GymCastic – Miss Val Part 2

This week we cover the Stuttgart and Glasgow World Cups, the two-per-country rule petition and Gabby’s book takes us into a discussion of life lessons in perseverance. A rare interview with FIG Women’s Technical Committee President, Nelli Kim leads to talk of ugly artistry, Uncle Tim teaches us about the YMCA’s contribution to US gymnastics and we continue our fantasy connection series with beam combos.

In part two of our interview with Miss Val, we discover how she and her former roommate inspired one of the creators of the television show Will and Grace, we find out why so many UCLA athletes have success in elite after college, why Canadians thrive in NCAA, de-programming damaged athletes to build self-esteem and tells us the price of going pro; the actual dollar amount after taxes and experiential cost. Lastly, she tells the story of the amazing wedding gift she gave to a fan.

Listen online. Or subscribe on iTunes.

If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, get some of the highlights on Examiner – GymCastic teaser: The gymnastics world as seen by UCLA’s Miss Val

coach Olga Mostepanova

The legend featured on Russian children’s TV teaching forward walkover.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

WOGymnastike has a second clip like that, coaching Vault.

Gymnastics Saudi Arabia

FIG Artistic Gymnastics Age Group Programme
Riyadh, December 5 – 9, 2012

… Over the previous two years, the FIG with annual funding assistance from the IOC, has developed an Age Group Programme for Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics. It was completed in 2011 …

Twenty-eight participating federations expressed their intention to implement the programme and were offered five-day training and implementation camps within the first year. …

The first country to host one of these five-day camps was Saudi Arabia that hosted the camp in its excellent facility in Riyadh from December 5-9, 2012. The FIG expert for the camp was well-known and enthusiastic gymnastics educator and coaching blogger Rick McCharles of Canada. …

… in Saudi Arabia, seventeen coaches attended but held citizenships from five different countries – Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and China. It was a remarkably high level of attendance for a country not much seen in world level gymnastics.

The FIG Age Group programme includes a testing and monitoring programme for Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics physical abilities and technical skills as well as a complete competition programme with modified optional rules for age-group gymnasts and compulsory exercises for all ages. …

The programme was developed by FIG Director of Education and Academy programmes, Hardy Fink (CAN) for the competition programme, Dieter Hofmann (GER) for the testing programme and Carol-Angela Orchard (CAN) for the dance and choreographic content. …

… read more – FIG Age Group Programme Camps begin in Saudi Arabia

more photos

I’m at Camps #2 and #3 next. Qatar and Yemen.

Middle East weather in December is terrific. 🙂