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Bad news for Spain, Canada and North Korea.

And highly touted Australia finished only 11th.

The new code of points punishes falls more than in the past. And rewards consistency.

It’s official. The field of 12 countries that will send full teams to the 2008 Beijing Olympics has been set. The teams, in order of qualification, are:

1 United States 245.025

2 China 241.175

3 Romania 239.875

4 Russia 238.000

5 Italy 234.425

6 Great Britain 233.025

7 France 232.700

8 Brazil 232.250

9 Ukraine 231.425

10 Germany 231.125

11 Australia 230.850

12 Japan 228.175

Teams that were part of the 2004 Athens team competition but failed to qualify include North Korea, Spain and Canada. Spain had the greatest drop after placing seventh at the 2004 Olympics. Italy, Germany and Japan made the roster after an absence in Athens.

The top eight teams here in Stuttgart have qualified to the team-finals competition, later this week.

Rounding out the field in today’s team qualification round:

13 North Korea 226.575

14 Canada 225.975

15 Spain 224.850

News – Inside Gymnastics Magazine

The FINALS deciding World Team Champions are set for later in the week, the top 8 teams qualifying to that round. But the most important part of the competition — earning a spot in Beijing — is already over.

For more detailed coverage check GYMmedia.com

As expected, the USA was dominant.

Congratulations — especially to Nastia Liukin who had been subjected to a lot of heat after falls at USA Championships on Floor and Vault.

photos Inside Gymnastics – Grace Chiu

Karen Goeller is a coach / author who we have recommended in the past.

Here’s a list of her gymnastics and conditioning books that may be useful to gymnastics coaches and fitness professionals. Click through if any of the titles are of interest.

· Fitness on a Swing Set with Training Programs
· Swing Set Workouts
· Fitness on a Swing Set
· Gymnastics Drills And Conditioning Exercises: Over 100 Drills and Conditioning Exercises

· Gymnastics Drills and Conditioning for the Handstand
· Gymnastics Drills … Walkover, Limber, Back Handspring
· Gymnastics Conditioning for the Legs and Ankles
· Gymnastics Journal… My Scores, My Goals, and My Dreams
· Gymnastics Conditioning Programs: Five Conditioning Workouts!
· The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Gymnastics
· Fitness Journal: My Goals, My Training, and My Success

There are more like this to check out on one of Karen’s URLs: GymnasticsBooks.com (We’ve added a link to that page under BOOKS AND MANUALS under the right hand navigation.)

Sharp’s Gymnastics Academy in Indianapolis posted photos of the least known American superstar on their website.

They include assorted pics of Bridget growing up as a gymnast over the years as well as a brief biography.

BRIDGET SLOAN photos

More good commentary on the excellent competition in San Jose, California from the Perfect 10 blog. Here are a couple of samples from that post:

… Ivana Hong: Her floor routine is outstanding. Absolutely incredible presentation. A given for GAGE gymnasts, it seems. And I can’t believe her beautiful double yurchenko. Such clean form and great height for such a tiny gymnast. I’m looking forward to seeing more of her.

perfect 10 » 2007 US Nationals

Having had a chance to watch podium training, I was impressed to see the emphasis coach Al Fong put on basics getting Ivana ready to compete her double twisting Yurchenko. Almost all her time was spent on position on the round-off and take-off from the beat board. She did very few twisting vaults in training. And obviously it worked.

Fong catching Ivana on a “set” drill out of round-off on Floor:

original photo – flickr

… Bridget Sloan: I can’t say. I didn’t get to see her. You would think that the winner of the US Classic might at least get some TV time. … From what I’ve seen so far, she looks like a good all arounder and a great asset for the US team. I particularly like her double turn on Beam and her toe-on tkatchev on Bars.

perfect 10 » 2007 US Nationals

Bridget was the biggest, best surprise of the competition for me. Not only is she great now. But she has terrific potential for the future.

original photo – flickr

– by a gymnast from New Zealand

Posted by coach Valentin Uzunov in the GymPress Newsletter July 2007.

Just attended the wedding of coach Kelly Mock in Whitehorse, Yukon.

Up North there are acrobats training traditional Inuit games including the Two-foot high kick (video), One-foot high kick and One-hand touch. And more.

These are all activities that can be done with very little apparatus.

A blanket toss team at the World Eskimo Indian Olympics held in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

World Eskimo Indian Olympics – official website

There is an interesting discussion on the Chalk Bucket forum regarding the pros and cons of snack breaks for gymnasts training.

This is a sore point for me as a coach. I weighed in:

It makes “sense” to allow young growing children healthy snack breaks during long sport training sessions.

Yet in the real world I find snack breaks to be problematic.

Group dynamics are strained. Girls, especially, tend to form cliques during break which can be discouraging for the kids not in the clique.

Kids sometimes have trouble getting back “into” training after break.

And, ultimately, many gymnasts train 4hrs+ with only water. Most kids do not need a snack break no matter how much the parent insists they do.

My philosophy is to minimize or do away with snack breaks altogether unless there is some individual medical reason why a child MUST eat.

Chalk Bucket

You can join Chalk Bucket (free) to add to the conversation. Or leave a comment on this post.

source – flickr

As I’m oft to say, “The best thing about exercise is that it’s time spent not eating.”

Kids have too many opportunities for food day-to-day. It’s not surprising they make bad choices.

In North America my favourite training time of year has ended. Gymnasts are headed back to school.

Randy McMullen, Head Coach of Prince Albert Aerials Gymnastics in Saskatchewan sent me photos of Emma Lake, a camp I did for many, many years. I was sorry to miss it this summer. Heard it was a BLAST.

Hear are a couple of photos from camp given the Photoshop treatment by Rick McCharles. This is the Artistic Dry Brush filter.

More information on Emma Lake camp.

We’ve passed the 1000 post milestone on this blog.

Check the right hand navigation to see the number of articles that mention bars, pommel horse, trampoline and coaching contracts, as examples.

In geek speak they call this the long tail of the internet.

The cumulative information of everything posted on the world wide web increases every day.

Next world champion?

(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)

Shawn Johnson competes in the floor exercise at the U.S. gymnastics championships in San Jose, Calif., Saturday, August 18, 2007.

ESPN – Gymnastics Photo Wire

Shawn Johnson – official website