Gymnastics Coaching.com

Really, really bad news.

Stick It Media posted a rumour that Men’s Head Coach Coach Barry Weiner has retired, his Assistant Coach Aaron Floyd resigned:

We’ve been hearing rumblings about the possible demise of the Cal Men’s Gymnastics program. Even the women’s program is also presumedly on the chopping block.

In light of all the budget cuts and the state’s overall fiscal degradation, both programs’ subsidization is ruffling the tender feathers of the more militant, sports-averse members of the school’s faculty.

Apparently Cal’s athletic department racked up a $1.7 million deficit this past year and received a loan from the school’s general fund. We’ve heard that the guillotine is poised over five men’s sports programs right now, making us wonder why men’s sports are being singled out. If only it were Title IX’s ugly head on the block. …

We hear a decision about men’s and women’s gymnastics will be made next month. Elimination of Cal’s men’s gymnastics would be devastating for the team, the state, and NCAA men’s gymnastics as a whole. Locally, it would have a huge negative affect on Stanford’s program. It would leave Stanford as the only men’s Division I gymnastics program west of the Rockies. …

read more – Is Cal Men’s Gymnastics in Jeopardy?

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Kiwi buzz …

Commonwealth Games Artistic Teams named

Women’s artistic gymnastics – Holly Moon (Christchurch), Lani Hohepa (Christchurch), Jordan Rae (Counties-Manukau), Briana Mitchell (North Harbour).

Men’s artistic gymnastics – Misha Koudinov (North Harbour), Matthew Palmer (Christchurch), Patrick Peng (Auckland), Mark Holyoake (Auckland), Brandon Field (Auckland).

Congratulations and good luck.

New Zealand’s five-man artistic gymnast team is rated a chance of getting the country’s first medal in the teams event at the Commonwealth Games.

While not a traditional power, the New Zealand men have been close to team medals before, picking up fourth at Edmonton in 1978 and Auckland in 1990.

Mark Holyoake, 27, Patrick Peng, 21, and Misha Koudinov, 18, who all went to the 2006 Melbourne Games. Matt Palmer, 23, and Brandon Field, 18, are attending their first.

Most of them are based at the Tristar club in Auckland where they are coached by David Phillips, New Zealand’s only male artistic medallist at a Commonwealth Games. He picked up bronze in the floor exercise at Kuala Lumpur in 1998.

He says this team has every right to be ambitious: “We can win medals. It is the strongest team we’ve had since 1990. If you look at the statistics we’re sitting about fourth against other teams in the Commonwealth this year [Australia, England and Canada are rated stronger]. …

NZ Herald

Bigger prize money is coming in Artistic Gymnastics.

It’s about time.

… the Champions Challenge, a newly created $50,000 prize pool for senior men’s gymnastics at the 2010 Visa Championships, Aug. 10-14, at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn.

International Gymnastics Camp, based in Stroudsburg, Pa., is the first to contribute to the prize list and is the exclusive gymnastics camp associated with the Champions Challenge.

The Champions Challenge is designed to meet the ever-increasing demands of training for men’s gymnastics at the elite level, because many of the country’s top athletes are no longer in school and under NCAA regulation. They are working to support themselves while competing to represent the United States on the international stage. …. A prize list will be created for the top eligible all-around finishers and individual event champions.
…

“We want to make a positive and impactful contribution to our country’s top gymnasts,” said Brent Klaus, CEO of International Gymnastics Camp. “This type of support helps our men pursue their dreams of medaling in London in 2012. The U.S. men’s program has come a long way in the past decade, with podium finishes at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games. This is our way of contributing to that effort.” …

USA Gymnastics announces International Gymnastics Camp will sponsor ‘Champions Challenge’

Thanks IGC.

Here’s the official camp promo video for Summer 2010.

camp website – InternationalGymnastics.com

Recall Don Eckert’s best bars dismount contest?

Click PLAY or watch the winners on YouTube.

Jason Burnett has done it again. Smashed his own world record for difficulty.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… High flying Jason Burnett of Toronto lived up to his “go big or go home” philosophy at a trampoline World Cup on Saturday, breaking his own world record for degree of difficulty en route to winning the silver medal in the men’s final.

Burnett, who went into the final ranked third after Friday’s qualifications, jazzed up his optional routine with several multiple twisting moves to score a whopping 18.8 points for degree of difficulty, breaking his old mark of 18.00 set at the Pacific Rim Championships in April.

Despite his dazzling performance Burnett was nudged out of the top spot by reigning world champion Dong Dong of China who scored lower for difficulty (16.6) but was awarded more points for execution.

Dong claimed the gold with a score of 41.90 points, with Burnett a tenth of a point behind at 41.80 and Tu Xiao of China in third with 41.60 points.

“Everything went really well,” said Burnett, the silver medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“Having the world record pretty much sets me apart from the others and I think it should be safe for quite a while now. For the rest of the year, I’ll still be doing routines with a high degree of difficulty but I won’t be aiming for the record again unless I see someone getting too close.” …

Gymnastics Canada

Vanessa Zamarippa (UCLA) and Casey Jo Magee (Arkansas) competed in National Elite Qualifiers in an attempt to reach VISA Championships.

I saw that on Aunt Joyce’s new Formspring blog.

UPDATE from Shergymrag:

Vanessa made it. She got her 54 for Optionals and made the 36 for compulsories (she needed 35). It looks like she got the highest compulsory score. …

Casey didn’t make it …

At the Bieger International Gymnastics qualifier Vanessa scored 36.80 (all results PDF).

Gymnastike has details – Vanessa Zamarripa, Brandie Jay, and more Qualify for 2010 US Championships

After months of unreliability, evil Facebook seems now to be consistently putting Gymnastics Coaching posts on our Facebook page. If you use Facebook, you can click LIKE on that page and get regular updates on your own Facebook.

The LIKE button at the bottom of each post does nothing except notify others that you liked that particular content.

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Happy Birthday to gymnast and coach, both born June 12th.

1992 Olympics AA.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(link via a DIScussion in the comments)

I’d call Shannon an ectomorph with mesomorphic tendencies.