999 World Championships – one of a small group of Canadians to advance to an individual apparatus final at World or Olympic competition.
The two-time Olympian went on to a stellar NCAA career at UCLA, capturing three team titles and three individual titles at National Championships. Yvonne joined Cirque du Soleil shortly after graduating, and has traveled the world with the show. …
Gymnastics Coaching.com 