Dear Gymternet,
This month has been the best! I competed some new skills at a local meet and I won the WOGA Classic International session!
… I felt very confident heading into this meet because I had been really consistent in training. I was looking forward to competing against the other countries which were China, Japan, Wales, Mexico, Russia, Netherlands, and Canada. …
I started on beam, which is my favorite rotation order. I was 6th up on beam, so I did a lot of skills on the floor to keep warm. By the time it was my turn- I was the only one going! I hit a great beam routine and got a 14.150! I was so excited because it was my first 14!
Next was floor and warm up went great. I saluted and got on the floor. The music started playing but it wasn’t my music. That had never happened to me before! I didn’t really know what to do, so I stepped off the floor and saluted again. The right music played the second time and I did a pretty good floor routine. I got a 13.600, but I think I could have done better because my piked full-in landed a little low.
Vault was next and it felt really strong, I got a 14.300.
Bars was my last event and my warm up was a little shaky. I was last up in the whole meet and it felt like I had to wait forever. I was the only one going and I knew that I could win if I hit an awesome routine. I did the best routine that I have ever done and got a 13.900! I was so thrilled! Nastia Liukin, Simone Biles, Madison Kocian, and Rebecca Bross were handing out awards, which was awesome! …
Dear Gymternet – Journals from Elena Arenas
Mikaël Kingsbury – freestyle skier
Mikaël Kingsbury … won an Olympic medal in 2014, finishing second to Alexandre Bilodeau in Sochi. He is the three-time reigning FIS Freestyle World Cup title holder for both moguls and overall freestyle. …
Here he is showing a sextuple twist into water.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Right now, the 22-year-old skiing phenom from Quebec is so far ahead of the field he already has the overall title locked up, with a third of the season still to go.
And that leaves Kingsbury with an interesting dilemma: he can probably win the final three World Cup races of the season and become the most decorated moguls skier in history, or he can risk losing one to do something no one in his sport has ever done before.
Kingsbury is fairly confident he can land a cork 1440 — that’s a partial back flip with a quadruple twist. …
Canadian freestyler Mikaël Kingsbury eager to push the envelope
Kevin Wolting – Vault
15,000+ fans at Utah Gymnastics
Every time someone tells me they tried and failed to market Gymnastics, I respond: “Greg Marsden did. Why can’t you?”
JOHN BRANCH reports:
Utah’s Huntsman Center holds 15,000. But more than that were squeezing in to watch what was, on the schedule, just an ordinary conference dual meet with Stanford. The standing-room-only attendance was announced at 15,202.
The night after the gymnastics meet, Utah’s women’s basketball team played No. 7 Oregon State in the same arena. Official attendance was 788.
Utah gymnastics has the highest average attendance in women’s college sports nearly every year, beating out the likes of Tennessee and Connecticut basketball, Nebraska and Hawaii volleyball, and Alabama and Georgia gymnastics, most of them quite easily. It vaults past professional women’s sports, too, like the W.N.B.A., where top teams hope to draw 10,000.
The gymnastics team, ranked fourth this season, is averaging 14,682 through four meets. That is on pace to break the team record of 14,376 last year, when only 18 Division I men’s basketball teams regularly played in front of bigger crowds. …
… if Utah can sell 7,500 season tickets (ranging from $30 to $120), attract 15,000 fans to a two-hour meet, and essentially break even financially, why don’t more universities do the same thing? …
Alabama’s Sarah Patterson:
“Greg started earliest, and he set the standard,” said Patterson, who started coaching Alabama in 1978. “There were two people I took great advice from at the start of my career. One was Pat Summitt. The other was Greg Marsden.”
Both Marsden and Summitt, the longtime Tennessee women’s basketball coach, stressed the value of marketing the program. …
Georgia’s Suzanne Yoculan:
“If Greg and Sarah and I could stand up and speak to everybody who is a decision-maker at other schools, I think we could convince them to add gymnastics,” said Yoculan, who retired from Georgia in 2009.
Utah gymnastics, with a $750,000 budget, breaks even, the university said, thanks mostly to arena revenues from its meets and booster contributions that cover the 12 scholarships. …
NY Times – At Packed Utah Women’s Gymnastics Meets, Marketing Earns High Scores, Too
new Men’s skills announced
FIG MTC NEWSLETTER #28 was posted.
BRETSCHNEIDER gets the H value double twisting Kovacs. Congratulations.
You might ask why. He didn’t compete it at Worlds 2014.
Here’s why.
MAG Naming of New Elements:
Any new element performed at an FIG registered competition with an official FIG TD or FIG MTC member participating in an official role (local TD, continental TD, Superior Jury, Apparatus Supervisor, or Jury of Appeals) is eligible for new element recognition in the Code of Points. A video of the completed element must be given to the TC member in attendance for later review and evaluation at the following MTC meeting.
Ferhat’s amazing new dismount from P Bars (G value) was not given name credit because of his bent knees. I dunno. It looks pretty good from this angle. (VIDEO)
They aren’t as straight as the new vault – RI Se Gwang 2. Double front pike with half twist.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (6.4)
Horizontal Bar
• Yamawaki ½ will need to have all turning continue in the same direction for the increase in letter value. If the element turns in two different directions, the element will not be recognized by the D jury.
We’re praying that Yamawaki will be devalued next Code. And that releases catching in mixed grip will be the same skill. One crappy Yamawaki is bad enough. Two is twice as ugly.
Next newsletter will finally address these issues:
• Exceeding the allowable time for a fall (Sam Mikulak on P Bars)
• Broken handguard (grip) rule (Zhang Chenglong)
FIG MTC broke their own rules at Worlds 2014 with those two athletes. It’s about time they answer for that.
Nile Wilson – training
Great horizontal bar worker.
Click PLAY or watch it on Instagram.
Summer Gymnastics Camp Sweden
MAG and WAG. July 27th – Aug 9th, 2015.
Lingvallen, Sweden. Looks great.
Click PLAY or see the facilities on YouTube.
more details
If any international gymnasts or coaches are interested, email info (a) gymnastikfabriken.se.
Sam Zakutney – P Bars
Winner in apparatus finals at Canada Winter Games.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
For this meet Juniors were allowed to compete Peach twice in a row for credit.
good Yurchenko preflight
I like Boise’s Kelsey Morris. Low on. And with feet together before contacting the table.
See it on twitter.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 