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Without any doubt, the parallel bars are an invention of Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who put up three trestles in his “Hasenheide” in Berlin …

Initially, the parallel bars were set in the ground. About 30cm under the ground they were fixed with a wooden plank …

Gymnastics at parallel bars were also part of the Olympic Games in Athens 1896.

The German Alfred Flatow is the first Olympic Champion on bars …

In Helsinki in 1952, there were still a lot of broken poles (at the uneven bars as well); only in the mid 1950ies the German Richard Reuther presented “multipurpose parallel bars”. …

… read more

Each Wednesday we are linking to a different apparatus posted on GymMEDIA – Apparatus HISTORY. (English and German)

Kyle Shewfelt has announced the tentative line-up at his inaugural competition March 25th.

Friday night’s Men’s Artistic competition will be an important international meet. Canada competes against the GOLD (China) and BRONZE (USA) medal nations from the Beijing Olympics.

USA
1. Dylan Akers
2. Andrew Elkind
3. Tyler Mizoguchi
4. Jesse Silverstein

CHINA
1. Lu Bo
2. Tong Yingjie
3. Liu Rongbing
4. Wu Guanhua

CANADA
1. Nathan Gafuik
2. Jayd Lukenchuk
3. Anderson Loren
4. Brandon O’Neill
5. Jackson Payne

Marco Mayr (Austria)

details on Kyle Shewfelt Gym Fest

The following night the Chinese women compete at Wild Rose, 3rs away in Edmonton. (warm-ups at 5:15pm)

A real fan could catch both international meets the same weekend. 🙂

Justin Caouette brings us the second part of his series on the most watched routines on Youtube. …

Click PLAY or watch Nadia on YouTube.

Isn’t it nice to see a continually moving routine?

see the rest on Couch Gymnast – The most watched routines: Beam

I can’t think of anyone online who complained more vociferously than I in the past about the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup events.

They’ve been lousy for decades, despite those years when Hardy Fink and the Men’s Technical Committee tried in vain to make improvements.

So when the first in the latest revamp – American Cup 2011 – was interesting and entertaining, I want to be positive.

Let’s give it a fair shot.

… That how I felt until I read Nora’s post on THE ALL AROUND – Editorial: FIG Masters Time Travel

We’ve got problems.

Brigid, the Couch Gymnast, visited the Victorian Women’s High Performance Centre for an Open House to raise funds for the Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation.

She posted some nice pics.

see more on Couch Gymnast

Spanny did a great job of analysis. Thanks.

Click each image for a larger version.

Execution score = 9.333

Execution score = 9.066

See more photo magic like this on Big Fake Smile.

So … lady judges. How do you defend the panel that only differentiated these vaults by 0.267 ??

Shame shame.

That Vault is worth 0.7 more than a double twisting Yurchenko.

There’s no way anyone can claim that Execution is as important as Difficulty on Vault in 2011.

Full results of the American Cup.

I coached one season at the Christchurch School of Gymnastics in New Zealand.

It’s part of the QEII sport complex which has been condemned.

Avril Enslow:

… the gym is also badly damaged about $500,000 worth.

We hope to get back in after some remedial work next week. Some clubs in
NZ are rallying to support us.

If you’ve not seen the damage done, click PLAY or watch a tribute on YouTube set to Bruce Springstein’s City of Ruins.

(via TWNZ)

Good luck to everyone there. After suffering thousands of after shocks, I don’t know how they sleep through the night.

Reportedly the Russians were furious that Jordyn had been added to the roster, last minute.

We had no idea why she was invited. Here’s why …

LAUSANNE (SUI), FIG Office, March 7, 2011: The FIG Executive Committee has decided to make the following changes and amendments in the 2011 Rules for the FIG World Cup Competitions and Series:

… At World Cup competitions (A Category, C-II and C-III), once the draw has been conducted*, in case of gymnasts’ withdrawal or in case places remain “empty”, the Organising Member Federation is entitled to nominate gymnast(s) from their country or a country of their choice to fill those ’empty’ places.

That was the first I’d heard of the decision.

… To be honest, they seem to be making this up as they go along.

The rule change has effectively been made after the fact to enable Jordyn Wieber to compete at the American Cup and, it seems, to accumulate points towards a World Cup title. …

Commentary from Rewriting Russian Gymnastics – FIG changes World Cup points rules retrospectively

An update from USAG helps explain the confusion:

The decision concerning alternates for competition was made prior to the AT&T American Cup by the FIG at the Executive Committee Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. USA Gymnastics was notified about the decision on Feb. 25.

We are unclear why the FIG release was only delivered today, but the decision was not made retroactively.

… What’s the alternative for FIG?

Fly in an alternate in case of injury to one of the 8 gymnasts? (They’ve done this in the past.)

To be fair, this was the most exciting and interesting American Cup for years. So far I’m quite keen on the new World Cup format, … though the top gymnasts may burn out if they attend every meet they are invited.

Andy Thornton is quite positive, as well:

… Controversy. From last minute American entries, to last minute rearrangements of the standings, to continued judging debates and criticisms of the current code of points, I don’t think I had a single conversation in Jacksonville during which talk of some controversy didn’t surface. For once, I can’t say I had a strong opinion on most of these issues.

In a gymnastics world that’s starving for great all-arounders, I felt that Wieber and Jake Dalton added so much to the strength and drama of the competition that I couldn’t view their late additions as anything but a huge positive. And although I have some serious issues with execution scores in the event’s judging, I actually found the judging to be about as fair as I’ve seen in the last few years. …

universalsports.com

… but make no mistake about it – Aliya Mustafina doesn’t plan on losing to Jordyn Wieber ever again. …

Marcus and others have convinced me that Jordyn is the legitimate winner of this competition, no matter how poorly you judge execution. She was also better prepared than Aliya. And better coached.

No SCAm.

Roll Tide.

Alabama moves up to #2 in the NCAA Women’s Team rankings.

Congratulations to Sharaya Musser from Penn State who’s now #1 in the All-around.

… The real drama over the next two weekends will be for the teams jockeying for the Top 12, 18 and 36 spot. Because the teams are seeded by rank into the post-season, these “break points” are critical.

The top 36 qualify for the Regional meet, and several teams are battling for the top spots.

For the Top 18, the Regional seeding format assigns teams according to a specific protocol. The remaining 18 are assigned primarily by geographical proximity. Certain Regionals are nevertheless considered “tough” Regionals, and this assignment could impact the chances of a team to make the National meet. …

College Gym Fans

TP detailed the The Obvious Decline of Quality in modern women’s Artistic Gymnastics.

That’s a fact.

My pick as best gymnast at the 2004 Olympics, Courtney McCool, had virtually perfect form, even on 2 1/2 twist.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… There looks to be a slight crossing on 3/1 twist.

By 2008, after the introduction, of Grandi’s open ended code, here’s our Olympic Champion.

And here’s the 2010 World Champion.

Taller gymnasts like these two often rely on more twisting than somersaulting elements. It’s difficult to keep the feet together past double twist. And there may even be a slight biomechanical advantage in both the scissoring action and increasing rotation.

That said, both Nastia and Aliya are gorgeous and virtuous on most elements they compete. You can only deduct so much for this form error.

(via It’s About Artistic Gymnastics)

____

Update. There are some interesting comments on this post.

The feet are crossed partly as a result of the ‘torque’ takeoff. The same thing happens in figure skating.

But in Artistic gymnastics we’ve always deducted that as an ‘error’, not called it a ‘technique’.

Personally, I’d rather continue to discourage crossed feet with deduction. If we allow it, we’ll likely increase the number and severity of landing injuries.