LSU Seniors reflect on their NCAA careers

Another excellent video from LSU.

College Gymnastics Association Hall of Fame

We are thrilled to announce the establishment of the first-ever College Gymnastics Association Hall of Fame, celebrating the outstanding achievements and contributions of athletes, coaches, and teams during their time in the NCAA. …

Inductees into the Hall of Fame will include athletes who have achieved unparalleled success on the gymnastics floor, coaches who have inspired and mentored their teams to greatness, and teams who have celebrated unprecedented success. ….

DETAILS

Join us on April 20th at The Ohio State University’s Fawcett Center for the induction ceremony. Those already named to the class include Steve Hug (Stanford), Jonathan Horton (University of Oklahoma), John Roethlisberger (University of Minnesota), and Blaine Wilson (The Ohio State University).

FIG names 5 more Paris Olympians

Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Nina Derwael (BEL) is headed to Paris 2024.

So is Valentina Georgieva (BUL), An Chang Ok (PRK), Charlize Moerz (AUT) and Ryu Sunghyun (KOR).

All five locked down Olympic qualification with their results at the FIG Apparatus World Cup in Baku (AZE) 7-10 March. Though the results will not be official until the close of competition at next month’s Doha World Cup …

details – Golden celebrations and Olympic qualifications: Who did what at the Baku World Cup

Click PLAY or watch highlights from the meet on YouTube.

a deep dive into ARTISTRY deductions

Findings weren’t as dismal and random as you’d might expect.

Personally, I’d abandon Artistry deductions as too subjective — instead evaluating execution more precisely. Likely we’d need video analysis judging to do that accurately.

– Rick

Marishiba did some analysis into Artistry deductions at Worlds 2023.

… 72 gymnasts for beam, and the top 48 for floor …

Marishiba’s thoughts:

  • In some ways, this actually made me feel better about artistry judging, in that I generally feel like the people who subjectively felt artistic and expressive (to me!) tended to get the highest artistry scores, and the people who subjectively felt messy or clunky got low scores, while the people who were pretty/polished but not expressive got scores in the middle. One big exception to this is Chinese gymnasts. I love their artistry, especially on floor, and it’s not being rewarded.
  • However, the spread of judging on a single routine is troubling. …

Takeaways:

  • All hail Eythora queen of artistry! Competing 3 times each on beam and floor, she had 3 out of 4 of the top beam artistry scores, and all 3 of the top floor artistry scores! In every single routine, at least one judge gave her zero artistry deductions! Pauline’s quals beam was the only routine that bested any of Eythora’s artistry scores!
  • Averaging across all competitions, Flavia is top-5 for both beam (3rd) and floor (4th). In the top 10 for both are Jess G. (2nd beam, 6th floor), Rebeca (2nd floor, 9th beam), Pauline (5th beam, 10th floor), and Melanie (7th floor, 8th beam).
  • The Americans are really getting dinged on artistry. We knew this, but it really stands out looking at the data. Shilese’s floor stands out as by far the best US artistry (0.29 artistry deductions average, 16th place). Simone is middle of the pack on artistry (26th place on floor, 33rd on beam, with 3 to 4 tenths deduction on each); so much potential for her to improve there.
  • Floor artistry deductions were pretty consistent across competitions, beam were not, with quals and AA being notably harsher on artistry than EF or Team.

Read the full report on Reddit.

AI image

Amazing Grace McCallum

I’m OK with 10.0 under College rules.

FB-Curves 3D GYM apps for coaches

By site editor Rick McCharles.

For the first time I have the full paid version of the FB-Curves 3D GYM apps.

Fantastic.

There’s nothing else out there even close to what this software offers.

I lot in via the webpage, rather than the app. This way I have a bigger image on my display.

Best use for me is showing gymnasts a skill from multiple angles.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Haleigh Bryant’s Historic 39.925 

Here are the full routines of Haleigh Bryant’s 39.925 all-around performance at the Purple & Gold Podium Challenge on March 8, 2024.

… highest all-around score in LSU Gymnastics history and tied for the 4th best all-around in the history of NCAA Gymnastics.

  • VT – 10.0
  • Bars – 10.0
  • Beam – 10.0
  • FX – 9.95

Credit to Ben Schluter, writer for And The Valley Shook, for all the video footage, since this was not a televised competition.

Check out his (subscription) website Chalk Talk, which includes features and podcasts with NCAA Gymnasts here: https://benschluter.substack.com/

X/Twitter: @BenSLASports

You can see all the LSU routines on that Twitter account.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

LSU also posted all routines, including demonstration sets.

Highest road score in program history with their 198.425. We do need this video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.