Category: Uncategorized

(via Craig Smith)

… After the world championships, coach Aimee Boorman mentioned in a tweet that now that her shoulder is healed, Biles will be looking to upgrade her second vault to a Cheng.

In the interview this morning, Biles confirmed that she will be working toward the Cheng. She also shared that since her Amanar vault is so consistent, Marta Karolyi has encouraged her to try for the triple-twisting yurchenko. If successful, Biles would be the first woman in history to compete this vault.

As for other upgrades, Biles said she would also be looking to get bars back to her former level of difficulty by adding the shaposh half back in. She said she also might work the double-double layout on floor …

Beam Dreams – Simone Biles Looks to the Future

Dvora Meyers was at Worlds in Nanning researching a book on women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

Check Dvora’s new article in Slate:

Biles is nowhere near the edge of her abilities. All four of her routines are easy for her. …

The Best Gymnast in the World

How Simone Biles dominates the competition.

With all this success comes the inevitable backlash – Susan Swarbrick – Lost art: Powerhouse physiques winning out over spellbinding grace

Though Li Ning and the Li Ning company were everywhere in Nanning, the Chinese National Teams were uniformed in 2014 by a competitor, Anta.

Here’s are some of the Anta store displays. Gymnastics is kind of a big deal in China.

When I tried to buy this t-shirt, store staff had to explain they were only for display. Not for sale.

Kohei Uchimura has been officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest number of sixth straight wins on individual all-around title at 2009~2011 & 2013~2014 World Championships and 2012 London Olympic Games.

supermura

A researcher is trying to determine how much Trampoline and Gymnastics coaches know about concussions.

I filled out the online survey in about 10 minutes. It’s better than some, though still includes some questions more appropriate for team sport than our own.

At the end are open ended forms where you can write in your personal feedback.

If you’d like to take part, click here.

Here’s the researcher:

Lee Verweel, BSc, MSc (c)
Concussion Research Centre
Bloorview Research Institute
Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital

via the private T&T Coaches Canada Facebook Group

The world’s best cliff divers will travel to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula for the 2014 final of both the men’s and women’s competition on October 17-18. …

Red Bull

Gracias Tom.

Simone Biles, who just won her second straight World all-around title, was just named the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 2014 Individual Sportswoman of the Year …

… earlier this month, she became the first U.S. woman since Shannon Miller (1993-94) and the first woman since Svetlana Khorkina (2001, 2003) to win back-to-back World all-around titles. …

… She is the first woman to win four gold medals at a single World Championships since the Soviet Union’s Ludmilla Tourischeva in 1974. …

Biles now has six World gold medals, surpassing the five owned by Shannon Miller, and her career total of nine World medals ties with Nastia Liukin and Miller …

USAG

A celebration.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Two gold medals. And North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reappears after long absence. It looks like him, in any case. 🙂

via GymFever2012

You may have read accounts of FIG President Grandi’s Press Conference at worlds.

Editorial | Another band-aid from Grandi

That’s The All Around, a site that has closely followed Grandi’s experiments with the Code of Points starting 2006.

I was there and did not leave with the same impression. For one thing, he spoke in broken English rather than being translated. There was not much nuance.

He both stated that the Artistic Codes were not working and that we’ve had enough drastic change.

His idea of dividing the difficulty score by two and adding it to the E-score was simply an example, not a proposal.

One point was clear:

• acrobatic content is weighted too much compared with artistic content

I agree.

Uncle Tim’s data shows that difficulty does not always trump execution, however. Uchimura and Ross are two gymnasts who very well competing against higher start scores. They do not fall.

Solutions are being widely debated.

Women’s judges at Worlds attended a presentation on Artistry led by Armine Barutyan Fong, Carol-Angela Orchard and others. As I said to CA, artistry is by its very definition, subjective.

To me Simone Biles’ Floor routine is artistic as it moves me emotionally. Many others disagree.

I highly doubt that any kind of Code definition of artistry is ever going to work. 😦

Instead, the execution judges must rank gymnasts by quality. Apply the Code as written. The range of E-scores must be greater, not tightly clumped the way they are now.

How do we prevent cheating if E-score range is increased?

Publish individual scores for each judge. Most other referees in sport are subject to the court of public opinion. Why are FIG judges so protected? So unaccountable?

I do like the proposal that E-judges be able to deduct 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 (currently it’s 0.1 or 0.3 or 0.5)

That worked in the past. It would help in the future.

One last thing. Grandi was careful to include the talking point that this is his last term in Office. Conspiracy theorists are still postulating that he plans some kind of Putin strategy in the next election.

Svetlana Khorkina, a fierce competitor known as the Diva, won 7 Olympic medals and 20 Worlds medals. She posed for Russian Playboy. Her autobiography is titled “Somersaults in High Heels”.

When her son was born 2011 2005 she refused to name the father.

And she hangs out with bad boys.

Some translated excerpts from a recent interview:

“I was ashamed of the National Team in Beijing”

– Do not you think that the ambitions of the people working in professional sport in recent years have lessened? Fewer and fewer coaches are willing to work toward results with the same level of dedication that you once worked with alongside Boris Pilkin.

– I don’t even know what to say. We have decent coaches and there is a strong tradition in the schools, you just need to somehow work out a system. But you’re right, with Pilkin, we always worked for maximum results; looked for what we could do to win. After my coach passed away, I thought a lot about how lucky I was that fate connected me with him! Because I was refused from the gym. Not only because of my height, by the way, for many other criteria I was also considered a “no.” and Pilkin took me. …

At my last European Championship in 2004, I also competed with an injury – a broken metatarsal bone. I was supposed to be in a cast for 4 weeks but I removed the cast after 1 week and went to go compete. I didn’t understand how I could not do it? It’s my team!

… everyone still loves to talk about how Arkaev was a monster. Yes, he was tough and strict and in addition, he always called a spade a spade – and that’s not always pleasant. But, he got results and Alexandrov was invited back to get results. He did it. After Beijing, who could have imagined that in 2010, our team would have won the team finals at the World Championships for the first time in 19 years, and that Aliya Mustafina would become the all-around champion? …

– What is your impression of the current Russian team?

To be honest, the results sometimes make me feel ill. …

read more on Because Fan is short for Fanatic – translated interview with Khorkina

What can you say to that?

(via RRG)