Category: Uncategorized

At a Junior competition in France, Dutch gymnast Naoual Ouazzani Chahdi competed something NEW internationally for the first time, we think.

From Sher of Shergymrag:

… Maloney (toe on shaposh) into the backswing which she takes to above horizontal then she swings forward to geinger. If she can do a geinger from that backswing, maybe we’ll soon see the Jaeger straight out of the Maloney …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

This was in response to some commenters who dislike Shaposhnikova skills because they have a “built-in” extra swing.

Personally I have no problem with Shaposhnikova. Love the skill (even with the extra swing) and loved Natalia Shaposhnikova. One of my favourite gymnasts of all time.

As selected by ThePenguin888 on YouTube.

… in chronological order.

-Yelena Zamolodchikova – 2000 Olympics EF Vault 2
-Yang Yun – 2000 Olympics TF Vault 2
-Nikolina Tankousheva – 2002 Europeans EF Vault 1
-Annia Hatch – 2004 USA Nationals
-Monica Rosu – 2004 Olympics EF Vault 2
-Cheng Fei – 2005 Worlds EF Vault 1
-Alicia Sacramone – 2007 Worlds TF
-Hong Su Jong – 2007 Worlds EF Vault 2
-Oksana Chusovitina – 2008 Olympic EF Vault 2
-Kayla Williams – 2009 Worlds EF Vault 2

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

CollegeGymFans.com does an annual ranking of what NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Teams signed the best prospects.

Here’s their list for the upcoming season.

2009-2010 Recruiting Classes

… The rankings are based on past performance and skill level, which of course are no guarantee of success at the collegiate level. Time and time again, some athletes get injured or go through adjustments in college competition that limit their first-year success. Others blossom right away in college. We can’t project how each athlete will fare in college, but past trends are important considerations. We assume, for instance, that a hardworking L10 with excellent form, technique and a strong history of improvement may benefit her team as much as a former international elite with a history of injury and sudden growth spurt. …

1. Florida

2. Georgia

3. Oregon State

4. Michigan

5. Utah

6. Bama

7. Arkansas

8. UCLA

9. Oklahoma

10. Stanford

read the rationale on CollegeGymFans.com

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

photo – 2008 Olympic Trials – Randy Stageberg (Florida)

Florida opens their season Fri. Jan. 8th against Oklahoma

We trained December 31st until 1PM. Some of the older girls left together for the latest Adam Sandler movie. And then on to a New Year’s Eve sleepover party.

The life of the gymnast.

Regular training resumes Friday.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

SanazM by email

TP recommended this montage of “big trick” skills from the not-so-distant past. A number of banned skills are included.

Bars has changed the most. Clips are included from the utterly embarrassing bar routine of 1984 Olympic Champion Mary Lou Retton. (She’d be a specialist in our era. And I don’t mean a “bars specialist”.)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The many problems in Brazil are being well documented by Triple Full and other blogs.

I won’t report them here.

On a related good news note, former Brazilian National Coach Marcelo Figueiredo is back in the gym, now in Vegas.

… He trained Brazil’s finest female gymnasts to three Olympic games, two Pan American Games gold medals and 10 South American Games championships. …

The lucrative nightclub business is what lured Figueiredo away from gymnastics after he coached Brazil in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He moved to Los Angeles to be a full-time disc jockey. Figueiredo relocated again to Las Vegas in 2003, when he was offered a job as resident disc jockey at Krave nightclub.

But Figueiredo, who coached gymnastics since he was 16, missed the sport and grew tired of being DJ Talla on a regular basis.

“You change your life,” Figueiredo said. “You’re up nights instead of days. You sleep late. You wake up and eat lunch instead of breakfast.”

After about a year living in the desert, Figueiredo picked up the phone book looking for gyms that needed coaches. The first one listed was Brown’s Gymnastics, which happened to be about a mile from his residence …

Las Vegas Sun – Famous coach returns to gymnastics after playing tunes for nightclub patrons

Click over to the Couch Gymnast for a nice overview of 2008 for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

The DOWNS: Anna Pavlova, U.S Injury-apoloooza, Chinese Age Controversy, Emilia Eberle, Achilles tendons … and more.

The UPS: Beijing, Chussovitina, Liukin, 2008 The Year of the Uneven Bars, Izbasa, Liang Chow … and more.

The Couch Gymnast …… Year in Review !!!

The best montage I’ve seen in … months.

Another from fb07.

Click PLAY or watch Dream Gymnastics Montage on YouTube.

Love the dramatic music from the Requim For a Dream soundtrack.

Tyler Hass of RingTraining.com has a new product, selling for $69.95 until January 1st.

With the Elite Strength Trainer, you get 10 levels of resistance, from approximately 60% to 100% compared to normal rings. The Elite Strength Trainer reduces the leverage on your arms, which makes skills like the Cross and Maltese much easier. The EST can easily attach to a set of rings or to a bar. The straps are 5′ long, so we recommend attaching them to your rings if you have high ceilings or wish to lower the ETS to the floor.

Tyler emailed:

A few months ago, I took a prototype to the national team training center. I met with Kevin Mazeika, head coach of the US Olympic Team, and Jordan Jovtchev, 5-time Olympian, and they both offered me some feedback on the design. Within 15 minutes of setting them up in the gym, I had almost a dozen national and Olympic caliber gymnasts from the American and Japanese teams try it out. They had all used equipment in the past that worked on the same principle, but unanimously preferred the design of the Elite Strength Trainer. They liked that it had a lot of adjustment points, it was quick to adjust and easy to set up and comfortable to use. …

details – Elite Strength Trainer

I’ll link to videos of these in use when they become available.