Simon Porter wins Canada Games

Simon:

… “Competition was really good. I hit 6 for 6 routines today,” said Porter.

“I held all my strengths on rings and I nailed almost all my landings on floor.”

When asked how the flu virus, that assailed both he and his Ontario team-mates, affected his performances, Porter said: “It took away a little bit of bounce in my skills but my head space was pretty good. …

CWG blog

International Gymnast:

In Wednesday’s men’s finals, Simon Porter (Toronto Gymnastics International) took the gold medal with a 2.25-point margin of victory. Porter was the 2008 Canadian novice champion.

Kal Nemier won the silver for British Columbia. Nemier is coached by Romanian-born Vali Stan at Flicka Gymnastics.

Mathieu Csukassy, a member of Quebec’s gold medal-winning team from Monday, won the bronze. …

All three men’s medalists are 17.

“Gymnastics to me is the best thing out there,” all-around champion Porter said in his Canada Games official biography. “It has taught me the value of respect and in working hard for your goals and to never get down on your self if you fall short of them. Also chicks dig back flips.” …

read more on IG

full results

I can beat Kohei Uchimura

Why didn’t anyone name me in the latest Discussion – Challenging Kohei

More than any gymnast of the past decade, Japan’s Kohei Uchimura has mastered both the technical and artistic sides of the sport. …

… could there be someone out there who might upstage him this year?

Continue reading on Examiner.com: The Discussion: Challenging Kohei

Click PLAY or watch his Kovacs + salto in training on YouTube.

If someone gets close, Kohei’s got upgrades on many apparatus to add, if he needs. And he seems to be able to do anything in competition, when he tries.

More likely Kohei will be able to emulate 2008 Olympic champion Yang Wei, … only do as much as he needs to win.

Cal Men’s Gymnastics … response

Dave sends this message sent to Cal Gymnastics Forever supporters …

“If you have not already heard, Cal Men’s Gymnastics & Baseball were not reinstated.

Women’s gymnastics, lacrosse and men’s rugby were reinstated.

I am just as disappointed as you are all. I have been in contact with the heads of the baseball fundraising effort and they are just as committed as ever to keep fighting this and gymnastics is as well. So I ask all of you to please keep the faith and that we are not done fighting this by any means.

Our strongest weapon right now is to keep the media pressure on and to keep raising money via pledges. We will be working side by side with Save Cal Sports so please email the following people with why you want be sending them money until all 5 sports are reinstated.

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau- chancellor@berkeley.edu

Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary- frankyeary@berkeley.edu

Athletic Director Sandy Barbour – athletic.director@berkeley.edu

Cal Gymnastics Forever

And a link to the Cal women’s response by Head Coach Cari DuBois.

I was copied the email that went to Cal Gymnastics Alumni from legendary coach Hal Frey:

To all gymnastics enthusiasts I want you to know that I and a few other individuals are very involved in trying to reverse this cruel act by our Chancellor and A.D. Sandy Barbour. I will try to give you a synopsis on what happened and what may happen:

1. the rules of the game originally was that all five sports would raise a certain amount of money or all five sports would be dropped

2. The money was to put in a pool and shared in the fund raising.

3. Each sport was to raise money with their sport fans, followers, parents, etc.

4. Our Gymnastics supporters pledged over $900.000 and more pledges still filtering in

5. The sports that survived (Rugby and women Gymnastics and Lacrosse did not do a good job of fundraising but somehow they were bolstered by Rugby who seemed to have money from previous fund raising drives. In exchange they received Title Nine benefits and were reinstated.

6. I would recommend hanging tight on pledges and do not give up on our status. Baseball is very angry and seeking every avenue to be reinstated. They know that the campus is viewing their field and if dropped it will be snapped up .

7. Doing our best with the current Gymnastics team would be the ultimate rebuttal to what Sandy Barbour has done.

8. We have a fine team and they work hard and deserve our support and they are improving with each meet.

9. I was hoping for a one win over Stanford and we already have two wins over them. WE need at least one more.

10. you can write to any of our local newspapers expressing your dissatisfaction with the change of plan at the last minute on the five programs being divided and ignoring the original plan for fundraising and reinstatement …

I am A little Sad now but hope to cheer up for better days!

