Gymnastics Coaching.com

Canadian Gymnastics Championships – Before the meet Facebook album

USA Gymnastics has launched a new FAN site called USA Gymnast.

Quite slick. Featuring these main subcategories:

Home
News
Athletes
Photos
Video
Social Wall

Of those, Social Wall is the coolest. Choose between athlete tweets, Facebook status updates, photos and more.

USAgymnast.com

Sadly, there’s no RSS feed aside from Comments. And who wants to read online comments?

Don’t bother clicking on any RSS icons. You’ll be wasting your time. Web site designers who pretend to embrace social media without actually providing an RSS feed are conflicted, at best. Delusional, at worst.

USAG still owns Gymnast.com, as well. And is still not doing anything with that domain name. Somebody should make them an offer to buy it. $100,000+, I’d expect.

Without their two top gymnast, Beth Tweddle and Hannah Whelan, The City of Liverpool gymnastics club has defended their British Team title in Guildford.

Team Result
1 – 162.200 – Liverpool
2 – 160.900 – The Academy
3 – 160.300 – Notts

Top senior all-arounders from today (Unofficial- I might have missed someone!)

1. Rebecca Tunney 56.55
2. Danusia Francis 55.1
3. Ruby Harrold 54.8
4. Imogen Cairns 53.4
5. Jennifer Pinches 52.85
6. Nicole Hibbert 52.7
7. Jocelyn Hunt 52.5

full results via Going for Gold

More interesting is that this was the first “trial” for the GBR Women’s Olympic Team.

… Florida’s Marissa King came back from her NCAA Collegiate Stage to try and qualify herself to London 2012. She had a 14.6 on Vault, 13.15 on Floor …

World Gymnast

Click PLAY or Marissa’s Vault on YouTube.

Still, carrying Beth Tweddle as a specialist, Marissa is a long shot, at best:

Vault
1 14.850 – Ruby Harrold (The Academy)
2 14.750 – Rebecca Tunney (Liverpool)
3 14.600 – Marissa King (Huntington)
4 14.500 – Nicole Hibbert (Heathrow)
5 14.300 – Niamh Rippin (Notts)
6 14.200 – Imogen Cairns (The Academy)

see more apparatus results

Over 70 BGTV videos from British Teams 2012.

The true winner of the 2000 Olympics, Andreea Raducan, has released an autobiography. In Romanian.

Dowisk reports that an English translation is planned.

She’s on a National book tour May 19 to June 30.

Click PLAY or watch a promo on YouTube.

Details on her Facebook page.

related – Shawn Johnson’s book video trailer

Aunt Joyce:

When the heading coaching position at the University of Georgia became available, KJ Kindler’s named buzzed around the gymnastics world as the ideal choice to fill the role. While Kindler turned the position down, the episode has certainly served to put the University of Oklahoma and its women’s gymnastics coach in the NCAA spotlight.

Since taking over the program in 2006, KJ Kindler has led the Sooners to two Super Six appearances and the position of perennially vying for the National Title. I recently spoke with KJ Kindler about her program, the Sooners’ up and down 2012 season and the future of the program and its coach who loves to dance. …

Click PLAY or see the fierce ladies of 2012 on YouTube.

AJ: The Oklahoma team is known for being extremely fit and conditioned. What do you do specifically to achieve that? Many teams talk about conditioning, but your team is known for it.

KJ: The number one thing we focus on is nutrition. We educate the gymnasts as much as possible about nutrition. We bring in nutritionists who educate the girls and do private counselling with them. …

The second most important thing we focus on is strength and fitness. I am someone who fines tone, muscle and that ‘fit look’ to be beautiful. I’m not someone who finds being thin and waifish to be beautiful. …

read more …

Terrible.

2010 world vault champion Thomas Bouhail (France) publicly accused doctors of medical negligence, nearly six months after the Christmas Eve accident that may have cut short his brilliant gymnastics career.

On Dec. 24, Bouhail suffered a broken tibia and torn knee ligaments in a fall off high bar. He held a press conference Friday afternoon, speaking publicly for the first time about the incident …

“I almost lost my leg,” he said. “It’s a miracle it was saved. I’ve undergone 15 operations and they’ve taken a lot of my muscle. Today, I still cannot lift my foot.” …

IG – Devastated Bouhail Accuses Doctors of Negligence

Nice edit by Sam Kolder. Interesting camera angles. Shot with a Canon 600d.

Michael Chaves Showreel 2012

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Michael’s from Oakville, Toronto.

Four gymnastics legends will be inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame on Saturday. The 16th annual induction dinner will be held at the exclusive Petroleum Club in Oklahoma City, and the 2012 class features Zoltan Magyar (Hungary), Natalia Shaposhnikova (Russia) and Kim Zmeskal (USA).

Vera Caslavska (Czech Republic), who was officially inducted in 1998 but could not make the trip, is scheduled to attend this year to accept her honor. …

IG – Dwight Normile – Caslavska To Join 2012 Hall of Fame Class

As I’m always clarifying, that’s the International Gymnastics Magazine Hall of Fame. It’s got nothing to do with FIG.

via @nadiacomaneci10

… at the Hall of Fame induction Ceremony …

via @nadiacomaneci10

Rumours proved true.

… at least the rumour has firmed up enough to be posted in Online Athens:

Georgia will name California coach and former Nebraska assistant Danna Durante to head the 10-time national champion Gym Dogs, a Georgia source said on Saturday.

Durante was a longtime assistant at Nebraska before being named the head coach at Cal last year. …

Durante replaces Jay Clark who resigned two weeks ago.

The hiring should be announced next week, the source said. …

Source: UGA hires Cal’s Danna Durante as next Gym Dogs coach

Big shoes to fill. I admire Danna’s courage in accepting.

She is a great coach, by the way. Much more a replacement for Suzanne than was Jay.