The owner of ArtSports World, a convicted sex offender, will no longer be coaching and plans to sell his gym. …
“I am officially in charge of everything in here. Mr. (Michael) Zapp is now out,” said Richard ‘Tex’ Womak. “That was the ultimate, it had to be done.”
Womak said since this story surfaced the group has taken a bit public relations hit but added that steps are in place to make sure this kind of situation never happens again anywhere in the country.
“I got word from USA Gymnastics that it was changing anyway and the loophole that allowed anyone with any background, negative background especially with kids, would change and it would either change by December or sooner,” said Womak. …
… TARGET 13 Investigates talked to Zapp on Sunday about his conviction. He said there was never any misconduct on his part, and suggested the claim had to do with a group of parents who owed him a lot of money.
“You don’t have to have much anymore for something like this, for any accusation, to cause you to go through this horrible experience,” said Zapp. …
Alicia Sacramone of Winchester, Mass./Brestyan’s American Gymnastics, tore her Achilles tendon yesterday during a tumbling pass at a training session. …
In Tokyo I’m still mainly following the meet online: LIVE scores, Facebook, LIVE blogs.
But Twitter is down right now. Its back. Truly an unreliable service. I wish Google would buy the company and fix their many problems. (Not likely now that they launched Google+)
ROM, VEN, CRO, POR, FIN, DEN
A few highlights:
Porgras out of beam finals. Racea and Ponor higher scores. Need to wait to see if the Romanians make Finals. It would be a first if they didn’t.
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Jessica López (VEN) UB – Hit routine. I hope 13.966 gets her into Finals. … She hit Beam, too, looking determined. Big wobble on side somi save.
Whip triple twist on Floor. Clean routine. Vault 13.566 for Yurchenko 1/1.
She finishes with 54.731. Can Jessica improve her 10th AA (56.298) from Worlds 2010?
She was playing it safe today for the team. Upgrades are planned for AA on Vault and Beam.
Quite a few double twisting flyaways today. Nice. I love that dismount. … Triple twisting flyaway should be an option for many good twisters — yet it isn’t yet in 2011.
Annica Urvikko of Finland hit Bars. Nice. Very unusual technique on Blind change skills. She arrives short of hanstand, then does a fast, late twist.
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Romanian not perfect on Beam and Floor, yet still very very good. They’ll be one of the top teams on those two apparatus.
In white, they remind me of great Romanian teams of old.
Everyone calmly hits Vault. Some good landings, too.
Overall, I’m impressed with Romania. They are good competitors. Room to improve in team finals.
But Bars … when will they improve Bars?
Two falls today: Bulimar (Shaposhnikova) and Porgras, under-rotating dismount.
Certainly Romania should address the Bars problem with their young gymnasts, bringing in a new coach.
Rule #1 — When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
… so far is: 1. Haidu ROM–56.465, 2. Porgras ROM-54.832, 3. Lopez VEN-54.731, 4. Maksiuta ISR-52.915
In bold are the scores from prelims last year:
Russia- 234.521
China- 233.778
USA- 233.643
Romania- 228.495
Romania 2011- 227.228 … Great Britain- 224.921
Australia- 224.785
Italy- 219.179
Japan- 218.895
I thought they’d be reasonably happy to get throught that — and move on. But one reliable sources says Romania is pissed.
The biggest surprise of the first session for the audience.
New Double Twisting Yurchenko today – 14,366/5.8.
But, due to errors, only scored 52,54 at her first Sr. Worlds.
Ana Sofía first started gaining attention at Youth Olympic Games (54.050):
Sofi Gomez of Guatemala snatched many gymnastics fan’s attention away from the big names last month when she steamed her way among the contenders during the qualifying rounds of the Youth Olympic Games. Here was a young, unknown gymnast from a nation not known for a gymnast qualifying sixth in the all-around and unveiling incredible skills such as a triple twist on floor and a full-twisting back somersault on beam.
Trained by Romanian coaches Adrian and Elena Boboc, Sofi works beam effortlessly and has good difficulty across all apparatus.
Sofi finished fifth in the all-around finals and, perhaps unluckily, placed fourth on her two strongest events, beam and floor. …
Personally I love the new perspectives gained. And the sloppy cameramen taken off the field of play. Marcus points out that many people would prefer a fixed camera.
They have the Vault track camera here too, following the gymnast during the run.
Check with your national federation to see if you get TV coverage from Tokyo. I’ll link to any video feeds that come online.
Tong Fei introduced the full twisting butterfly on Floor back in the 1980s. This is similar, but backwards.
It’s nice to see something interesting that’s not tumbling. In the good old days, every male gymnast had a “floor exercise” that made his routine unique.
NOTE – So far on this site, I’m projecting results for the preliminary competition. (The team final is a totally different ballgame. Let’s jump off that bridge when we get to it.)
The World Championships competition begins in about 12hrs. Podium training is finally finished.
It really calls into question the wisdom of bringing Anna Li who prepared for 2 apparatus, at most.
Instead of using Anna, USA will compete their final 5 healthy gymnasts on all 4 apparatus in team prelims.
This brings CHN, ROM and RUS decidedly closer to the Americans. But I still think USA could win the team prelims, if they hit. And avoid any further injury.
China was in the last rotation and looks unbeatable. Superb Pommels. Great P Bars. Average Rings … aside from their best two who will likely go Gold, Silver in Finals.
But I’m not a fan of their H Bar — boring at best, embarrassing at worst. The safest possible skill selection. Long Zhang Chenglong, reigning world champion, is the exception. He swings.
On vault China does no double somersault vaults. So they can land. RUS likely has the most exciting vault team — but how many will land?
JPN should finish second as a team, comfortably. They are dynamic, exciting and fun to watch.
Still I’m thinking GBR v GER v USA for 3rd place in team prelims.
Nobody else has the depth to challenge. Not Russia. Not Korea. Not France, though they did look very good today.
The team that “won” podium training, I’m pleased to say, was Canada.
The Canucks had very few errors over 6 events today with a strategy to go “clean” rather than throw every skill they can do.
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The guys all love the Floor. But rather than add difficulty, they are focused on absorbing the landings. It’s easy to bounce right out of bounds on landing. Like Russia did many times today,
Pommels is by far the strongest apparatus for men. Nearly every team has a guy who could challenge for Finals. Amazing.
I’m liking SELLATHURAI Prashanth for World Champion. He did Magyar Spindle between the pommels today. Cool.
Who’s ready to challenge the Chinese here? … Leave names in the comments.
I could see old man Jovtchev and van Gelder (now eligible for Olympics) in the Final.
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Vault will be a make-or-break event for many teams.
If you throw the 6.6 and higher vaults, will you land them?
What percentage of male gymnasts will fall on vault?
35% … 40% ??
Still, everyone wants YANG Hak Seon (KOR) to compete his new vault – Handspring Front layout 3/1 twist (7.4).
He did it only once in podium. And almost landed.
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In AA prelims I’d agree that Uchimura could fall twice. Or three times … and still finish 1st. None of the other top contenders look ready to challenge.
It’s nice to see Hambuchen, Dragalescu and Keatings back doing the AA, though.
Even Jotchov, our eldest gymnast, is doing AA, I hear.
High res photos available for purchase from fig-photos.com.
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