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I’ve always admired the solid, consistent gymnastics of Canadian Dave Kikuchi.

And I appreciate his consistency even more in a 3-up, 3-count World Championships Team final.

In a newspaper interview David says his style resulted from a lack of physical talent. (I wish I coached athletes with his kind of lack of talent.)

Some athletes have both raw natural talent and the mental drive that will take them to the top of their sport.

David Kikuchi says he’s not one of them.

“I would be the one with less physical talent,” says Kikuchi, 27, a leading member of the strongest Canadian men’s gymnastics team in decades.

“Nothing came that easily to me. I wasn’t able to do the skills right away. It took me a long time to get to be on the national team.”

That sounds a little modest, considering Kikuchi’s career. His team walked away from the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne with gold. Kikuchi himself won national gold in rings and on the horizontal bar last May in Quebec City.

The Daily News: News | Persistence pays off for star gymnast

I advise coaches to spot as little as possible.

Still, spotting clinics are very popular. Coach Wayne is a spotting guru, especially well known in the cheer community.

His clinics are limited to 10 instructors maximum.

Speciality camps are offered for backward handspring, back tuck, connections, twisting and more

CoachWayne.com – Gymnastics, Tumbling, Cheerleading. Get it all here: articles, videos, books, subscriptions and clinics.

We link to Coach Wayne from the right hand navigation.

If you told me Jeff Bridges was chosen to play a gymnastics coach in a movie …

Nah. He couldn’t pull it off.

I like Jeff Bridges as an actor … but, Nah.

Turned out he did a great job. And prepared for the role by video-taping US coaches at competition.

Watch the interview with Jeff on Google Video.

Congratulations Nastia!

This will bring more media exposure to all gymnasts.

2006 U.S. all-around champion Nastia Liukin is one of 20 identified as ones to watch in 2007 in Newsweek’s “Who’s Next?” feature in the Dec. 25-Jan. 1, 2007, issue.

Liukin, who was the 2005 uneven bars and balance beam world champion, is the first gymnast to be included in the annual feature.

“I am really excited to be included as one of the top people to watch,” said Liukin, 17, who is coached by her father, Valeri, a two-time Olympic champion. “It is a great honor to be chosen and recognized as the only female athlete.”

“Nastia is one of the best gymnasts in the world and the recognition is well deserved,” said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. “In competition, Nastia is known for her style and grace, as well as her competitive fire and team spirit. Out of the gym, Nastia is an outstanding high school student and typical teenager. She is an excellent ambassador for our sport, and we are thrilled that more people will get to know Nastia through Newsweek’s feature.”

… At the 2005 World Championships, she won the gold medal for both the uneven bars and balance beam and the silver medal for the all-around and floor exercise. In the all-around, she finished just .001 behind teammate Chellsie Memmel, posting the closest margin of victory in the event’s history except for a tie.

She is a senior at Spring Creek Academy and trains at WOGA, where both of her parents are coaches. Her father won four medals at the 1988 Olympic Games, including two gold, and her mother, Anna, was a 1987 rhythmic gymnastics world champion.

WCSN.com: News

Everyone bemoans the decline of school gymnastics.

In Canada schools that do a good job including “gymnastics” in the curriculum are the minority.

Ruschkin publishes 60 excellent school lesson plans for teachers of grades 1-6.

And Gymnastics British Colombia offers a program for the schools called Kids Can Move that champions the benefits of gymnastics for students.

Schools are offered a guest gymnastics instructor for 7hrs, a resource manual, additional materials, insurance and more. The cost is only C$100 — a very good deal.

For free, under “Resources” on the home page, you can download a number of good articles on school gymnastics. Not surprisingly, they recommend Ruschkin’s Up Down All Around lesson plans.

Kids Can Move – official website

(Disclosure. I edit the Ruschkin website.)

Tarik Rammo is an 21 18-year-old Artistic gymnast from the Netherlands.

