Gymnastics Coaching.com

I’m sensing a theme in this translation of an article from the Romanian publication ‘The Medal Factory’:

Adrian Stoica: Romania is not a bars specialist, neither in the women nor in the men´s competition.

The team trained by Marian Bitang and Octavian Bellu had good performances at the World Championships but the uneven bars did not allow us to make the podium. Romania finished this year´s competition in 4th place, but there are high expectations for London. …

Reporter: Where could you have done better?

Ana Porgras: Definitely on bars. We could have added that half point we lost. I can´t say we did great on the other apparatus either, but on bars mistakes very obviously visible. …

Adrian Stoica: The girls had good performances in the team final, maybe not their best ones but ok on 3 apparatus. Bars, unfortunately, is still an unsolved issue. If we take a look at the last competitions, we have basically competed with a handicap there. If you start a competition with a 2-4 point difference, you cannot make up for it. We knew this would happen, this is not a surprise. The surprise is that we have been trying to improve performance on this apparatus and we are still not there yet. …

Nadia: We could have fought for third, but the Chinese are 3-4 points ahead of us on bars, they clearly taught us a lesson there. …

Nadia … we have around 12 productive clubs in Romania while the US has around 2500. …

read the entire translation on Fangymnastics

related:

Gymnastics No Ceiling – Romania return home without medals

Bellu:

“Some drastic measures must be taken… I take full responsibility …

Check the comments on that last link. Actually, Romania has enjoyed a real upswing since the return of B and B. They mainly they need to improve Bars. That’s not new. But it indeed is Belu’s responsibility.

Another amazing video from Japan has over 100,000 hits.

Cirque du Soleil has a men’s Rhythmic troupe in the new Los Angeles show IRIS … actually it’s in the new Michael Jackson THE IMMORTAL World Tour. Thanks Stacy.

The scandal at ArtSports World in Colorado is bad news for all Gymnastics Clubs. Parents will understandably be more reluctant to register their kids after they read this story:

… Ten retired gymnasts told The Orange County Register that (Doug) Boger, a 62-year-old former national team coach, sexually or physically abused them while they trained in Pasadena, Calif., in the 1970s and 1980s. …

Since that revelation, at least 10 more recent athletes have contacted me to say that Boger was a great coach, and that they felt completely safe with him.

In the court of public opinion, certainly, Doug Boger will be assumed guilty. Whether he’s innocent or not.

… Is there any upside at all for the rest of us?

Perhaps clubs will be more open to scrutiny.

… There’s an observation deck for parents, as well as more than a dozen security cameras, at ArtSports, which isn’t a member of USA Gymnastics but mandates background checks for 50 employees and an annual safety certification, according to a statement emailed by ArtSports management after Womack declined comment. Instructors also aren’t “allowed to be alone with a student in our facility at any time,” the statement said. …

… Keeping everything in the open is the name of the game at Aerials Gymnastics, a USA Gymnastics-sanctioned club with three locations in the Springs, all of which have lots of windows, an observation area and security cameras. Aerials also has a policy at the two gyms owned by Tom and Lori Forster, with 1,200 athletes, that prohibits 55 coaches from contacting students outside of class – no calls, no texts, no Facebook posts, no tweets. …

… Stars National Gymnastics Village is contemplating a social media policy …

… Windows overlooking practice mats are a staple of The Little Gym of Colorado Springs …

Those quotes come from an article by Brian Gomez in the Colorado Springs Gazette – Safety of kids at gymnastics clubs called into question

Does your gym have good answers if a reporter like Brian comes asking?

And does your gym have one way glass between the gym and the parents viewing area?

I’ve often heard stories about the great gymnastics clinics and camps in Alaska. They bring in some of the top coaches in the States.

Steve Arkell posted this pic from a recent edition:

Yukio Endo (1937-2009) was … Olympic champion and world champion.

… At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo he also received two individual gold medals, in parallel bars, and in individual all-around. …

Here’s Endo competing in the very same venue that hosted Worlds 2011.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Abe Grossfeld was there — but tells that the arena has been much renovated (improved) in the decades since.

