tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … and more
Schedule
* Thur. – Jr 1:00pm ET / Sr 7:00pm ET
* Sat. – Jr 10:30am ET / Sr 3:30pm ET
* TV Broadcast – NBC – June 7, 4-6PM ET
Gymnast.com links to interviews:
* Nastia Liukin
* Shawn Johnson
* Alicia Sacramone
* Chellsie Memmel
* Jana Bieger
* Darlene Hill
* Ivana Hong
* Marta Karolyi
* Samantha Peszek
The best way to make yourself ESSENTIAL to the USA Women’s Gymnastics Olympic team is to show a strong, consistent routine on Bars … with a reasonably high start value.
Certainly China will have higher start values on Bars. But the Americans do not want to be too far behind.
Gymnicestics posted 3 routines from VISA Championships podium training. I like Chellsie Memmel’s best.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
See the other two on Gymnicestics.
That’s what we tell people. Three realistic Olympic medal contenders:
Canada’s power trio of trampoline led the way at the Canadian gymnastics championships on Wednesday, with Karen Cockburn and Rosannagh MacLennan finished 1-2 in the women’s preliminaries and while Jason Burnett easily topped the men’s field. …
all levels trampoline preliminaries – full results (PDF)
Cockburn and Burnett have already qualified. Everyone expects MacLennan to be confirmed, as well, this weekend.
“It was nice to know I didn’t have to peak here because I already have the Olympic berth,†said Cockburn, who is taking aim at her third straight Olympic medal after winning bronze at the 2000 Games and silver four years ago in Athens.
read more – Gymnastics Canada
All 3 train under coach Dave Ross at the Skyriders Trampoline Place in Richmond, Hill, Ontario.
Despite his not feeling 100%, I thought Jason looked GREAT. Very clean. Very early opening on every skill.
If he competes close to his world record degree of difficulty in Beijing, Jason’s a contender for a medal.
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) – JAMD
====
UPDATE: Tramp and Tumble posted the ranking list for the USA. Here are the top contenders to choose a single competitor in each to go to Beijing:
Women:
Blanchard, Erin (66)
Hebert, Alaina (63)
Williams, Alaina (51)
Men:
Devine, Michael (54)
Dooley, Logan (51)
Estrada, Chris (46)
Gluckstein, Steven (45)
A tight race. The final selection meet is July 1st. Details
Another comprehensive general fitness tutorial from Jim Bathurst on his beast skills site.
Jim includes variations from EASY …
… to BEAST SKILL
John Gill – One arm front lever
Front Lever – Beast Skills
(via Straight to the Bar)
Related Beast Skills tutorials:
muscle-up conditioning – single leg squat learning “the Flagâ€
Chicago is such a hot favourite to win the right to host the 2016 Summer Olympics that only they can mess it up, a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) member told AFP.
The Windy City is bidding to succeed where New York failed in the 2012 race won by London …
The IOC narrowed the field to Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid. Prague, Doha and Baku in Azerbaijan failed to make the cut.
=== UPDATE
Chicago 2016: Sure Thing, Say Oddsmakers; Long Shot, Says I.O.C. Report – NY Times
Championships begins Thursday with Jr women at 1:00 p.m. ET and Sr women at 7:00 p.m. ET.
Competition will finish on Saturday.
Marta Karolyi will be intently focused on selection of gymnasts to advance to Olympic Trials.
more photos – USAG
Commentaries on podium training:
The big news is that Ashley Priess will not be competing.
photo – Kristina – Leslie Foster – Gymn.ca
The first competition ran Tuesday night: Jr and Sr FIG High Performance Women.
Most of the talk on the floor was about achieving qualifying “points” towards Olympic Selection. Unlike most other nations, Canada will select 2 Olympians and alternates this weekend. Quite early.
Likely the two assigned to Beijing will come from this trio: Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs, Nansy Damianova and Kristina Vaculik.
All three look great. All three would be very strong competitors on individual apparatus in the Olympics.
It’s a shame all 3 cannot compete. In fact, Canada should have qualified a full team to Beijing. Right now they are easily one of the 12 strongest teams in the world. Beam is the most impressive apparatus, overall.
Senior High Performance AA – day 1
Sarah Flett was the biggest happy surprise to me, a name I didn’t recognize. On Floor she competed double layout, piked full-in, 2 1/2, double pike. Very powerful tumbler.
Note that some Juniors — Peng Peng and Charlotte — opted to compete Senior in preparation for the next Olympic cycle.
Junior High Performance AA – day 1
day 2 – Thursday. Apparatus finals Saturday.
full results – Gym Score Depot. Thanks Stu.
Yet another Cirque du Soleil show confirmed. Just learned the name today.
Preview performances start Friday, August 15, 2008. That makes 3 new shows opening this summer.
Zed – official home page
related post: Cirque du Soleil opens in Macau – ZAIA
Lest we forget.
About 600 people marched silently from a Hong Kong park to government headquarters to mark the 19th anniversary of China’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
But organisers faced the delicate task of not appearing insensitive at a time when China is mourning the deaths of more than 69,000 people from last month’s earthquake in Sichuan province.
The marchers carried banners that honoured the quake victims, as well as the victims of the 1989 military crackdown, in which hundreds were killed. …
By now every coach knows about GymSmarts videos. They are by far the biggest and best distributor of DVDs in the world with an impressive library of titles. We link to them from the top right navigation on every page.
Now GymSmarts has set up a Community section:
This a place to find more information about our GymSmarts coaches along with interviews and articles.
We will continue to add articles from our former members area, and build out our Coaches section where they will have blogs so that you can keep up to date on what they are doing.
A few samples:
GymnasticsCoaching.com is making a contribution too. Links to the most recent posts on this site are available from the Community home page.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 