tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … and more
The Ukrainian trickster competing for Israel has improved her Bar dismount since the last time we saw it.
Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/MzEzNTA4Mzkw?related=1
Watch more video of World Gymnastics Championships Tokyo 2011 on gymnastike.org
She’ll be gaining gymnastics immortality when FIG names it after her.
I stayed at the competition venue today watching only WAG. Half the women’s teams were in today, the other half tomorrow including: CHN, USA & RUS. … The day after I’ll be mostly following the GUYS as they finally get into the competition venue.
Most teams use the actual podium as a chance for “mock meet”.
Most still had the alternate do full routines.
Of the teams I saw, most looked far better in the competition arena than in the training gym. It’s inspiring.
The Floor is incredibly springy. Weaker tumblers benefit. Stronger tumblers can easily compete their more difficult tumbling lines. The Men’s Floor final just might be outrageous.
As expected, the organizing committee was far more organized today. The small Japanese niceties began to arrive — including SUSHI. Domo arrigato gozaimas!
• Uzbekistan has a team of tiny girls with excellent toe point and physical ability. Looks like they are building for the future.
• Only 5 Dutch girls did Floor routines today. Floor looked their weakest event, Bars strongest. Beam was very good also. The mistakes we saw them make in the training gym yesterday had vanished today. @GymPOWER, the Dutch site, will arrive Tokyo soon.
• FIG News today started rolling out features. From the QUICK LINKS, click FIG.
~ as a sample, check out – Dutch athletes aspire to greatness
• Bart Deurloo on the Dutch men’s team cannot compete due to a hand injury. He’s been replaced by an alternate.
• Olympic triple gold medalist Zou Kai is still China’s alternate. He needs to improve Pommels and Vault. And consistency.
• the Chinese media is playing up the rivalry with Japan
• Jennifer Kwhela, the South African star, not here. THE ALL AROUND says she had surgery after injury.
But the biggest surprise of the day for me was Yamilet Peña of the Dominican Republic. She did 4 Handspring Double Front vaults in podium training, bouncing from seat to feet on the last and best one. Here’s the landing position:
(Not as terrifying as you might imagine. But still — terrifying. This is a skill where you might die if you miss just one time.)
Yamilet won Vault at the Puerto Rico Cup in July.
She obviously hopes to try for Finals as she also trained a powerful Yurchenko layout timer.
Best links for today:
• VIDEOS on Gymnastike
• LIVE blog – Examiner on Facebook
• Photos on Couch Gymnast and on Brigid’s Facebook
If any coaches or judges want to post opinions on Worlds (anonymous or not) email me:
Rick_McCharles@hotmail.com
The “important” World Championships — Olympic qualifiers.
Double Front:
… Until the competition begins, relive the all around and team finals from these pre-Olympics World Championships.
Highlight VIDEOS
Recall those meets from 1995 Sabae, 1999 Tianjin, 2003 Anaheim and 2007 Stuttgart.
In Sabae, the World Champions were Li Xiaoshuang (CHN) and Lilia Podkopayeva (UKR).
Click PLAY or watch Lilia’s Vault on YouTube. And a few more highlights.
Dwight Normile has a feature on one of the real stars of World Championships 2011, USA Champion Danell Leyva. And his stepfather coach:
… When I see coaches chewing out their gymnasts after a bad routine, I appreciate that Yin Alvarez is always there with a hug. He realizes that his gymnasts don’t mess up on purpose.
“I have my moments like everybody else, but I never go to the gymnasts when I’m mad,” Alvarez once told me. “Gymnasts want to do nothing wrong; they want to do good all the time.” …
The first time I saw Yin I was offended. His behaviour seemed unsportsmanlike.
Yet like near everyone else, I’ve been won over.
But Yin is unique. The real deal. I don’t think anyone else could get away with this.
Click PLAY or watch Yin at Danell’s first BIG routine on the World Stage.
