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Original routine for our Pan-Am AA Champ. With a dismount I haven’t seen in a long time.

Jossimar Orlando Calvo of Colombia on parallel bars at the 2011 Pan American Games. Check out his dismount …

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/MjY3NTExODIx?related=1

Watch more videos on Gymnastike

He uses Moy Tippelt to long swing (the “Bhavsar“), too. That’s quite popular these days. Sergio from Brazil uses it a somewhat similar skill, as well. (VIDEO)

It’s amazing how competitive men’s gymnastics is in 2011.

Here’s your Pan-Am Champ from Colombia.

1) COL Calvo 86.4
2) COL Giraldo 86.2
3) CHILE Gonzalez 86.05

Examiner LIVE blog via video

55.875 will do it.

Congratulations.

1) Caquatto: 55.875
2) Gomez 55.425
3) Vaculik 54.775
4) Lee 54.575
5) Garcia 54.425
6) Jay 54.350

full AA results

Montage from Worlds Tokyo.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Wouldn’t it be great to see both Catalina Ponor (age 24) and Sandra Izbasa (age 21) in London?

(via Fangymnastics on Facebook)

The Brazilian men won their first gymnastics team title Tuesday as the Pan American Games continued in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Led by Sergio Sasaki and 2011 world medalists Diego Hypolito and Artur Zanetti, Brazil defeated defending champion Puerto Rico by 1.25 in the second subdivision. The U.S, which competed in the first subdivision, won the bronze. …

read more on IG – Brazilian Men Grab First Pan Am Gold

Checking the results on that link, Brazil was 1st as a team on FX, Rings (tie) and Vault.

Sergio Sasaki had an 87.700 to lead the AA.

USA might have contended, except for Pommels — a dismal 52.400. (6th)

American coach Justin Spring takes out his frustrations on a chicken.

SCOTT M. REID / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER:

Don Peters, who guided the U.S. women to record-breaking success at the 1984 Olympic Games, has resigned his membership with USA Gymnastics and his coaching and director positions at SCATS, the Huntington Beach club he built into a global superpower, the Orange County Register has learned. …

USA Gymnastics, the sport’s national governing body, has scheduled a Nov. 11 hearing in Indianapolis to determine whether he should be banned from the sport he helped transform into the marquee women’s Olympic attraction …

If USA Gymnastics finds that Peters had sex with underage gymnasts he could be placed on the organization’s permanently ineligible list. The ban would prohibit Peters, a fixture at U.S. and international gymnastic events for parts of five decades, from either coaching athletes on the floor of USA Gymnastics-sanctioned events or being credentialed for those competitions. Banned coaches are also prohibited from working at what USA Gymnastics considers a “member club.” Under USA Gymnastics rules, member clubs agree “not to employ, or use as a volunteer, anyone who is on the ‘permanently ineligible list.'” …

read more – Coach accused of abuse resigns from O.C. gym

All 3 coaches investigated by reporter Scott M Reid have left the sport. The other two being: Michael Zapp and Doug Boger.

Makes me wonder who he’s going after next.

Italy’s Erika Fasana makes it look easy.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Selicious likes Yekaterina Lobaznyuk’s (VIDEO) and Komova’s (VIDEO) better. All three are amazing.

related – Couch Gymnast – 10 Questions with Erika Fasana (Feb. 2011)

video link via @theallaround

… They’ve also confirmed that Vanessa Ferrari (ITA) suffered a left ankle injury before Floor finals in Tokyo.

At 2010 Worlds Ferrari was “ripped off”, I thought. This year could not avenge.

Big Tkachev already for the 12yr-old from Buckeye Gymnastics. One of they youngest Jr Elites in the USA.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Nia can swing, obviously. But I hope she’s also working to improve “line”.

Background on Gym Divas.

via @mattwickhammatt

Let’s say you are one of the best in the world at your sport … and somebody stops you from competing.

more photos

Why would they do that?

Katelyn Ohashi has competed successfully one of the most difficult beam routines in history (VIDEO), yet is not allowed to even try out for the 2012 Olympics.

Yep. The American Jr Champion is too young to compete in the London Olympics. What a shame.

A recent legal paper looks at the mechanism by which an American could challenge that rule. It’s got a cute name:

Uneven Bars: Age Rules, Antitrust, and Amateurism in Women’s Gymnastics

Katelyn could try to challenge the age-eligibility rules by antitrust lawsuit against USA Gymnastics who enforces the FIG rule.

… That would be odd since nearly everyone in the National Team program for the States is against the age rule, most vocally so.

This legal opinion:

… While gymnastics’ current minimum-age rule would likely survive an antitrust challenge, the rule’s policy impact has been profoundly negative in two distinct ways. First, as predicted by Martha Karolyi, the enactment of the current age rule has helped usher in an era of increased corruption related to age fabrication. As the recent cases in China and North Korea evidence, the nefarious conduct reached governmental levels, where officials knowingly altered documents to further the fraud.

Second, the countries that falsify such documents as a way to circumvent the age rule have created an unlevel playing field vis-a?-vis those countries that follow the rule. …

Still, the paper concludes that if age monitoring cannot be enforced:

… the rule should be eliminated to allow all gymnasts and countries the opportunity for greater parity and fairness in elite-level international competition.

Download the entire 20 page paper here. (PDF)

Rodenberg, Ryan M. , Uneven Bars: Age Rules, Antitrust, and Amateurism in Women’s Gymnastics (July 25, 2011). University of Baltimore Law Review, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2011. Available at SSRN

So, Katelyn Ohashi needs to stay at this level until the Rio Olympics. Exactly as Nastia had to wait until Beijing. … She was too young for Athens.

related – Do Minimum Age Rules “Work” in Sports?

…‘Cold Warrior’.

“A young gymnast questions her dreams of Olympic glory when she discovers she’s part of a shady government plot to win at any cost.”

Written and directed by Emily Greenwood. …

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

It looks hilariously cliché to me. But there is one theme that may be of interest to coaches.

… The film addresses the grim topic of abortion doping, a practice rumored to have been used by Romanian and Soviet coaches during the 1970s and 1980s to improve the athletic performance of gymnasts. …

Double Front – Cold Warrior Movie Trailer

Click through for more on that film. And for another link on abortion doping.