American Classic & OTC Qualifier

On May 5 at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado, 86 of the country’s top male gymnasts will compete in the last opportunity to qualify for the 2012 Visa Championships.

… A minimum of 14 gymnasts using the Men’s Program Committee 20-point system will advance to the Visa Championships, and additional athletes may be selected as needed to complete the 42-man Visa Championships field. …

2012 Men’s Qualifier set for May 5 at USOTC

The American Classic, which serves as one of two women’s qualifiers in to the 2012 Visa Championships, will be held May 5 at the U.S. Gymnastics National Training Center at the Karolyi Ranch

Inside Gymnastics

USA Gymnastics Announces Field for 2012 American Classic

Gymnastics Alberta Congress

Finally. A Gymnastics Congress in my own backyard, Calgary, Canada.

Christophe Lambert, Alixa Sutton, Tony Retrosi, Beth Gardner, Frank Sahlein, Steve Greeley and Dave Ross.

Put the dates on your calendar, Oct. 11-14, 2012. I guarantee this will be an excellent event. Details.

Thanks Brett.

NAIGC Champs: MIT, Texas A&M

We don’t hear enough about the NAIGC (National Association of Intercollegiate Gymnastics Clubs)

Started 1988, it’s open to any American gymnastics club with college-aged participants. Here’s a full list of members in case you want to check if there’s one close to you.

Their annual championships just concluded.

The Texas A&M men & MIT women captured National Championship titles for the second year in a row in Salt Lake City. …

Inside Gymnastics

Michael Bynum was the Men’s all-around winner

Zara Karuman the Women’s AA champion.

full results

ladies … Epke Zonderland in bed

TV commercial.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

He wants to be Olympic Champion, like these guys. Fortunately for Epke, FIG no longer seems to require toe point. 🙂

(via GymPOWER on Facebook)

European Championships preview

International Gymnast:

… medals will be up for grabs in Brussels: senior team and individual apparatus, and junior team, all-around and apparatus.

Russia and Romania are expected to battle for the senior team supremacy, with Great Britain, Italy, France and Germany among the teams aiming for a podium finish.

Defending champion Russia is bringing its formidable trio of Aliya Mustafina, Viktoria Komova and Anastasia Grishina, plus newcomer Anastasia Sidorova. …

Competition begins May 9 with junior qualification, followed by senior qualification on May 10. Junior all-around final takes place May 11, followed by the senior team final on May 12 and apparatus finals on May 13.

250+ Gymnasts on Roster for Women’s Europeans

competition home page

Bernardo on Couch Gymnast looked at potential D-score for the Junior teams. Russia looks unbeatable:

1- Russia 89.5
2- Italy 86.2
3- Great Britain 84.3
4- Ukraine 84.0
5- Romania 83.5
6- Spain 82.9

Junior European D Score Predictions

related – THE ALL AROUND is weekly updating the top WAG scores worldwide.

Iordache, Larissa (ROU) 60,150 is the top EU Sr. all-arounder, by that ranking.

Click PLAY or watch her most recent Vault on YouTube.

Utah average attendance 13,515

Utah may have finished 5th at Championships. But in drawing a crowd to gymnastics, they’re still #1.

… here are the final rankings for average home meet attendance. As expected, Utah maintained their top ranking here with Alabama close behind.

Rank Team Average Attendance
1 Utah 13515.29
2 Alabama 12826.80
3 Georgia 8768.33
4 Florida 6200.40
5 Auburn 4519.60
6 Oregon State 4097.20
7 L.S.U. 3697.60
8 Arkansas 3080.83
9 Southern Utah 3069.75
10 Penn State 2249.75

Gymnastike – Final 2012 NCAA Women’s Gymnastics Rankings

Georgia Dabritz

Via Utah Gymnastics on Facebook.

Acro – Men’s Groups Finals

The 2012 World Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships ended in a tie.

1. CHN – Jian Tang, Lei Wang, Yi Zhou and Yeqiuyin Wu
1. GBR – Dorian Walker, Jesse Heskett, Matthew Evison and Richard Hurst
3. RUS – Valentin Chetverkin, Maksim Chulkov, Anton Danchenko and Dmitry Bryzgalov

FIG – Acro Worlds conclude with panache in Lake Buena Vista

Click PLAY or watch Russia on YouTube.

Here’s Great Britain. (VIDEO)

Sabrina Vega

Sabrina Vega … trains at Dynamic Gymnastics in Mohegan Lake, where she is coached by former Romanian Olympic medalist Teodora Ungureanu. She is a United States Senior National Team member and a 2011 World Champion. She is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent. …

Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.

SabrinaVega.com

(via Aunt Joyce)

Illinois loves Pommels

Pommel horse turnaround propels Illini to national championship by Emily Bayci :

… The Illini had been struggling on the pommel horse all season. They were ranked sixth in the country on pommel horse — lower than any other event. …

… “Pommel horse is not an event you want to count on to have a perfect meet, let alone to make up ground.” …

… To anchor the squad was freshman C.J. Maestas, a strong pommel horse contender who had fallen on high bar and was worried he let his team down.

I knew I had to hit,” Maestas said. “For my brothers. Here they were having my back, shout-out to the pommel horse squad. They were throwing 15’s. I needed to do it too.

Hit he did, tallying his own career-high of a 15.100 to propel Illinois to a 60.750, its highest pommel horse score in school history. …

… “The turnaround on pommel horse was the best moment of my entire college career,” said veteran senior Paul Ruggeri …

dailyillini

Click PLAY or watch some pommel training on YouTube.