Gymnastics Coaching.com

Olympic Rhythmic gold medalist Yevgeniya Kanayeva and her team crushed the Rhythmic World Cup in Montreal.

… She swept the competition in Montreal with the All-round and 4 apparatus! On her heels, Russians Daria Kondakova, Daria Dimitrieva and Yana Lukonina; a line-up that is merely the tip of a formidable iceberg lying in wait to climb every podium there is. …

ROPE
Gold – KANAEVA Evgenia (RUS) 28.275
Silver – DIMITRIEVA Daria (RUS) 27.850
Bronze – KONDAKOVA Daria (RUS) 27.750

HOOP
Gold – KANAEVA Evgenia (RUS) 28.300
Silver – KONDAKOVA Daria (RUS) 28.125
Bronze – DIMITRIEVA Daria (RUS) 26.800

BALL
Gold – KANAEVA Evgenia (RUS 28.200
Silver – DIMITRIEVA Daria (RUS) 27.675
Bronze – LUKONINA Daria (RUS) 27.450

RIBBON
Gold – KANAEVA Evgenia (RUS) 28.650
Silver – LUKONINA Yanna (RUS) and STANIOUTA Melitina (BLR) 26.900

FIG

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

Wikipedia says she’s 1.68m (5’6″) tall and weighs 42 kg (93 lbs).

Gymbits posted an update on that Japanese robot that swings on a bar.

Uchimura watch out. Japanese robot enthusiast Hinamitetu has a mechanical competitor improving rapidly.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I saved this video to use as an example of the biomechanics of swing and release.

Long term goal of this project? A Cylon gymnast?

… The intermediate step would be a robot assisted gymnast?

(via Gymnastics Examiner)

Gymnastics Examiner posted an overview of NCAA women’s rankings, week four. It includes videos of the apparatus leaders, so far.

Gymnastike has links to even more videos from the past weekend.

http://cdn.pis.picapp.com/IamProd/PicAppPIS/JavaScript/PisV4.js

photo – Jamie Deetscreek

by site editor Rick McCharles

Every two years the Paralympics get some media attention. Sadly, hard working athletes with physical disabilities are much ignored the rest of the time.

The 2010 Winter Paralympics, officially known as the X Paralympic Winter Games, will be celebrated in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia between March 12 to March 21, 2010. …

Five sports will be on the 2010 program:

Alpine skiing
Biathlon
Cross-country skiing
Wheelchair curling
Sledge hockey

The big story of this meet I expect will be blind skier Brian McKeever, who will compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics.

Likely this is the best time to talk about opportunities for improving the plight of disabled athletes.

I’m looking for a study abroad program for my friend Barkat Ullah from Bangladesh.

A full-time gymnast who had competed internationally in Asian regional competitions, Barkat was partially paralyzed on a fluke pommel horse fall.

Today he is a University student playing able bodied table tennis, the only sport left he could do with limited lower body mobility. But he aspires to help build Paralympic sport in his fast developing nation.

If you have any advice or information that might help Barak’s cause, please leave a comment.

Everyone in the gymnastics community worldwide needs rally around any of our athletes catastrophically injured.

Although the name was originally coined as a portmanteau combining ‘paraplegic’ (due to its origins as games for people with spinal injuries) and ‘Olympic‘ the inclusion of other disability groups meant that this was no longer considered appropriate. The present formal explanation for the name is therefore that it derives from the Greek preposition ????, pará (“beside” or “alongside”) and thus refers to a competition held in parallel with the Olympic Games.

Wikipedia

Paralympics 2010 – official home page

A glimpse at the cool cops chasing hippies trampoline act in the Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show LOVE.

It’s much tougher than it looks.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Posted by Marceline Goldstein from Cirque Casting on Facebook.

Shaun White suffered a terrible crash at the Winter X Games Friday night while attempting a trick called the Double McTwist.

Then he went on to win his third straight title at the superpipe final at Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.

Click PLAY or watch the Double McTwist on YouTube.

The 2006 Olympic gold medalist pulled off his newly patented Double McTwist 1260 in the first run of the superpipe finals to score a 95.33 – 1.67 points better than Iouri Podladtchikov of Switzerland.

… White is a favorite going into the Olympics.

Philly.com

The poster boy for the X Games practiced his new trick at a secret location.

Click PLAY or watch it on GrindTV.

http://static.grindtv.com/1.2.2407/swf/video.swf?sa=1&si=1&i=45513&sct=

The pipe sits at an elevation of 12,300 feet, making it the highest pipe ever. It cost over $500k to construct and was funded by both Red Bull and Oakley. …

Shaun White’s Private Halfpipe

Polina Astakhova 1936-2005

Polina Astakhova was was a Soviet/Ukrainian gymnast who won ten medals (five gold medals, two silver medals and three bronze medals) at the Summer Olympics, where she participated as a member of the USSR team in 1956, 1960 and 1964.

She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2002.

If you show this tribute video to gymnasts today, they’ll laugh.

They’ve never known an era when adult women were World Champions. And when grace and artistry won the competition.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via The Couch Gymnast)

The first of the young, big trick gymnasts was Olga Korbut at the 1972 Olympics. She lost to the more mature traditional routines of Ludmilla Tourischeva.

Nadia and Nellie Kim ushered in the sport we know today in 1976. Young girls doing very big difficulty.

Despite a disastrous start to the season, Georgia is still ranked 9th.

As entertaining as the first 4wks of competition have been, when we get to Nationals 2010 I expect it will be the same contenders as usual.

see the full team ranking list

see the full AA list

Troy Wright has started a great discussion on Coaching Gymnastics in the new Millenium:

… The biggest thing that I would stress about FHS on floor is that I try and do about a gazillion times more front handspring step-outs than front handsprings to two feet. …

His article is supported by videos posted on Troy’s YouTube channel. Click PLAY or watch one sample on YouTube.

If you’ve got a comment, post it on the video or on New Millenium: Basics, Basics, Basics!!! Training the Front Handspring on Floor – Part I

I have a question.

Is he not worried about very flexible gymnasts doing too many “fast forward walkover” type handsprings early in the development phase? Flexible kids should be doing mostly tight flysprings, I feel.

… But I’ll post that question on the blog.

I’m still thinking UCLA will be the team to beat at Nationals. They have so much depth.

And sometime soon they’ll find a consistent line-up.

… UCLA Gymnastics team recorded season-high marks on three events and came within .05 of its season-high team total in a 196.55-193.475 victory over Arizona State on Sunday afternoon. The Bruins had nine scores of 9.9 or better and earned season-highs of 49.475 on floor and 49.35 on vault and bars.

Bruin senior Anna Li won the all-around with a 39.45 …

Bruins Near Season-High Team Score In Win Over Arizona State