Olympic veterans Brandon O’Neill of Edmonton and Nathan Gafuik of Calgary will lead a seven-member Canadian team at the 2009 artistic world gymnastics championships October 13-18 in London, England.
Joining O’Neill and Gafuik on the men’s squad are 2009 Canadian men’s high bar champion Kevin Lytwyn of Burlington, Ont., and 2008 junior champion Jackson Payne of Edmonton.
The women’s team consists of 2007 Canadian junior champion Brittany Rogers and Charlotte Mackie, both of Coquitlam, B.C. and 2009 senior all around champion Sydney Sawa of Calgary.
This year’s worlds features just individual competition, the only time in the four-year Olympic cycle that does not include a team event for participating countries.
… our big hope is the little great Larisa Iordache. She actually came pretty close to over scoring the seniors, although they were in a different division of the competition. Larisa had a great competition on beam and floor. On beam she threw a new combination (flick + tucked full twist), a difficult double turn and one of the best triple twist dismounts ever. Thus she upgraded her beam routine to a 6.7 difficulty, rewarded by the judges with 15.775, the highest score in the whole competition. …
Tokyo will not win, despite a last minute desperate pitch from their new PM.
… Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama plans on Tokyo winning the 2016 bid. He says that it doesn’t matter if other cities are ahead because they will come from behind. Hatoyama’s confidence comes from the face that Tokyo is in the strongest financial position to host the games in the post-recession economy. If Tokyo was a county, it would have the 15th highest GDP in the world. …
Alberto Braglia (March 23, 1883 in Campogalliano (Modena) – February 5, 1954) was an Italian gymnast. He won gold overall at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, 3 olympic gold medals throughout his career.
Every single video Tammy puts up teaches me something new.
Here is a quick drill for tour jetes and tour jete halfs from Tammy Biggs. This is a very difficult leap and one of the five important leaps for an elite gymnast to master and compete in this Olympic cycle.
The Gymnastics Minute is a series of free introductory video tips produced by GymSmarts. Support this ongoing series by buying one of their excellent DVDs.
A detailed projection of scores by Andy Thornton on the American Gymnast blog puts Jon 3rd in the world:
I put together a chart below that shows the highest scores I could find on each event from any competition this year for Uchimura, Hambuchen, and Horton – this included the Japan Cup where Uchimura and Hambuchen competed head-to-head (Uchimura won by 0.65), the American Cup, the national championships for all three gymnasts, and Hambuchen’s recent Champions Trophy competitions. Then I totaled them up to get a theoretical comparison of their all-around potentials:
Uchimura – 94.0
Hambuchen – 92.9
Horton – 91.95
… it’s clearly POMMEL HORSE that is keeping both Hambuchen and Horton away from Uchimura. You’ll notice that Hambuchen’s all-around is about 1 point behind Uchimura, and that’s exactly how far back his pommel horse is as well. Similarly, Horton’s total is 2 points behind Uchimura, and that’s exactly how far his pommel horse is away from Uchimura’s too! So if we look at the other five events combined, these three guys are incredibly evenly matched.
To make it even clearer, here are these three guys’ totals WITHOUT pommel horse:
Olympic veterans Brandon O’Neill of Edmonton and Nathan Gafuik of Calgary will lead a seven-member Canadian team at the 2009 artistic world gymnastics championships October 13-18 in London, England.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 