The fight goes on.

Which school will be next to face elimination?

Cal is only one battle in the bigger war that Men’s Collegiate Gymnastics is losing.

Jiang Yuyuan at Wild Rose

Contrary to what I linked to earlier, here’s the confirmed list of competitors coming to Wild Rose in Edmonton, March 17-20th, 2011.

Michel Arsenault:

Jiang Yuyuan, Huang Huidan, Shang Chunsong

Jiang must have enjoyed Edmonton last year. She’s returning.

Click PLAY or watch her 2010 Bars on YouTube.

… In 2010, she replaced Cheng Fei as the captain of the Chinese national team (Due to Fei’s leg injury).

She is the silver medallist in the all-around competition at the 2010 World Championships, which is the highest position for Chinese women ever placed in all-around competition at World Championships. …

The rest of the international girls are yet to be confirmed.

Chad Wiest – Floor NCAA

Gymnastike links to the Men’s Artistic NCAA Gymnastics Rankings.

The nice thing about seeing them there is links to routine videos. Like this one.

Illinois (Chad Wiest) 1st, 16.0
2011 Windy City Invite: NCAA Session

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/embed/NzYyNDIxODkz

Watch more video of 2011 Windy City Invite: NCAA Session on gymnastike.org

I’m still waiting on official reaction from the Cal-Berkeley Men’s team and Cal Gymnastics Forever after the announcement Friday that they will be cut next season. Leave a comment if you’ve seen anything.

Canada Winter Games MAG

The best story out of the Canada Winter Games men’s competition, so far, was the medals battle in the team competition between BC, Ontario and Québec:

… With one competitor remaining on each apparatus, it was too close to call between the three provinces. …

Québec was victorious, mainly due to a superb performance on Vault.

It’s been many years since Québec was the team to beat in Canada.

… The end of this drought is something Jeff Thomson, men’s program director at Gymnastics Canada, believes is very positive for the sport and for the province of Québec: “Québec has a long and proud history of producing some of Canada’s best male gymnasts. It’s wonderful to once again see the province rising to the top of the podium.”

The gold winning team members from Québec are: Mathieu Csukassy, David Boucher, Samuel Paquin, Julien Samson, Jean Begin-Rainville, Matthew Halickman and Cedric Marcil. They are coached by Martin Bordeleau and Denis Privé. …

The end of a sixteen year drought for Québec in men’s gymnastics

The all-around competition goes today.
_____

Shout out to Curtis Graves from Taiso. On his birthday he carried in the flag for the entire Saskatchewan delegation.

Grace Chui linked to that photo. Thanks once again, Grace.

updated list of Gymnastics blogs

GymNiceTic is keeping a list of active blogs on the WWW. And has just added more including this one, a club blog edited by a friend of mine, Crystal.

Check them out via GymNiceTic – New Gymnastics Blogs

I’ll update my list of BLOGS in the right hand navigation.

gymnastics – History of Pommels

In the early 19th century, when Jahn, regarded as the father of gymnastics, was alive, there were three different kinds of horses on the Hasenheide in Berlin: One very close to reality with a head and a tail …


This type of horse was still used at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was only 180cm long. Gymnasts already competed swinging elements on the neck as well as the rump. …

photo – Germany circa 1900

read more

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

we miss you Fabian

This video has been making the rounds, Fabian Hambuechen tumblng triple tuck … before his Achilles injury, obviously.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Jayd Lukenchuk’s is even better. But I’m not sure you’ll be able to watch the video on Facebook unless you are Friends.

Here’s one more Fabian vid.

top 8 gymnasts at CWGs

Sabrina Gill very nearly scratched the competition due to an inflamed throat.

Hopefully she’ll feel better in time for Apparatus Finals.

Top 8 all around finishers with mascot dogs Sammi and Anni

From Facebook: 2011 Canada Games by Grace Chiu GraceClick