(via Mesothelioma)

I attended the World Gymnastics Championships Banquet as a guest of Marceline Goldstein from Cirque du Soleil, a sponsor.

Here she is channeling her inner Uchimura.

Marceline is running open auditions in Tokyo and Osaka.

Here Grace Chiu is showing the soon-to-be-iconic photo of new World Parallel Bar champion Danell Leyva celebrating with Yin Alvarez.

Click on any of the photos to see the original. On most you can comment.

Team USA …

Artists were available to quickly present the ultimately personalized souvenir of Tokyo.

Meiji Kinenkan restaurant is a huge complex adjacent to the famous Meiji Shrine. They had one room just for Sushi & Tempura, another for Chinese food. And several for deserts.

By the end of the evening, the outdoor area was most popular.

As people get home from Tokyo, I expect Facebook to be flooded with images from this event. It truly was a highlight of the competition.

_____
Certainly this was the most memorable Worlds Banquet in history. I’ve not been to many — but did attend the worst … Montreal 1985.

The final day of competition was a Sunday and all food services anywhere near the venue were closed. Everyone was starving when the grub arrived. It was mad — the best gymnasts in the world scrambling over each other to get to the food.

Katie at Full Twist has been following the World Championships in Tokyo as closely as if she had been in the gym the past 14 days.

Thanks.

Here’s her wrap-up of the meet, the best single summary post I’ve seen as it links results to videos of the winners.

Worlds 2011: A Final Wrap Up

Full Twist will rank high in my year end “Best of the Gymternet” list.

… Instead of after a selection camp at the Karolyi Ranch, the Olympic team will be named at the end of the 2012 Olympic Trials, Karolyi said, the same evening as competition at the Trials concludes. Trials will take place in San Jose, Calif. June 28-July 1, 2012.

“I’m a little nervous about that, to be very honest, but that was the decision, and I hope we will be able to handle it,” Karolyi said. “I always like to select the team two days before we leave the country, and this will be different. …

The reason for naming the team at Olympic Trials has more to do with getting the Olympic roster in under the International Olympic Committee’s deadline for having set rosters, said Steve Penny, President of USA Gymnastics. …

read more on Gymnastics Examiner

Marta is leaving Tokyo quite happy. Watch a video interview on Gymnastike.

… have I mentioned how much I love this guy? 🙂

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Perfect toe point. Wonderful line. … (I’ve promised to stop complaining about him.)

OK. Most experts don’t agree with this decision. Here’s the slightly more detailed scores.

full results (PDF)

Zou Kai won because the judges awarded him the highest start score 7.70.

Zhang from China had the second highest start score 7.60. And finished second.

Other guys have more exciting routines — but lower starts. Since Men’s judges will only give Uchimura 9.033, and yet give Zou Kai 8.741, difficulty decides the medals.

If you feel there should be a greater difference between those execution scores, take it up with the guys that put those number to paper:

HUANG Liping (CHN) – Horizontal Bar Supervisor

Execution Judges:
DOBROVOLSKYI Edvard (UKR)
POP Augustin (ROU)
KELEMEN Zoltan (HUN)
MITEV Dimitar (BUL)
ROCHA Joao (POR)

… Look. Horizontal Bar rules are screwed up. They need revised from the ground up. The best guys in the world do either boring routines, repetitive routines or routines with 4 similar skills. The FIG rules are to blame.

Routines were “better” in 2004 than they are today.

When are Stoica and his committee going to do something about it?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

A last minute replacement for Komova, Ksenia was stunned that she won. Perhaps she’d heard about some of the Russian press insisting there’s a conspiracy against her nation.

Brigid loved the final competition for women in Tokyo – Best. Floor. Final. Ever.

One of the biggest criticisms of the all around competition was the lack of clean performances. Today we saw eight of them. They varied in difficulty, finesse and style, but it was the most competitive event of the women’s competition. It was suspenseful, delightful and surprising. And for that I am grateful.

full results (PDF)