Gymnastics Coaching.com

FIG has a nice wrap-up post – Price and Nguyen prevail at Stuttgart World Cup – including official video.

more photos on Facebook

While we wait on the official annual preseason coaches’ poll, here’s the Balance Beam Situation ranking:

1. Florida
2. Alabama
3. UCLA
4. Oklahoma
5. Utah
6. Stanford

1. Florida

The Gators are the most talented team in the country. I don’t see any valid argument against putting them at #1. With Sloan and B. Caquatto joining Hunter, King, Dickerson, Johnson, and M. Caquatto, this team will have 9.900s to spare and will be able to absorb whatever latest injury has befallen one of the Caquattuses. While the other top contenders will excel on vault and floor, look for Florida to be nearly unstoppable on bars with consistent 49.500+ rotations that won’t be matched even by the second tier of contenders. …

9. LSU
I’m unexpectedly high on LSU this year, and it has nothing to do with Jay Clark. On vault and floor last year, this team was just one or two routines away from being nationally competitive. Throw in Britney Ranzy, Jessica Savona, and Randii Wyrick (who, let’s recall, won Senior D last year), and LSU is basically an acceptable bars rotation away from contending for Super Six. Maybe Jay Clark will be more important than I thought. …

Balance Beam Situation Preseason Ranking

Click through to read the rest of the top 15.

Update – the official pre-season coaches’ top-25 was just posted.

1. Alabama
2. UCLA
3. Florida
4. Oklahoma
5. UTAH
6. Stanford
7. Nebraska
8. LSU
9. Oregon State
10. Michigan

I was looking forward to this, the joyful super tumbler from Japan.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… Not nearly as exciting as I had hoped. She does more difficulty in training than any other WAG in the world.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (April 2011)

(via WOGymnastike)

No, not Ha Thanh, the other great Vietnamese Vaulter. 🙂

Gymnast #391:

Wow, check out Vietnam’s Nguyen Ha Thanh‘s Melissanidis Piked (Yurchenko 2/1 piked) vault from … Ostrava World Cup.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

He took the Bronze on Vault at the 2012 Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships. And Silver on Parallel Bars.

Any relation to Marcel Nguyen?

Chris Saccullo:

Congratulations Ebee on your 1st place AA performance at Stuttgart, keep touching the sky!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Boy, 25, announced his retirement at this weekend’s Stuttgart World Cup, the competition where he took a bad fall from high bar in 2011 that seemed to shadow his gymnastics from there on out. Nonetheless, as one of the most charming and charismatic performers from the past quad, it’s a shame to see the two time World all-around silver medallist take his leave from the sport. …

Examiner

official website

l0ndoncallsmestranger:

OMG I’M CRYING THE BOYS ARE ALL WEARING SHIRTS SAYING: ALL IN FOR PHILIPP

I’m following @GymPOWER1, @theallaround who are there.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (2hrs)

Stuttgart World Cup Men’s All Around Final Results:

1. Nguyen, Marcel (GER) – 90,232
2. Purvis, Daniel (GBR) – 89,397
3. Belyavskiy, David (RUS) – 89,298
4. Tanaka, Kazuhito (JPN) – 89,097
5. Leyva, Danell (USA) – 88,364
6. Gonzalez, Fabian (ESP) – 87,498
7. Thomas, Kristian (GBR) – 87,365

Click PLAY or watch Kristian Thomas GBR | Yurchenko double pike on YouTube.

Laura Amann is a freelance writer, mother of 4 kids. She has a guest post on the Sports Girls Play blog.

My days of gymnastics are over. So are my long hours at the gym. My nervousness and anxiety. It’s all in the past. No more ponytails woven with ribbons, no more glitter spray, no more bleacher analysis. My daughter has left the sport.

For years, Caroline competed on a gymnastics team and she adored everything about it. Four days a week, we drove the ½ hour back and forth to the gym so that she could practice 15 hours a week, year-round. I volunteered, I chatted with the parents, I watched and learned and bit my nails. The parents became my friends, the meets became a social time.

Eventually after three years of this schedule, the complaints began: the coaches were too hard, she had a headache, she was tired, she had too much homework. Her message read loud and clear: she was burnt out at the age of 11. …

The End of an Era: When a Child Abandons a Sport

That’s a good read for every coach.

I’ll bet Caroline grows up to be more successful and healthy than her non-gymnast classmates. But it’s not easy for a young girl to appreciate that now.

The sport, the system and the coaches share responsibility for the very large number of girls who go through this trauma. We really do build up expectations too high for too many children.

Dar wants underprivileged kids to do Gymnastics.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

She’s the Rec guru behind GymtasticsGymTools.

(via Rec Gymnastics)