So projects Queen Elizabeth on the Rewriting Russian Gymnastics blog:
Romania will most likely be strongest there; Iordache and Bulimar are both currently on excellent form. Personally speaking, I hope Russia will fight for silver and I am expecting that they may finish with bronze. Britain is looking strong for these Championships and Italy and Germany could be in contention too if they have good competitions. …
Alabamaaveraged 12,826 spectators over the 2014 season at home. There were nowhere near that many at NCAA Championships in Birmingham, an hour away.
Why?
Interview with Auburn Head Coach Jeff Graba:
GNN: We’re you shocked at the lack of attendance for the Championships?
Jeff: I was a little shocked by it. It seemed to me we had a better turnout for our SEC Championship. I think it is tough to get all 3 days to be well attended so I’m mainly looking at the Super 6 attendance.
GNN: What’s your opinion about that?
Jeff: My belief is that we are a unique sport where a lot of families want to attend. This means that community, event price and options, competition times, and the fact that this particular event took place on Easter weekend all need to be taken into account.
GNN: Do you agree that someone needs to step up and start showing college gymnastics live?
Jeff: Yes, I do believe that is the case and have believed that for quite some time now.
However, I think we will need to get to a 4-team final before anyone will carry us live. I believe that the PAC 12, SEC and Big 10 all have a 4-team final so it really isn’t that much different than quite a few of our current conference models. It’s quite an issue right now because it really means that we as a gymnastics community need to make some tough decisions without really knowing the payoff ahead of time. …
Jeff was an assistant at Utah. Greg Marsden at Utah has been the most vocal proponent of a Super 4 televised Final.
Traditionally, Teams hosted this meet in their own gyms. But the NCAA has been looking for larger arenas in order to better accommodate the floor layout and participants.
The problem of “home team advantage” scoring is a factor, too.
I thought 2014 might sell out.
2014 Championship Gymnastics – Semifinal session 1 – Jessie Jordan
Nope.
Leave a comment if you’ve seen final attendance stats for the 3 days.
North Korean 2008 Olympic Vault Champion Hong Un Jong
… Jong decided to show her more difficult second vault in the final. Her Cheng is usually better than her Amanar, in my opinion, but she did not seem to get the necessary block and landed knees first. There was a long wait for her score but the judges decided her score was a zero as her feet did not hit the mat first.
Fadwa Mohamed went on to win Gold at African Championships in Finals. (VIDEO)
Obviously a 1.0 deduction for a “fall” does not nearly enough penalize those kind of landings. If not a zero vault, a very dangerous landing should be deducted something like 4.0.
Two more of the FIG Follow-up and Monitoring camps for the Age Group Development and Competition Programme were completed recently in different sides of the world. One was held in Nassau, Bahamas on April 22-24 and the other one in Hong Kong on April 23-25, 2014.
Educational camps for the FIG Age Group Development and Competition Programme continue in the coming two weeks with four additional Follow-up Camps scheduled for Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 