Gymnastics Coaching.com

This is another of those insane Japanese reality TV shows.

Click PLAY to watch Naoki Iketani clear 21 levels in 2009 on YouTube.

Couch Gymnast posted a link to a women’s 2005 competition filmed in Athens featuring Svetlana Khorkina, Anna Pavolova and others.

It’s not on TV where I’m at. Too bad.

This episode I really wanted to see.

After being allowed back on the U.S. National Team, the girls head to France where everything is left on the mat in order to get one step closer to achieving their dream. With cockiness, jealousy, sabotage and self-doubt at an all-time high, as well as Ellen Beals constantly looming over the girls, the pressure is almost too much to bear. …

(via Just Jared)

Fueled by Subway and Nastia Liukin?

Rest in peace.

Suddenly at home, in his 59th year, on Tuesday, June 29, 2010.

Loving husband of Doina, and proud father of Diana and Larissa.

Nick and Doina founded the Hamilton Mountain Gymnastics Center in 1985 after moving to Canada from Romania. …

obituary

If you know NIck you can leave a note of condolence here.

This is Ariel on holidays in B.C.

… dedicated to the talented Ukrainian Artistic Gymnast Krystina!

Krystina is the All Around Silver Medallist of the 2010 Nadia Comaneci International Invitational. She is also the two-time Bronze medallist at the 2010 CIS and Baltic States Junior Championships in the All Around, and Floor Exercise! Krystina has also competed at the 2010 WOGA Classic and at the 2010 European Championship. …

official website

Formerly I said that Artistic gymnasts were the fittest female athletes.

No more. In 2010 the top CrossFit women are more “fit” than the best Artistic girls.

That’s quite new.

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning fitness methodology that promotes broad and general overall physical fitness. CrossFit combines weightlifting, sprinting, and gymnastics. CrossFit says that proficiency is required in each of ten fitness domains: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy. …

Gymnastics coach and judge Jeff MacRae took me to a regular CrossFit workout at his gym in Charlottetown, PEI.

Conveniently, CrossFit PEI is located right beside his gymnastics club.

Jeff’s only recently taken up the sport yet qualified to National Championships for the first time in 2010. (Inconveniently Crossfit Nationals conflicted with Artistic Gymnastics Nationals.)

Jeff is certified as a “gymnastics expert” in Crossfit. Indeed he’s scheduled to teach several “gymnastics” workshops across Atlantic Canada.

Crossfit is booming. If you’ve not yet checked it out yourself, stop by your local club. My preconceptions that it would be dangerous, participants using bad technique, turned out to be unfounded. Jeff cannot recall a serious injury at his program over the past 2yrs.

Inspiring.

It’s great to see Nakayama again, my boyhood hero.

A couple of the choices are surprising. Dityatin and Bilozerchev would be the first to tell you that Ring strength was their greatest weakness.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (10min)

(via the Gymnastic Bodies blog – Lords of the Rings)

Andy Thorton:

As you may know, a “Ri Jong Song” is a triple twisting double back on floor (named for the Korean who competed it in Athens in 2004). There have been a very small handful of other gymnasts who have competed or at least done this skill on the real floor…Justin Spring and Kohei Uchimura to name a couple.

Want to see it stuck perfectly in competition? Germany’s Marcel Nguyen did just that in the all-around competition of the Japan Cup this weekend. This video shows four of his routines, but his floor routine starts right at 3:00. …

Click PLAY or watch Marcel Nguyen PB, HB, FX, PH 2010 Japan Cup on YouTube. Or you can jump directly to Floor by clicking here.

Andy Thornton – American Gymnast – Smooth Skills…Incredible STUCK tumbling pass!

Russia dominated the competition in Japan last weekend. The talk of the meet, however, was this new skill.

You could call it a “layout Ray Church“.

I’m going to call it a Nabieva. Awesome.

It’s at 6min 20sec on this YouTube clip from Japanese TV. Or you can jump directly to that skill here.

… What a shame she didn’t Pak out.

Couch Gymnast:

Remember cute little Hannah Whelan? She was the tiny little thing in the British Beijing Olympic Team, who then kind of disappeared off the International elite scene?

Well, it seem the gymnast, who trains at Liverpoool under Sarah Attwell has been nursing a wrist inury for the last while. She is all grown up and, it seems, she is back and in form, as she has taken the senior AA title at the British National Championships (57.800), followed by Nicole Hibbert (55.80) and then, in third place was Danusia Francis (55.350). …

Hannah said: “ I’m really, really happy! I didn’t have any aims or expectations coming into the competition. So to then go out and win is just incredible. I’ve had injury problems so to then return and become British Champion is fantastic.”

According to the British Gymnastics website via Couch Gymnast

Beth Tweddle competed only bars, easily winning.

Sisters Venus and Angel Romaeo are names to remember.

JUNIOR ALL-AROUND
1. Laura Mitchell 54.300
2. Rebecca Tunney 53.900
3. Venus Romaeo 53.200

results and details on IG – Whelan, Mitchell Win British Championships