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While her National Teammates Brittany Rogers & Dominique Pegg were winning medals at Cottbus, Jessica Savona went 14.10 on Bars.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

She’s training much more, including something Tweddlesque — Hindorf (E) … to mixed grip, to connect to Ejova (D).

Click PLAY or watch the first part on YouTube.

Coach Lorne Bobkin.

I can hardly wait for Nationals in Regina, May 21-26th. They’ll be all kinds of speculation as to who’s going to perform their way on to the Olympic Team.

There’s not much. Even less in 2012 than ever before, despite the available technology.

Who’s judging the judges?

Case in point. Vault Judge #2 was singled out as biased by an Alabama fan who did some analysis of scores at SEC Chammpionships.

Judge 2’s total score for each team as compared to actual are shown below:

Florida + .175
LSU + .325
UGA + .175
Kentucky + .20
Arkansas + .10
Alabama minus .225
Auburn +.15

This lady threw out 3 2 perfect 10s to LSU, for … gosh sakes. She went out high on every team — except Alabama.

Read the entertaining thread on College Gymnastics Board – Never has ONE JUDGE so deserved to be called out

That judge should be reprimanded, in my opinion. But if you’d like to defend Mary’s scores, please leave a comment.

The truth of NCAA Gymnastics scoring is that it works well at ranking 12 gymnasts in a dual meet, but does not have enough variation in range to rank more than two teams.

The solution obvious to me is to allow gradations of 0.05 in post-season competition.

Here are the final rankings before Regionals:

26 March 2012 – by Regional Qualifying Average

1 Florida
2 Oklahoma
3 UCLA
4 Alabama
5 Nebraska
6 Georgia
7 Oregon State
8 Utah
9 L.S.U.
10 Arkansas
11 Stanford
12 Ohio State

see the rest on GymInfo

More interesting – Greg’s Unofficial Top 36 Regional Qualifiers:

The Regional hosts are bolded in the list below.

1-12-13 trio: Florida, Ohio State, PSU

2-11-14 trio: OU, Stanford, DU

3-10-15 trio: UCLA, Arkansas, Boise State

4-11-16 trio: Bama, LSU, Arizona

5-8-17 trio: NU, Utah, Minnesota

6-7-18 trio: UGA, Oregon State, Auburn

College Gym Fans

By Greg’s calculations, the #36 team to qualify will be Central Michigan University. 🙂

BeamMeUpBama concurs.

… all this, yet to be officially confirmed.

Same weekend, USA age group gymnasts were qualifying to Junior Olympic Regionals. Here are a couple of guys moving on to their “playoffs”.

Keith Russell by email:

Last year I was in Brazil presenting at a Biomechanics conference and doing coaching clinics for a couple of state federations and I had the pleasure of meeting a young lady Cassia Farias in several workshops / lectures.

Cassia is coming to Toronto in July for a one year work / study experience. She has asked me for information on Coaching Courses (she is familiar with most of the content of our Foundations Course via those lectures / workshops) and on possible job opportunities in Ontario. …

I found Cassia to be very alert, very intelligent, always prompt, and possessing a very pleasant personality. I strongly expect she would be a great asset to any club. Her English is fair, but I am sure will improve rapidly once here. …

Aside from Artistic coaching experience, she has a P.E. degree and background in Trampoline and Circus Arts. Check Cassia’s Resumé. (DOC)

The official website is posted in both Germand & English.

GYMMIN’ MIEL has Finals results.

VAULT:
Brittany Rogers (CAN) (14.400, 13.525) 13.962
Nastassia Marachkouskaya (BLR) (14.125, 13.625) 13.875
Claudia Menendez Gonzalez (ESP) (14.025, 13.450) 13.737

BARS:
Elisabeth Seitz (GER) 14.825
Celine Van Gerner (NED) 14.600
Nataliya Kononenko (UKR) 14.450

BEAM:
Vasiliki Millousi (GRE) 14.425
Valeriia Maksyuta (ISR) 14.175
Brittany Rogers (CAN) 13.525

Vasiliki

FLOOR
Diana Maria Chelaru (ROU) 14.375
Luiza Galiulina (UZB) 13.750
Kim Bui (GER); Dominique Pegg (CAN) 13.725

FLOOR
Phillip Boy (GER) 15.200
Enrique Tomas Gonzalez Sepulveda (CHI) 15.150
Tomislav Markovic (CRO) 15.000

POMMEL
XIAO Qin (CHN) 15.925
Daniel Keatings (GBR) 15.775
Max Whitlock (GBR) – 15.525 (6.600)

RINGS:
CHEN Yibing (CHN) 15.675
Arthur Nabarrete Zanetti (BRA) 15.600
Eleftherios Petrounias (GRE) 15.550

VAULT:
Igor Radivilov (UKR) (16.150, 16.350) 16.250
Dzmitry Kaspiarovich (BLR) (16.150, 16.075) 16.112
Enrique Tomas Gonzalez Sepulveda (CHI) (16.150, 15.850) 16.000

P BARS:
Mitja Petkovsek (SLO) 15.500
Oleg Stepko (UKR) 14.800
Cyril Vieu (FRA) 14.625

HORIZONTAL BAR:
Epke Zonderland (NED) 15.725
Paul Ruggeri III (USA) 15.525
John Orozco (USA) 15.375

Romanian Bea Gheorghisor’s commentary.

Blythe’s commentary – Cottbus finals: It’s Greece, Romania, Netherlands, Ukraine, Slovenia…

Epke

And also THE ALL AROUND’s commentary – Final medals awarded in Cottbus:

Fourth on parallel bars after a fall, Epke Zonderland came back to win the title on high bar with a 15.725/7.5 routine that included his usual flying elements – Cassina to Kovacs, Kolman, and Gaylord 2 – and usual form breaks on each, plus the scrappy Stalder-Rybalko. For those keeping count for the Dutch Olympic position, he had a better weekend than Wammes. …

World Cup competition continues this coming week with the Doha Challenge Cup.

Alexander Alexandrov:

Russia’s female gymnasts are trailing the United States team in the run-up to the London Olympics and will only be competitive if they master a key vaulting skill, Alexander Alexandrov, head coach of the Russian women’s team, told RIA Novosti on Sunday.

None of the Russian women managed 2 1/2 twists in the vault at the Russian championships in Penza this weekend, which Alexandrov said was crucial. …

source

With all the bluster we’ve heard from Russia — “Gold or nothing.” — it’s refreshing to hear Alexander state the blunt facts.

USA is closing the Bars deficit. And increasing their Vault lead.

USA are now favourites to win the Olympics.

Our Olympic Bars Champion falls in a big meet. Again.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The #1 routine in the world, still. When she hits.

You’d think the layout Jaeger would have been taken out by now.

@jrflipfest
“@intlgymnast: Do you think He Kexin will make a second Olympic team? fb.me/1t7Mlao4X” No she’s too old!!!

🙂

The only argument for including a specialist like He Kexin on the Chinese Olympic Team would be the sure medal. And it’s just not sure enough.

I’m looking forward to her (future) tell all biography.

World Cup Cottbus – part 1

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Worlds are in Florida this year, outside Europe for the first time.

23rd Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships
Lake Buena Vista (USA), April 16 – 18, 2012

7th Acrobatic Gymnastics World Age Group Competitions
Lake Buena Vista (USA), April 20 – 22, 2012

… April 16-18 at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex’s HP Field House, located at Walt Disney World Resort …

There are 100 seniors and 400 juniors registered.

details – FIG – Strong field expected at 2012 World Acro Championships

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks Hal.