Gymnastics Coaching.com

Rings.

I’m telling you. This is a new era.

China was almost 2 points ahead of Germany and the rest on that apparatus.

They won P Bars by only about 0.1 and finished 6th on Pommels as a team.

Chen Yibing’s 16.00 on Rings was my favourite routine on all apparatus in the competition. I’ll post video when it comes online. (Horton had the 2nd highest score, 15.50)

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He’s number 1.

GREAT SHOW at the Men’s World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam. They guys were even better, overall, than they were in qualifying.

Fantastic gymnastics.

Last rotation Japan trailed China by about 0.8 going into Horizontal Bar. I thought might overtake, having no faith in China on pipe.

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Didn’t happen. … The first Japanese, Tanaka, came off on a pirouette. Uchimura missed a connection out of Tak full (falling the wrong way without a form break, then NAILING the routine and STICKING the dismount). … A God even when he makes a mistake.

Congratulations to team China. All hail!

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… The USA could not make up for their weak Pommels. (Somebody phone Artemev and tell him to train harder. His country needs him.)

The happiest guys in the gym are TEAM GERMANY. Dancing and singing. … They were only ranked 5th in the IG preview post.

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International Gymnast Magazine

FINAL RESULTS – top three repeat from 2007:

1. China 274.497 GOLD
2. Japan 273.769 SILVER
3. Germany 271.252 BRONZE
4. U.S. 268.012
5. France 263.468
6. Russia 263.170
7. Great Britain 261.103
8. Korea

… Now the Germans–Well what can I say–They just really wanted this. Everyone had pretty much counted them out with the injuries to Nyugen and Hambuechen. I guess we won’t do that again!

See the FALLS from Team Finals.

Click PLAY or watch China on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Russia on YouTube.

(via About.com Gymnastics) … more videos linked from that page.

In 2010 to make the Vault final you need two 7.0 value vaults. And have good landings on both.

Click PLAY or watch the 2010 European Champion from France qualify on YouTube.

My proposal is to improve the landing mats to those used by FIG in Double Mini-tramp competition. If that happened, they would need to be adopted across both WAG and MAG.

Here’s the routine I felt was WAY overscored to qualify home boy Epke Zonderland to the H Bar final. If this meet wasn’t hosted in Netherlands, there would have been a dozen routines rank higher.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The only team not to fall during finals was Romania. Congratulations.

They looked great. Crisis, what crisis?

Beatrice Gheorghisor is here in Rotterdam. She posted a summary on the girls in white:

… So the Romanians had a quite ok final, there were some mistakes here and there, but that’s what happens during contests :).

As a friend of mine used to say, with one or two Amanars and one more Ana Porgras in the team – things will be much better. But that just means that there is a lot of work to do. Tokyo 2011 will be a different story. We will not be satisfied with 4th place then. …

read more – Gymnastics – No Ceiling

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Ana is still my #1 pick for the Longines Award. My #2 is the pixie Russian, Dementyeva. LOVE this girl’s personality.

Just after the triumph of the Russian Women’s team last night, comes this bad news:

… coach Boris Pilkin, mastermind behind the career of three-time world champion Svetlana Khorkina, died Thursday in Belgorod. He was 82.

“It’s terrible,” Khorkina told Russian media Thursday. “It’s an untimely loss of this decent and good man.”

read more on International Gymnast

… with the help of her lifelong coach Boris Pilkin, she created new moves to accommodate her height and exploit her strengths. She has an unprecedented 8 moves named after her in the Artistic Gymnastics Code of Points. …

In Rotterdam we are prepping for the Men. I’d say any of the top 6 teams could medal. It’s all about who can HIT under pressure. If they all HIT, it will go CHN, JPN and … USA or Russia.

Rotation 1 (of 6) begins with:

Floor – China & Japan
Pommel – USA & Great Britain
Rings – Russia & Germany
Vault – Korea & France

Full Twist

… AND, if there was a Gymnastics God, we’d have 12 Men’s Teams in Finals, and 8 Women’s Teams. … There are more than twice as many strong mens nations as womens, worldwide.

Click PLAY or watch the FIG preview on YouTube.

Here’s the lineup … released by USA Gymnastics yesterday:

Floor Exercise: Brandon Wynn, Jonathan Horton, Steven Legendre
Pommel Horse: Danell Leyva, Chris Brooks, Chris Cameron
Rings: Chris Cameron, Jonathan Horton, Brandon Wynn
Vault: Chris Brooks, Jonathan Horton, Steven Legendre
Parallel Bars: Chris Brooks, Jonathan Horton, Danell Leyva
High Bar: Chris Brooks, Jonathan Horton, Danell Leyva

Gymnastics Examiner

As to my concern whether the too frequent phone calls to judges benefited Russia:

WTC beam supervisor Lyubov Andrianova was on the phone a lot to the D panel judges. But conspiracy theorists might be disappointed. None of the Russians’ beam scores were raised. In fact, two of them were lowered: Mustafina’s from 6.2 to 6.1 and Dementyeva’s from 5.9 to 5.7. Deng Linlin’s D score went down four tenths (6.5 to 6.1) whereas Jiang Yuyuan’s went from 6.2 to 6.0 and back up to 6.2 again before being made official. …

THE ALL AROUND – Notes from Rotterdam, WAG Team Final

From that same post:

… Leaving out the front layout after her 2 ½ twist proved to be … costly for (Mattie) Larson, and probably cost her team the gold. The missing salto resulted in her missing two requirements – the routine had no acro line with two different saltos pass and no front or side salto. She was initially awarded a 5.1 D score, which was lowered to 4.6  …

Finally, check Brigid’s commentary from on the floor of the photo pit last night. Some unique insights, including this one:

…

While Wu Jiani was practical and nervous, either pacing or doing what she could for the girls in terms off massages and finding what they needed, it was Mihai who took the helm with confidence and authority, telling each girl what she needed to hear when the time came. But it was with Alicia and Aly he was most tender, holding Aly by the shoulders with his big bear hands as he told her how great she had been, or giving Alicia what she needed, which was most often, keeping her emotions and power check.

After a nervous vault warm-up, he spoke as she waited like a raging bull at the end of the runway, “Don’t throw yourself at it- just hit it and it will come!” She nodded and did exactly what he said. And exactly what he said happened. And she walked away, nearly in tears from the emotional release, once again bearing the weight of seniority and the knowledge that it was to late. As she was enveloped by her team mates, he turned to her with a pointed fingers and a snarl, “And no tears, we won’t have any tears!”

“Okay,” She shot back with a glare, but did exactly what she was told and instead the team joined together in an embrace. Then he told them, …

“Okay, we pray now.” …

read more and check out her photos on Couch Gymnast.

It was strange not to see Valeri on the Floor with the girls. He’ll be there for the AA Final, I assume.

Here’s the SAVE on Beam. Front pike.

Wow.

All 3 American girls fought to stay on. Respect. … This is why little girls need to fight to stay on Beam in training, from a young age.