Gymnastics Coaching.com

Ortona Gymnastics Club (Edmonton, AB) is now accepting applications for WAG competitive gymnastics coaches.

Full and part time availability … Benefits available to full time staff. Requirements: Women NCCP Level 2 minimum, national experience, international experience an asset. Fluent English (spoken & written) is required.

Ortona Gymnastics (780) 465-8973
businessmanager AT ortonagymnastics.com

The club’s been housed in the “Wonder Bubble” for years. But are moving in June to a shiney new facility called the Go Center.

more photos

Successful applicants are required to cheer for the woeful professional sports teams from that city.

The former Romanian Women’s National coach, dissatisfied with a lesser role, is packing up and moving to Milan.

Sounds like he will do a talent search on arrival. Start from scratch.

Click for a Google Translate gobbledygook version of the original article linked by THE ALL AROUND on Facebook.

Romania did extermely well, I thought, without Forminte at Worlds. Perhaps it is time for a fresh start.

Before seeing the new show, now playing in Amsterdam, I knew I’d love it.

At least 20 friends from Cirque told me I would, and they tend to be very critical of their own product.

TOTEM is great. Weird, but great.

Normally I go to see the acrobatics. The more flips and twists, the better.

This show does not have as much acrobatics as usual. But I still loved it. Our group, mostly women’s judges from World Championships, enjoyed a backstage tour.

Themes: evolution, physics, indigenous peoples … Totem has plenty of monkeys. … I assume that’s Darwin juggling flourescent balls in the big plexiglass cone. (Why didn’t I think of that act! I’d be rich.)

The hoop dancer, Nakotah LaRance, is fantastic. He does a traditional act straight up. It’s awesome.

In another act, First Nations peoples are on roller skates! … And it’s intensely sensual. Only Cirque would conceive something like this.

Sometimes the shocking costumes are a distraction. But they really work well in this show.

Not shown there is the best of all, the Crystal Man, a human disco ball. That suit has 4,500 mirrors, costing $15,000. And they have 3 back stage!

The music is wonderful: Bollywood, First Nations drumming, ambient, world beat, didgeridoo, throat singing, even flamenco.

As in all the new shows, the computerized lighting effects are critical. Click PLAY to watch a feature on how they were created.

Robert Lepage created this show, a mad genius. I never attempt to decipher the plot lines of Cirque shows. Better to let it wash over you.

Click PLAY or watch Lepage on YouTube.

Last shout out. Everyone loves one comic character, an oddball Italian tourist. (Or something.) That guy is hilarious, perhaps my favourite Cirque clown yet.

If you get the chance, see it. TOTEM is an astonishingly mature show for one so new. I doubt they’ll tinker with it much. It works.

Disclosure: Cirque du Soleil paid for my ticket. But I rave about their shows even when I’m buying. The disclosure is that I love CdS. I’m a bloody fan boy. You can’t trust my opinion.

Several good people commented to clarify the 0.1 additional penalty on vault in Finals.

… “close to the corridor line” …

Vague wording. Did judges apply that penalty consistently in Rotterdam?

I don’t think so.

Here’s Nabieva’s landing on the second vault. One foot on the line:

If anything, Mustafina was even more one foot on the line on her second vault:

Those two screen grabs come from this video.

Leave a comment if you were watching for this “penalty”.

We’re clear now that both girls had their second vaults devalued for “lack of stretch”. The clarification in the May edition of the WAG Helpdesk was wrong.

In the thrilling second last routine at the World Championships in Rotterdam, Epke Zonderland went all out to win GOLD in his home nation. He added the Gaylord 2, a skill named after 1984 Olympian Mitch Gaylord (VIDEO).

Or did he?

Geoffrey Taucer of the Apex Technical Corner blog points out that the skill must be done with straight legs for the E value.

Epke did it in the tucked position.

Click PLAY or watch the mad Dutchman again. on YouTube.

Leave a comment if you can confirm. And we still need a judges breakdown of the gold medal routine from Zhang Chenglong, the only Chinese highbar routine I’ve liked since Tong Fei.

_______

UPDATE: Wsvanwijk sends a link to a Code update from FIG (PDF) dated March 2008 referring to the Gaylord 2 in tucked position as being an E, same value as in piked position.

That’s odd. I’ll send off this post to a couple of FIG judges to see if they can confirm.

One FIG judge got back to me. Definitely a D-part, he tells.

The important World Championships, qualifying to Olympics 2012.

Tokyo, in October.

This will be a huge event there, Uchimura planning to become the first gymnast to win 3 World Championships in series.

The official website, just launched, has a very cool video, if you can get it to load. Appropriately, the finale is Uchimura sticking Vault. His trademark.

Leave a comment if you have exact dates. The website is carefully vague. … Oct. 8-16th, has been posted in a couple of places.

(via Full Twist and Amy, still trying to decide on a name for her tumblr site)

I’m liking Rebecca more and more for London.

She’s got the coaching. She’s tough as nails.

The timing might be just right. Setbacks now could help peak for Worlds 2011 and the Olympics.

That photo by Grace Chiu from an excellent Inside Gymnastics photo spread.

… For some reason I’m not feeling so confident about Mustafina. There’s a long time between now and the Olympics. Perhaps she peaked too soon.

related – Andy Thornton – … a different story behind every medal

I read he kissed the Ring frame after scoring 15.900 to beat his second-placed teammate, Yan’s 15.700.

http://view.picapp.com//JavaScripts/OTIjs.js

Amy on The All Around:

… He Kexin’s floor routine from team qualifications is a delight to watch! I am shocked! I knew the girl could swing bars but I had no idea she was any real use on the other events. But sure enough, she went up in qualifications and delivered a very clean routine! …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

In training she seemed to do far less on Floor than the other girls. I was thinking she was “reserve” for Team China on this apparatus.

Not. China can use this routine. Nice.

Money.

For most of my lifetime the best gymnasts were from the Soviet Union. The best coaches. … Then the collapse of the Soviet Union. And the diaspora of Soviet coaches around the world.

Rodionenko, for example, went to Western Australia. Then Canada. Then was convinced to return home, to help rebuild the Russian gymnastics program.

… I’m thinking Andrei is happy this one is over.

He hired back Alexander Alexandrov as Women’s National Coach. Here’s a very interesting interview from the past.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It worked. The Russian women are World Champions in 2010, the team to beat for London.

And the Men are fast on the rise. They might have been on the podium this year if not for the tragic death of Yuri Ryazanov after Worlds 2009.

via @LHgymnastics Liriel Higa