Gymnastics Coaching.com

Sabrina Gill and Stefanie Merkle run in to Anastasia Grishina and Viktoria Komova on the streets of Marseille!!

Originally posted by Stefanie’s coach, I saw it on Oakville Gymnastics Club Women’s Blog.

The best links are the FIG site page and FIG video page.

FIG Official — Qualifications, Tumbling Men — YANG Song (CHN), 2 times world silver medalist (2009, 2010). He dreams of winning gold this year. Best score of the qualifications : 77.600 (36.200 + 41.400). Difficulty score of the second routine : 13.200 !

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Double Mini-tramp & Tumbling prelims are complete.

Results. (follow the links to find the PDFs)

Congrats to BOYCHUK Corissa (CAN) and ZOONEKYND Bianca (RSA) who tied for 1st in the women’s DOUBLE MINI­-TRAMPOLINE qualifications.

more photos by Grace Chiu on Facebook

FIG Official – Qualifications, Individual Trampoline – DONG Dong is the King of the qualifications : 111.490 (50.005 + 61.485). The world champion 2010 is the favorite for a new world title.

The men’s leader after prelims at World Championships.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks MissEducated.

Insanely strong wonder tot Giuliano Stroe in Romania continues to beast up.

Click the image below or watch it on YouTube.

Yep. That Cross was WAY LOW. … Cheater. 🙂

(via – All Things Gym)

His wimpy little brother Claudio is only doing Straddle L Sit 1 Arm Press series. 🙂

_____

Coach Sommer of GymnasticBodies.com responds:

… … “The iron cross is quite damaging for physically immature prepubescent athletes to train seriously.

Allan Bower’s younger brother Alex was also capable of holding an iron cross at 8 years old. However he was only allowed to “play” with it occasionally. Yes, he was talented enough that he could have competed both an iron cross and a maltese, however this short term glory would have been at the expense of the rest of his career.

Premature exposure to iron cross training will significantly damage growth plates in the elbow and greatly decrease the mobility of the ligaments in the shoulder girdle. Especially problematic here is that the damage to the elbow will often not manifest itself as pain until the athlete begins their adolescent growth spurt. The shoulder girdle mobility problem will also be further exacerbated during the athlete’s pubescent growth spurt resulting in a substantial loss of ROM.

The solution? While prepubescent, the athlete should focus on flexibility, mastering the basic FBEs (fundamental bodyweight exercises) and then increasing strength endurance. In terms of ring specific strength, the primary focus should be on ring handstands, lock arm press handstands and planche development until the athlete has either completed puberty or is approximately 16 years old.” …

That’s from a thread on the Gymnastic Bodies forum.

This is a father pushing kids harder for strength than I’ve ever seen before. Seems inevitable that something will go wrong, sooner or later.

An architectural challenge:

… The brief for the sports hall would not allow for windows on the sides of the buildings for reasons of privacy, safety and performance for the athletes. But a completely windowless gym would be dark and unpleasant, so NL Architects came up with a creative solution to filter natural daylight into the space. …

details and more photos on Inhabit – Tulip-Like Gymnastics Hall in Utrecht Provides Privacy But Maintains Natural Daylighting

John posted results from WAG prelims at the Henderson Cup 2011 National Gymnastics Championships in Hong Kong.

VT
Li Yiting 14.35(6.0)/13.35(6.3)
Wang Xin 14.25(5.8)/13.3(5.0)
Yang Pei 14.05(5.5)/13.50(5.0)

UB
Xiao Kangjun 14.55(6.5)
Deng Linlin 14.45(6.1)
Tan Jiaxin 14.10(5.8)

BB
Deng Linlin 15.00(6.3)
ZhangYe Linzhi 14.85(6.6)
Guan Wenli 14.80(6.3)

FX
Lou Nina 13.95(5.5)
Deng Linlin 13.40(5.2)
Angel Huang 13.40(5.3) … Hong Kong

see more results and linked videos on Chinese Gymnastics Blog

AA
1. Deng Linlin 56.55
2. Huang Huidan 54.05

GymChina: News … Facebook page:

Newcomer Lou Nina fell on beam and finished out of final but led floor qualification with 13.95.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

5.5 + 8.45 = 13.95 1st

AA prelim scores

1. Deng Linlin 56.55
2. Huang Huidan 54.05

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (6.3 + 8.7 = 15.0 1st)

Myself and “piibunina” from Estonia are two conspicuous foreigners at the Henderson Cup 2011 National Gymnastics Championships in Hong Kong. (details and links)

WAG prelims are completed. MAG goes today.

piibunina has been sleeping little, staying up late editing and posting routines to YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Deng Linlin on Bars on YouTube.

See more videos.

The Tokyo Worlds team (aside from Wu Liufang) and some others from the top group were excused from this competition. Actually, the meet seems very low stress as it’s not qualifying for any major meets.

Everyone is happy to have Nationals in Hong Kong, especially for shopping. 🙂

Here are some general impressions of the Senior competitors.

• Firstly, it’s an honour to be here. China is clearly the top gymnastics nation, MAG and WAG combined, in the world.

• Chinese girls show better form and body position than any other nation, including Russia. Twisting is generally very clean. Feet are together on round-off and backward handspring. Impressive attention to detail.

• very few girls used simple jumps out of tumbling. It seems China feels that trend will end soon. Most girls were trying to land tumbling lines like men.

• strongest apparatus = Bars, especially amazing el-grip and el-grip Endo combinations. Jaegers are strong. All other release moves, including Tkachev, not strong nor consistent.

• dismounts and low to high Bar transfers are weak elements, for the majority of girls. I cannot understand why.

• almost every competitor used Pak rather than overshoot. Almost every competitor had significant deductions getting out of Pak.

• about half the Seniors wear grips

• There was much excellent Beam work, as expected. But more falls that I expected. In China gymnasts and coaches show very little emotion during the meet. There are no tears nor fist pumps.

• Vault is the weakest apparatus, as you might expect. There were more Tsuk pikes than DTYs. Many use Handspring front vaults. There was one Tsuk double twist.

• One thing I’ve always admired about Chinese coaches is that when the skill is not ready … they replace it with a simple skill. One tiny girl competed only Handspring, quite proudly. Coach and gymnast both smiling.

• Floor was good but not great. Most girls in this competition had only just enough power to barely complete double pike or double tuck. (The Floor is not springy.)

There were no double layouts. Only two 1/1-ins … that I can recall. In China the strategy is to use twisting elements.

• China in WAG would definitely benefit from reducing the importance of difficulty, rewarding more execution.

There were very few girls in the gym who you could call “power” gymnasts. If the Code continues in the direction we’re going, the talent I.D. system in China needs look for girls with better leg strength. Likely that will result in less flexible kids in future.

They need more gymnasts like Cheng Fei.

Initially I was surprised to see some gymnasts competing who were past the peak of their careers. And some conspicuously weak gymnasts, as well. It was explained to me that each Province is dependent on government funding, based on results. Many girls are asked to continue to support their gym and region.

Congratulations to all the girls and coaches who competed Hong Kong. You put on a good show.

I’ll try to get my hands on printed results and get the names translated.

(via Couch Gymnast … who managed to post a link to these videos before I did.)