Montage Monday returns.
Any edit that starts with Christine Peng Peng Lee is a good montage. 🙂
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
IOC loves NBC
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. …
Aussie Championships May 21st
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.
Canadian Gymnastics Championships
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.
Tony Retrosi tied up
Looks like Tony Retrosi has relocated to Iceland. Permanently. 🙂
Post by GYM Momentum.
He was recently a guest coach at Grotta Gymnastics.
Desert Spider With Astonishing Moves
Friends are linking to a NY Times story:
A spider newly discovered in the Moroccan Sahara can do powerful, acrobatic flips through the air. …
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/bcvideo/1.0/iframe/embed.html?videoId=100000002858949&playerType=embed
Coaching Clinic – Saskatoon
Thanks to Can-Am and Taiso Gym Clubs for hosting a Level 2 Technical clinic this past weekend. Five busy days. 32.5hrs.
15 WAG coaches. 5 MAG coaches. And one I convinced to do both. 🙂
Artistic Prep
Doug Hillis from University of Saskatchewan led Biomechanics and Physical Preparation sessions. Dana Brass, soon to be relocating to her former club Marian, led sessions on Beam, Artistic Preparation & Leaps, Jumps, Turns.
Gymnastics Canada will (hopefully) soon be piloting the NEW Level 2 to be called “Competitive Introduction“. Old farts like me will, no doubt, continue to call it “Level 2”.
Instead of a manual with black & white photos from the 1970s, the new course will be digital video.
I doubt we’ll be phasing out the whiteboards any time soon.
See a few more photos.
Gabriel Beauchamp to World Games
I’ve linked previously to Gabriel’s entertaining performance in the Special Olympics Gymnastics 2012 USA Championship Gala. (VIDEO)
Gabriel has a dream to compete for Canada in 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games, Los Angeles.
July 25 – Aug 2, 2015
170 nations, 7,000 athletes, 26 Olympic-style events
ESPN will produce the opening ceremony live along with a nightly highlights program. And broadcast worldwide. It’s kind of a big deal.
… Unfortunately Canada is not sending gymnasts with their delegation.
Click PLAY or watch Gabriel’s 2012 routines in competition on YouTube.
This guy is good. He should be representing.
Elijah Thompson alerted me to Gabriel’s Change.org petition to be allowed to compete World Summer Games. Click though and add your name:
Change.org – We need your help to change a young Autistic dream into reality (French)
Share that petition via the Facebook and/or Twitter link.
No need to make any financial contribution, as I understand it. Step one is to raise awareness about his situation. To convince Canada to send him.
Women’s European Championships
Sofia (BUL) May 12-18, 2014
ALBERT MINGUILLON I COLOMER:
… 2014 European Championships are full Europeans, with both a junior and a senior team competition. …
This year Europeans will be also important because it is the qualification for the newly created European Games, that will take place in 2015 in Baku (Azerbaijan).
Romania is the favourite for this year’s Europeans gold with Russia and Great Britain fighting for the podium. Russia is plagued with injuries from its top gymnasts and it is sending a young team to gain experience. Great Britain has the originality on routines composition and new names that add power to their line up. There is no (Sr) All Around competition at this year Europeans …
Predictions
There have been several senior competitions in the first part of the season to evaluate and prepare gymnasts for European Championships. We have collected all the scores that we have been able to find and this is an objective ranking of the top gymnasts per country and apparatus.
We are not re-judging the routines and we only use real scores by FIG judges under the current FIG Code of points during this year (2014). Judging from competition to competition varies; we only pretend to show who are the gymnasts expected to perform well and to serve as a guide for the new names for those attending the European Championships. …
Team Competition
ROU 172.600
GBR 167.950
GER 164.800
FRA 163.800
BEL 162.950
POL 159.850
Russia is not included on that list. Probably a good idea since scores at Russian Championships (a domestic meet) were too high. So high that I assumed some new bonus system had been put in place.
… Without Russia competing outside Russia for seniors this year, Romania with its stars in top form should be able to win the European crown despite the expected low scoring UB rotation. …
read more on The All Around – 2014 Women’s Senior Europeans: preview and predictions
Thanks Albert. 🙂
Click PLAY or watch a preview on YouTube.
related – 2014 Women’s Junior Europeans: preview and predictions:
Russia
Romania
Belgium
Germany
Great Britain
France
SEC Coach of the Year
March 21, 2014
Auburn gymnastics head coach Jeff Graba has been named the 2014 Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year by vote of the league’s coaches …
The award is the second for the fourth-year head coach, who was named co-Coach of the Year in 2012.
Graba led the Tigers to the second-highest score in program history in 2014, as well as the top road score. He has guided Auburn to a national ranking of No. 12 overall and the fifth-seed at the SEC Gymnastics Championship for the second consecutive year. …
Gymnastics News Network Q & A Interview:
GNN: You have almost your whole team coming back next season, how important is it to build off of this years momentum?
Jeff: Yes, we have every routine (including multiple alternates) coming back next year and we are extremely excited about that. I think the positive that we can take from this year is that even though we finished the year without Bri G. and Caitlin A. and that ultimately hurt our chances at qualifying to nationals, we did develop a ton of much needed depth for next season. I’m looking forward to a year where we have experience with a majority of our competitors on each event.
GNN: Is it war Eagle Time next Year?
Jeff: That is the Plan!
(via College Gymnastics Board)
