Category: Uncategorized

René Lyst, who served as the co-head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks for 13 years, was named head gymnastics coach at Arizona State …

This past season, Lyst helped guide Arkansas senior All-American Katherine Grable to the program’s first and second individual titles at the 2014 NCAA Championships. …

“The opportunity to be head gymnastics coach at Arizona State presented itself as a dream job,” said Lyst. “John Spini is a legend in our sport and it is my goal to continue and build upon Arizona State’s legacy of winning tradition. We have an extremely talented, young team and I am excited for all the possibilities in front of us. …

René Lyst Named Sun Devil Gymnastics Head Coach

… just prepping for my presentations at GymCon USA 2014 Vegas.

One of my presentations – Safest, Funest, Fastest, Easiest, Least “Spottingest” Training

Of the many ways to teach critical elements, what are the best?

GymCon USA goes June 16-18th. The price goes up as we get closer to those dates. Register here for Congress, Hotel and Cirque show.

Hope to see you there. 🙂

gymconusa.com

Two more of the Follow-up and Monitoring camps for the FIG Age Group Development and Competition Programme were completed as part of the five-country tour of South-East Asia. The first was held in Manila, Philippines on April 27-29 and followed immediately by one in Jakarta, Indonesia on May 1-3, 2014.

FIG

Clinicians Jeff Thomson and Lilia Ortiz-Lòpez.

Personal shout out to Bettina Pou, the Secretary General of the Gymnastics Association of the Philippines, and the rest of the excellent Filipino leadership. They’ve been tirelessly working to expand gymnastics sports in that nation.

Ashish Kumar (IND) – 2014 Commonwealth Invitational (EF)

Vault 1 – 14.925

Misses his 2nd Vault

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

He won Gold in both Floor and Vault. Good luck at Commonwealth Games.

Montage Monday returns.

Any edit that starts with Christine Peng Peng Lee is a good montage. 🙂

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The International Olympic Committee doesn’t want anybody but NBC.

The IOC announced Wednesday it had agreed to a $7.75 billion deal with NBCUniversal for broadcast rights to the Olympic Games through 2032. Instead of putting the rights up for bid as it usually does, the IOC quietly approached the network in November about an extension. …

The deal covers six Olympics, from 2021 to 2032, and gives NBC rights to all media platforms including TV, internet and mobile. NBC’s previous agreement, negotiated in 2011, included four Olympics through 2020 and cost the network $4.4 billion.

The agreement includes a $100 million signing bonus to be used for “promotion of Olympism and the Olympic values” between 2015 and 2020. …

NBC Universal pays $7.75 billion for Olympics through 2032

Epic.

… Join us at Hisense Arena at Melbourne Park from Wednesday 21 May – Sunday 1 June to witness more than 1,200 of the nation’s best gymnasts in action as they compete for the prestigious title of Australian National Champion in five Gymsports — Men’s and Women’s Artistic, Rhythmic, Trampoline and Acrobatic Gymnastics.

While national titles will be the focus for most, Men’s Artistic, Women’s Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics athletes will also be vying for selection to the 2014 Australian Commonwealth Games Team.

Click PLAY or watch a promo on YouTube.

May 26-31st, 2014.

I’m already packing for Nationals, once again to be hosted at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics
Rhythmic Gymnastics
Trampoline Gymnastics
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics

Details on the official website — gymnasticschampionships.ca

With an Olympic Trampoline Champion and a best ever WAG Olympic performance in London, you’d think things should be very upbeat in Canada.

Yet not everyone is happy in the Great White North.

Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique after extensive consultation put in a new Quadrennial Plan through to 2016.

It hasn’t been well received.

Our Men’s Program Director Jeff Thompson was let go in December as part of the restructuring, only partly replaced.

Our Women’s Artistic Gymnastics National Team Program Director, Kyna Fletcher, stepped down in February, unhappy with the direction of Gymnastics Canada Gymnastique.

Finally our CEO, Jean-Paul Caron, stepped down April 24th. Not enough people supported GCG’s 2016 Quadrennial Plan.

Everyone respects and likes JP, but in the CEO model, the CEO is ultimately accountable.

I criticized GCG’s Communication in the past and had been hopeful to see major improvement this cycle. Higher priority was to be put on Communications/Media and IT/Web. Communication has not improved significantly, unfortunately.

On the bright side, GCG Coach Education is moving in the right direction.

With JP’s departure Gymnastics Canada is going back to the drawing board. I’m hopeful we emerge stronger for all this turmoil. It’s not easy to replace a man like Jean-Paul Caron, unfortunately.

Nationals will be a good chance for people to communicate, face-to-face.

If interested in the issues, check out Hardy Fink’s Open Letter about GCG Structure. (PDF)

Hardy is currently the Canadian Men’s Judging Chairman along with his many, many other responsibilities.

Looks like Tony Retrosi has relocated to Iceland. Permanently. 🙂

He was recently a guest coach at Grotta Gymnastics.

Friends are linking to a NY Times story:

A spider newly discovered in the Moroccan Sahara can do powerful, acrobatic flips through the air. …

NY Times

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bcvideo/1.0/iframe/embed.html?videoId=100000002858949&playerType=embed