__
Coach Howard on Gymnastics Zone:
… Many coaches are posturing during warm-ups and competition. They seem to be trying to ensure that everyone (spectators, parents and other coaches) sees them as competent, even if their gymnasts are not. They go to great lengths, use big visual coaching displays and actively interact with gymnasts, often obviously more and differently than they do at practice in the gym. They are only too aware that they are being watched and they put on a show. …
Some coaches seem to do all their coaching at the meet. Well, not really. It only seems that way. They can been seen or heard giving long lists of things for their gymnast to remember before they compete. You begin to wonder if they had forgotten to teach any of this back at the gym and have just now remembered.
Perhaps the worst are the coaches whose personal egos are so closely invested in their gymnasts that they explode in anger or some other equally inappropriate emotion. …
I’m sure you can recall coaches who live up to this awful stereotype.
read more – Gymnastics Coaching Styles… Watching and Winning
There’s not much talk in Tokyo about the American team being “weaker” after the injury to Rebecca Bross. They are so deep that the change in line-up probably only makes a difference of a couple of tenths.
Rebecca dislocated her kneecap (surgery Aug 25th), much like what happened to Christine (Peng Peng) Lee in May.
Here’s Christine a few days ago (far left), the patella still taped for safety.
Today she did full mock meet without tape. Added double layout on Floor. Landed Yurchenko 1 1/2 twist. That’s about 4 months since the injury.
Bross will be back. And soon.
Canada looked great on the competition podium today, by the way. All 7 gymnasts hit Bars, Floor and Vault (I believe). Beam … Well, you don’t want to peak too early. 🙂
related – FIG – Canada ready to soar in Tokyo
Last year Kyle Shewfelt donated $10,000 to the Right to Play charity.
Now he’s found a new needy organization — Gymnastics Canada.
Kyle:
I have decided to run the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront 5K on October 16th to raise funds for the next generation of Canadian Gymnastic Superstars!
My goal is to raise $10,000 (all of which will go towards the Canadian National Teams) and I need your help over the next 2 weeks to achieve it.
To donate, please click on the link below:
KYLE SHEWFELT SCOTIABANK TORONTO WATERFRONT 5KGood news: I give you permission to share the link with any gymnastic fans in your network 🙂
Extra good news: Online donations of $25 and over will automatically receive an official electronic tax receipt.
You might wonder why an organization listing 21 employees (full and part time) doesn’t have a National Training Centre. It seems inevitable in socialist sports government organizations that administrators in office chairs are priorized over coaches and athletes IN the gym.
The solution?
I like the American model. USAG has never received a penny of federal tax revenue. Canada needs more entrepreneurs with new ideas. People like Kyle Shewfelt.
Support his cause if you can.
Gymnastics Canada is in the midst of a quadrennial planning process. But I’m not convinced there are any BIG gains to be made via Sports Canada.
One of the most eye catching gymnasts at Worlds is 27-yr-old Vasiliki Millousi from Greece.
Wonderfully feminine. Wearing slippers, so graceful, she’s like a Rhythmic gymnast.
Click PLAY or watch her Beam from earlier this year on YouTube.
Vasiliki … was a beam finalist at the 2011 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
Sadly, she just landed lock-legged on Vault. What else? … Handspring front. I hate that landing.
She wanted to walk it off, but the coach wisely insisted she ICE. Hopefully it’s just a minor hyper-extension.
… that was one TERRIBLE vault rotation. Many of the Greek girls were spotted. Many dangerous landings.
Ready and steady on Beam and the incredibly “springy” competition Floor.
They stag leap, Sissonne or do some random flutter kick out of near every landing, forward or backward. I can’t believe FIG is going to allow this trend to continue. (Though, actually, double pike to immediate split jump does look cool.)
Lauren is #1 on Beam and Floor at this meet according to the numbers.
Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
Personally, I’d wager a Chinese gymnast will win Beam.
On the floor Peggy Liddick is large and in charge. Very much like Marta with the Americans.
Couch Gymnast is live blogging their training RIGHT NOW on Facebook.
… Update: Bars did not exactly go to Peggy’s plan. Wait ’til tomorrow.
Brigid McCarthy/The Couch Gymnast has a photo slide show on Examiner.
Don’t use those pics anywhere else without Brigid’s permission. (She’s very easy to work with.)
Gymnastics Coaching.com 