Category: Uncategorized

China and Russia are the leading nations. This was the second last international meet before World Championships.

Dong Dong and Huang Shanshan (CHN) prevailed in the men’s and women’s trampoline finals of the sixth World Cup of the 2010 World Cup Series that took place … in Loule, Portugal.

Grégoire Pennes-Sébastien Martiny (FRA) and Kirsten Boersma-Tara Fokke (NED) took the gold in the synchronized trampoline events.

Timofey Podust (RUS) and Anna Korobeynikova (RUS) triumphed in tumbling.

Acrobatic Sports

Tumblers Alex Seifert and Emily Smith, Canada

Added by Brett MacAulay to the Facebook group “CGC – Calgary Gymnastics Centre”

(via Gymnastics Alberta)

A success. Congratulations.

2010 NATIONAL GYMSPORTS CHAMPIONSHIPS – Hamilton
24th – 28th September 2010

… New Zealand’s Commonwealth Games gymnastics team are “raring to go” to India this week after a successful weekend at the National Championships in Hamilton.

Rhythmic gymnast Mereana Rademakers, who won the senior international rhythmic title at Mystery Creek yesterday, said she was “excited and focused” on the challenge ahead.

“This is what we train for. We have had a boot camp in Bulgaria and a competition in Italy followed by nationals this weekend and we are totally ready to go,” she said.

Rather than worry about conditions at the Games, which have been racked by controversy over unfinished facilities, Rademakers, 19, said she was placing her trust in the New Zealand Olympic Committee and GymSports New Zealand who she said “would not put athletes at risk”.

“I train 25 hours a week and have put my MBA (business degree) at Canterbury University on hold for this opportunity – I plan to make the most of it,” she said. …

read more – Stuff

With all the earthquakes in Christchurch, Delhi may be a relief. They can sleep through the night.

Commonwealth Games Team:

Rhythmic gymnastics: Keziah Oliver, Kimberley Robson, Mereana Rademakers.

Women’s artistic gymnastics: Holly Moon, Lani Hohepa, Jordan Rae, Briana Mitchell.

Men’s artistic gymnastics: Misha Koudinov, Matthew Palmer, Patrick Peng, Mark Holyoake, Brandon Field.

I’m researching policies and procedures manuals for youth sports clubs.

Leave a comment if you know of a good template online. Or a service that sells them.

Check this out. Olympic gymnast Alicia Sacramone is now a business woman, promoting a very interesting product for beam.

$19.99 per pair plus shipping and handling.

shock-sox.com (781-366-4726)

Half socks, half heel pad. Nice.

Inside Gymnastics has a good interview, though it’s heavy on the details of her relationship with Denver Broncos’ backup quarterback Brady Quinn:

…

INSIDE: A comeback, a romance, a new business venture … Anything else you can squeeze in?

SACRAMONE: Obviously I need to finish [college] and get my degree. I promised my dad I would. Right now, I’m on the fence about whether I go back while I’m trying to train, or do I finish up training—ride this out—and go back to school when I’m done? That’s what I’m conflicted with. Obviously I’m going to finish, I just want to figure out when.

INSIDE: And in the gym? Upgrades? A new floor routine perhaps?

SACRAMONE: I’m still just taking it one day at a time. I’m training as much as it takes. Conditioning is what is important. You don’t forget your gymnastics skills overnight. If you’re training and you’re healthy, it makes competing that much easier. That’s what we’re focusing on right now.

Obviously World Championships would be a great way to wrap up this year, but it’s a long competition. If I go, we’re gone for a month. That’s a lot of hard landings, a lot of routines.

I’m definitely really competent with what I’m doing. I don’t know what other people are doing, internationally, but I’m happy with where I am, and right now I’m gonna stick with this. If I need to, I’ll try and work on upgrading for next competitive season.

