Gymnastics is in danger of losing its artistry as competitors are concentrating on pulling off increasingly difficult acrobatic moves, the sport’s governing body said.
The FIG is unhappy with trends in artistic gymnastics, where the accumulative scoring system encourages athletes to cram their routines with risky moves.
“Artistic gymnastics should be about art, about beauty, and in the case of the women it also has to do with music, with expression,” FIG secretary general Andre Gueisbuhler told Reuters in an interview.
I was suspicious that Dominique Moceanu’s new book might be a replay of the opportunist book released before the Beijing Olympics written by Jennifer … something.
But so far I’ve been impressed with the media reaction to “Off Balance“. It’s not a rant against all things women’s elite gymnastics. Reaction in the mainstream media has been rather balanced.
Gymnastics Adventure in Regina is now pushing Cheer in a big way. Last night they held “try outs” for the first ever GA competitive Team. There’s a second tryout tonight.
Great move. Most gymnastics gyms are fairly empty by 8pm. Cheer athletes, being older, can train 8pm and later. A great use of the space. And an additional revenue stream keeping the doors open. 🙂
Marcin Jachmann, a Capoeira devotee, is promoting an app called Bust a Move Delay Mirror.
It’s a video delay application that continuously shows what just happened seconds before. It’s easy to vary the time delay, depending on the situation.
So simple, it works.
In my first day of testing, our best use was at the end of the Beam. A 6 sec delay. The girls would step off the Beam and check their alignment.
The app works hands free. Set the time delay to whatever you wish, and leave it running.
There is also a 2×2 mode so you can have 4 independent views with independent delays. This way you can watch the same skill 4 times in a row.
Cool.
Of course you can use either the front or back facing camera, depending on the situation in the gym.
Here’s the link to the app in iTunes ($2.99) if you want to try it yourself.
… FIG President Prof. Bruno Grandi (ITA), who runs for a fifth term and has gone unopposed at previous elections, will be challenged for the presidency by Adrian Stoica (ROU) and Vassily Titov (RUS).
Mr Stoica currently holds the position of FIG Men’s Technical Committee President, while Mr Titov has been a member of the Executive Committee since 2009 and is also a member of the Marketing Commission. …
Grandi will win one last term in office, I’m sure. Adrian Stoica has not proven that he would be any better a replacement. It was his MTC bungling the 2004 Olympics that led to the current Code of Points. Led us to the current state where many winning routines have bad form, poor technique, bad line.
Hopefully a real alternative to the status quo will emerge, if not by the coming election, then the one after.
If you don’t know Stoica it’s because he keeps a low profile, just the opposite of Bruno Grandi. Here’s a rare interview from 2011. (VIDEO)
I don’t know Vassily Titov.
The other interesting election has Stoica challenged for the position of Men’s TC President by Mr Steve Butcher (USA). Steve would be far better, I feel, but doesn’t have much experience yet on MTC.
Ms Nellie Kim (BLR) runs unopposed. Surprising. She could easily be defeated, I would think, by others on the WTC.
Here are the FIG Men’s and Women’s Artistic Technical Committees with their Romanian hosts at the most recent meetings.
Leave a comment if you know more about the TC elections.
It’s one vote / member FIG nation. Bahrain gets a vote equal to China and Russia. They call that “democracy“.
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As part of a collaboration with the International Olympics Committee, Facebook has launched an athlete-centric page …
As well as profiles of 250 (so far) out of the 10,000 or more athletes taking part this year, the page includes profiles of the different nations taking part. …
Valentin Uzunov posted on an important topic on his new Coaching Methods blog:
… when we observe movements at rates faster than 230°/s, we cannot see much detail of the motion, instead we get just a blurred view of the object tracked. …
Take the pre-flight in a Yurchenko vault. It takes 0.12 – 0.22ms from board take-off to hand contact. …
Valentin concludes that new technology (cameras, iPad apps, etc.) are valuable for the coach (or judge) who wants to know EXACTLY what the athlete is doing.
Gymnastics is in danger of losing its artistry as competitors are concentrating on pulling off increasingly difficult acrobatic moves, the sport’s governing body said.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 