He did a nice job editing some workout footage. Then posted the video of tumbling, trampoline and horizontal bar.

Click PLAY or watch the video on YouTube.

As you know, the Dutch have done fantastic things in gymnastics in recent years. And they will be hosting 2007 Europeans & 2010 Worlds.

Cool Christmas graphic on the French Federation website.

Bienvenue sur le site de la Fédération Française de Gymnastique

International pundits believe that the host city will most likely be in North America because cities from Asia, Australia and Europe have been selected as hosts for the four most recent Olympic Games, unless Latin America, (with the exception of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games) Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, areas that have never hosted the Olympic Games, can impress the International Olympic Committee otherwise.

2016 Summer Olympics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would love to see them go to Dubai. Or Doha, Quatar, both strongly considering bids.

This would normalize relations, build bridges with the Islamic world and move the focus of world attention to someone else besides the (comparatively few) Islamic terrorists.

Doha successfully pulled off the 2006 Asian Games though they had low spectator turn-out.

No doubt the threat of terrorist violence will hurt the chances of both cities.

Olympic logo in Quatar.

The 1978 World Champion died Dec. 22nd.

The wonderful athlete, who pushed Nadia and popularized full-in on Floor and double back off beam, was paralysed in a training disaster before the 1980 Olympics.

Unlike the fluke accident suffered by Drew Donnellan, the paralysis of Mukhina was the subject of much conjecture. And even criticism of the coaches involved.

Sadness at Christmas Times….!

At the age of five years Elena lost both of her parents. She was raised by her grandmother, Anna Ivanovna. As a youngster she took an interest in gymnastics and figure skating. When an athletic scout visited her school, she eagerly volunteered to try out for gymnastics. …

Up until 1975, Elena Mukhina was an unremarkable gymnast, but after then, she teamed up with men’s coach Mikhail KLIMENKO and she transformed into one of the most show stopping gymnasts of her time: In 1976 she won the title of a Soviet junior all-around champion, but she did not qualify for the Olympic team (Montreal).

After winning three European titles at the continental championships in Prague (1977), she burst onto the scene at the 1978 World Championships in Strasbourg, France.

In one of the most stunning all-around performances in history, she won the gold medal, beating out Olympic Champions Nadia COMANECI and Nellie KIM among others. She also tied for the gold medal in the floor exercise event final, as well as winning the silver in balance beam and uneven bars.

She quickly established herself as an athlete to watch for at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

In late 1979 Mukhina suffered a broken leg, which kept her out of the World Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, a competition in which the Soviet team suffered its first defeat at the hands of their archrivals from Romania.

After surgery Mukhina’s training continued despite her leg having not completely healed. When it was discovered that the fracture had not healed properly, Mukhina was rushed into surgery again. Because of her injury, she had great difficulty re-mastering a signature tumbling run, a Thomas salto (a 1 and 3/4 flip with 1 1/2 twists).

Two weeks before the Moscow Olympics, while practicing this exact move, she underrotated the salto, crash-landed on her chin, and her spine snapped. She was rendered a quadriplegic. …

Following the injury, the Soviet Gymnastics Federation remained secretive about the events surrounding Mukhina’s cataclysmic injury.

Elena herself was reclusive following the incident, seldom publicly discussing the accident.

In a rare interview with “Ogonyok MAGAZINE”, Elena spoke about the Soviet gymnastics program, criticizing it for deceiving the public about her injury, and for the system’s insatiable desire for gold medals and championships:

“…for our country, athletic successes and victories have always meant somewhat more than even simply the prestige of the nation. They embodied (and embody) the correctness of the political path we have chosen, the advantages of the system, and they are becoming a symbol of superiority. Hence the demand for victory – at any price. As for risk, well… We’ve always placed a high value on risk, and a human life was worth little in comparison with the prestige of the nation…”

GYMmedia.com

What ever happened to Elena Mukhina

Elena Mukhina – Wikipedia