Category: Uncategorized

“Chinese Nationals” begin.

Gymnastics Examiner links to podium training highlights – Video tidbits before Chinese Nationals

2008 Olympic Pommel champion Xiao Qin is competing.

Another highlight is Li Yiting who is showing Rudi and Tsukahara with 2 twists.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

China needs vaulters. The chance for apparatus finals may help Li Yiting make teams. But she is sloppy. And is yet another gymnast doing nearly the same vault, calling it as coming from 2 different families. I feel judges should be very strict on hand position if they are going to allow those.

There are more videos on the Komova2012 YouTube channel.

Gymnastike has a page highlighting some of the top gymnasts at both meets. And linking to full results: Level 9 Eastern and Western National Championships Results

Shout out to Southeastern Gym who already has 3 Eastern Champions: Grace Glenn 38.225, Megan McClelland 37.650 and Kensleigh Owens 37.500. Luidmila Shobe is Southeastern Head Coach.

I’m at the Western Championships, somewhat underwhelmed at the quality of gymnastics I’ve seen, so far. Competition continues today.

One feature I really like at Westerns is how judging scores are being displayed. BIG and with each judge included. Now that’s transparency.

Based on results of both of these meets, gymnasts will be invited to a training camp at Karolyi Ranch.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre explains why he integrates gymnastics into his strength & conditioning regimen.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Filmed at the UFC 129 press conference April 27, 2011, Toronto.

Thanks Michael in Scotland for the link.

All advanced male gymnasts wear grips. Almost all advanced female gymnasts do, as well.

It can be troublesome, even traumatic the first day putting them on.

Gymnasts Anastasia Karpova and Kristina Kruglikova (Russia) and Moldir Azimbay (Kazakhstan) test out their first pairs of grips while training for the Nadia Comaneci International Invitational in Oklahoma City. …

Click PLAY or watch them on YouTube.

My strategy is to go slow. Finish the normal workout bare handed, and then take a few turns at the end in grips.

Introduce hand guards in the off-season.

The best documentation on this topic I’ve seen was written by John Howard, the prolific editor of Gymnastics Zone.

His Complete Guide to Using, Buying and Caring for Gymnastics Grips is just one of the dozens of topics he’s covered. Much of that content is free, but the best is summarized in his eBooks available at cost.

related – How To Order the Correct Size Gymnastics Grips. Order from AmGym.com if you want very detailed help in sizing.

Leave a comment if you have additional tips.

(via Couch Gymnast)

Stick It Media:

Marty Strech (Azarian) needed a 12.30 on pommel horse to at least tie Tristan Burke (WOGA) for the lead going into Saturday’s Level 9 all-around finals. Pommel horse is one of Strech’s best events, so that minimum score didn’t seem to be such a tall order. Well, Strech made it interesting after an atypical fall midway through his routine. Still, he had enough difficulty built in to his routine to easily absorb the one-point deduction, and ended up with a 12.60 to top Burke by 3 tenths (83.30-83.00). …

read more – Strech and Burke are Top Level 9 Qualifiers at Men’s JO Nationals

Top 10 Qualifiers:
Marty Strech (Azarian) – 83.30
Tristan Burke (WOGA) – 83.00
Fabian Deluna (WOGA) – 81.80
Davis Grooms (Champions) – 81.55
Alex Diab (Premier) – 81.50
David Jessen (Rise) – 81.05
Johnny Jacobson (USA GymWorld) – 80.65
Marcos Gatinho (Universal) – 80.10
Alex Yoder (Indy School) – 79.45
Grant Breckenridge (Buffalo Grove) – 79.40

Stick It Media is Ron Noe, an indefatigable enthusiast of Men’s Gymnastics who happens to live in Long Beach. Ron got into our sport when his son took it up. And has been a booster ever since.

I finally got to meet Ron in person, after years of following his work online.

I’m headed today to the Western Championships at the Town and Country Resort and Convention Center in San Diego, Calif.

Whoop.

details on USAG – Junior Olympic Level 9 Eastern/Western Championships begin May 6

A few observations from Long Beach on the American Men’s age group program:

The depth in American Men’s Gymnastics is amazing. Is there any other nation with this many gymnasts Level 10 and FIG?

In the sessions I watched, the gymnastics looked quite safe. Spotters are mandatory on 3 apparatus when competing.

I was watching, too, for ‘American traits‘: poor toe point, poor line, egregiously more difficulty than artistry.

Not so. There are plenty of young American guys with beautiful gymnastics.

Pommels and Rings are conspicuously the weakest events. But these boys are young. Rings will improve. I’m not so sure regarding Pommels.

Historically the American competitive system has pushed boys on to the horse with pommels too soon. The inevitable result has been muscled, piked swing.

It doesn’t help that North Americans are, on average, heavier and bigger than average.

… Leave a comment if you feel the problem with American pommel horse will improve in the next few years.

USAG:

… The levels are determined by age and skill level. Level 10 is split into two age groups, 14-15 years old and 16-18 years old, while Level 9 has only 12-13 years old.

The Junior Olympic National Championships are a qualifier for Level 10 gymnasts to advance to the Visa Championships (Aug. 17-20 in Saint Paul, Minn.), where the national teams for both age groups are determined. The top gymnasts in Level 9 are named to the Junior Olympic National Team. …

read more

The march in at the start of the 2011 USA Junior Olympic Championships was impressive. I’ve never seen so many male gymnasts in one place at one time.

Gymnastics is a humbling sport. Most gymnasts modest, and disciplined.

But what happens before the march-in, behind the curtain, when you tell hundreds of teenage boys to HURRY UP and WAIT for an indeterminate time?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The natives were restless. 🙂

Includes the quad turn on Beam.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

She is a trickster. Amazing.

(via International Gymnast Magazine on Facebook)

Gymnastics Examiner:

Peter Vidmar will not be chef de mission at the London Olympic Games after all.

The U.S. Olympic Committee announced Friday that Vidmar had resigned from the post after his anti-gay marriage beliefs drew negative attention from athletes and gay rights activists. …

Vidmar, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has participated in anti-gay marriage demonstrations and given money to groups that worked in support of Proposition 8, which ended gay couples’ rights to marry in California in 2008. …

In the comments on this site I defended Vidmar’s selection, … while disagreeing with his lobbying for Proposition 8.

I said he could still be an effective Chef.

… Obviously Peter disagrees with me.

Vidmar:

“I have dedicated my life to the Olympic Movement and the ideals of excellence, friendship and respect,” Vidmar said in a press release issued Friday by the U.S. Olympic committee. “I wish that my personal religious beliefs would not have become a distraction from the amazing things that are happening in the Olympic Movement in the United States. I simply cannot have my presence become a detriment to the U.S. Olympic family. I hope that by stepping aside, the athletes and their stories will rightly take center stage.”

Vidmar’s replacement has not been named.

Gymnastics Examiner – Peter Vidmar out as Chef de Mission for London Olympics

In fact, I saw Peter earlier today at J.O. Nationals and hoped to congratulate him. But he was on the phone. Something serious.

Some have noted that Canadian Chef de Mission Mark Tewksbury is openly gay, and is a prominent advocate.

Tewksbury is a great fit for the role of Chef, too. (He spoke once at our Gym club. Very inspirational.) … But I don’t see how Mark’s sexual orientation makes him any better a candidate for the job than Vidmar.

Sport is sport.

The Olympic Charter states:

Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

Would Vidmar have discriminated against anyone on the U.S. Team?

Will Tewksbury better defend those on the Canadian Team?

No and no.

… Please leave a comment if you have a new point to add.