Floor [sigh] … The thing is, it’s a love-hate relationship with floor. I love competing it, but it’s so grueling for my body. I’ve played around with tumbling and I can do what I was tumbling at the Olympics. [Coach] Mihai (Brestyan) is pushing for it, but I’m taking my time with that one. I’d love to do it, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Maybe next year.

…I’m just trying to keep any injuries from coming. Prevention is key right now for me.

read more on Inside Gymnastics – SACRAMONE SAYS …

Note: … not to be confused with Shock Sox, the motorcycle fork seal.

Coaches complain. But we live in a dream paradise compared to teachers in public schools.

A documentary on an American school system won the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. I really want to see it.

The film analyzes the failures of American public education by following several students through the educational system.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

It features Geoffrey Canada, one of my heros.

Bill Gates is behind the film. It’s getting a lot of buzz.

Yet I’m not sure many school districts have the resources to improve. Where did all those tax dollars go?

Click through to waitingforsuperman.com.

Congratulations.

FIG President, Prof. Bruno Grandi (ITA) will officially open the South African National Gymnastics Academy, at the Matsport Centre based in Centurion, Tshwane, on October 1st, 2010.

The venue has been graciously donated by the City of Tshwane, making the city the new home of Gymnastics development and training in Southern Africa. The facility, in conjunction with the donation of international standard equipment by the FIG, will assist South Africa in its drive to become a top competitor in the international gymnastics arena. …

read more – FIG

Due to IOC sponsorship, the O2 arena, the world’s busiest entertainment dome, in London, will officially be called the North Greenwich Arena during the 2012 Games.

North Greenwich Arena 1 will host Artistic Gymnastics with 16,500 spectators. Read a review of the venue.

A second, temporary arena – North Greenwich Arena 2 – will be built next door for Rhythmic Gymnastics. It will have 6,000 seats.

She arrived at the gym to find this salutation.

Thanks Victoria.

Recall the so-called Parkour World Championships in England? (VIDEO)

Now Red Bull is sponsoring competitions.

More than 4,000 people came out to Tampa’s historic Centro Ybor district to check out a truly unique parkour experience at Red Bull Art of Motion. …

During the first round of the competition, each competitor had 90 seconds to freestyle across the course showing off on and utilizing several different obstacles and features.

… Yohann Leroux of Paris, France who claimed the title as the first ever U.S. Red Bull Art of Motion champion.

Click PLAY or watch highlights on YouTube.

The Red Bull venue is far less interesting and challenging than the one set-up in England 2008.

I still don’t think free running lends itself to a competitive format. I’d much rather see the best doing chase scenes in Hollywood movies.

by site editor Rick McCharles

This site is an aggregator.

I scan the web for stories of interest to acrobatic coaches, and link to the best. Contributors send me story ideas every day, as well.

On posts linking to those stories, I’ll often add commentary. And related information.

One of the first aggreator sites, still considered one of the best, is Techmeme. Exerpts are short. There’s no confusion regarding where the reader interested in any particular post can find the details. The news outlets they link love this site.

Often cited one of the worst aggregators is Huffington Post.

… the mother of all news internet impostures. …

The recipe is simple and extremely efficient: you take a 2600 words Vanity Fair interview of the financial reporter Michael Lewis on the rotten Greek public finances, you squeeze it down to 360 words (that’s down to 14% of the original length), and you have a self-supporting article that perfectly sums up Lewis’ point. This fits the internet era’s snippet culture: unless you nurture a secret passion for Hellenic bonds, you have no need to click and link from the HuffPo back to the original Vanity Fair story. …

I really enjoy the Huffington Post. And I really enjoy Amanda Turner’s posts for International Gymnast. But she’s very guilty of not sending traffic back to her sources. Amanda’s articles may be legal. But I’d say many are unethical.

Is Gymnastics Coaching doing enough to be a good aggregator?

Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

This rant was inspired by a superb post on Monday Note by Frédéric Filloux – Aggregators: the good ones vs. the looters

If you are a blogger, definitely click through to Frédéric.