Bar – Introducing Gienger

OHG Head Coach Jeff Beal shows a drill he uses to teach his girls the positioning in gienger release moves on bars.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

related posts:

• gymnastics drill – flyaway to land on the bar

• gymnastics progressions – Geinger

best trampoline shoes?

Venturelli was the shoe worn by Kyle Shewfelt when he won Gold on Floor in Athens. That company sponsored the Canadian Olympic Team.

I’m hearing that Venturelli is no longer making the Sprung Trampoline Shoe.

(It’s still listed on Bermo Sport, a distributor.)

That’s a problem for the athletes that have grown to depend on the Sprung.

What other shoe would be an alternative? Leave a comment if you have suggestions.

best gymnastics pit foam?

by site editor Rick McCharles

I’m putting together a proposal for a foam cube pit renovation.

So far I’m leaning towards recommending:

8” X 8” X 8” Gymnastic Pit Foam R48 XB Fire Rated 1.5LB Density

Or should we get a combination of 6 and 8 inch cubes?

Is 1.5 pound density the best pick?

What spec lasts the longest before deteriorating?

If you’ve got advice for us, please leave a comment.

top gymnasts on each apparatus

A small statistical analysis from IG forum posted by spezi3. In brackets are the number of mentions of each athlete on that site vis-a-vis each apparatus.

VAULT
1. Cheng Fei (21)
2. Yelena Zamolodchikova (18)
3. Yelena Produnova (17)
4. Mo Huilan (14)
5. Oksana Chusovitina (12)
6. Monica Rosu (12)
7. Alicia Sacramone (10)
8. Simona Amanar (10)
9. Vanessa Atler (9)
10. Shannon Miller (9)

Blythe Lawrence said, “If I had to choose a female gymnast of the decade, Cheng would be it.” I’d agree.

2005 American Cup

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

BARS
1. Svetlana Khorkhina (18)
2. He Kexin (17)
3. Ma Yanhong (13)
4. Lu Li (13)
5. Nadia Comaneci (12)
6. Kim Gwang Suk (12)
7. Mo Huilan (11)
8. Olga Korbut (9)
9. Beth Tweddle (9)
10. Nastia Luikin (8)

Bars had a very nice mix of gymnasts from different eras. There were gymnasts from the ’70s all the way up to 2009 in the top 10.

Svetlana Chorkina

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

BEAM
1. Yang Bo (21) – video
2. Tatiana Lysenko (14)
3. Olga Mostepanova (10)
4. Kui Yuanyuan (10)
5. Oksana Omelianchik (10)
6. Shannon Miller (10)
7. Nastia Luikin (10)
8. Aurelia Dobre (9)
9. Li Li (9)
10. Mo Huilan (9)
11. Catalina Ponor (9)

The results show that after 20 years, Yang Bo’s beam work is timeless. There was the biggest difference between the number of votes between 1st and 2nd place on any of the events.

Bo Yang

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

FLOOR
1. Oksana Omelianchik (14)
2. Anna Pavlova (13)
3. Daniela Silivas (12)
4. Svetlana Boginskaya (10)
5. Irina Baraksanova (9)
6. Lilia Podkopayeva (9)
7. Cheng Fei (8)
8. Natalia Frolova (7)
9. Shawn Johnson (7)
10. Henrietta Onodi (6)
11. Olga Strazheva (6)
12. Yelena Zamolodchikova (6)
13. Svetlana Khorkhina (6)
14. Andreea Raducan (6)
15. Yelena Produnova (6)

There was a 6-way for 10th place. Floor had a real mix of artistic and power gymnasts.

to read commentary, or to comment, click through to IG forum – Top 10 Per Event Analysis

Ha. Oksana Omelianchik, one of the weakest tumblers ever put on the Floor by the old Soviet Union, is #1 on Floor.

I was there in 1985 when she was co-World Champion with Shushanova. This routine was shocking and revolutionary in many ways at that time. The talk of the competition.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

gymnastics routine of the week

Great idea. Gymnastike is going to post an NCAA routine of the week, each week.

Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs of UCLA, … With this routine, Elyse is tied with Courtney McCool for the highest floor routine score in the NCAA after week 1 with a 9.925.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

A real crowd pleaser. This is much stronger than McCool’s.

Elyse is a member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic team and placed 16th in the Olympic All-Around. … She was the first Canadian woman ever to win a World Championship medal when she placed third on beam at the 2006 Worlds in Denmark.

Andrew Thornton links to Elyse’s Olympic routine (video) from Beijing as an example of how much less entertaining are the FIG routines these days.

Andy also links to Brittany McCullough’s Floor from that first UCLA meet of the year. Even with watered down tumbling, you can see that Brittany may be the gymnast to beat on this apparatus come Nationals.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Miss Val is feeling the love.

UPDATE: Good comment: “What about Anna Li?”

Compare that Floor routine with her 2 teammates.

Skating and Gymnastics video

If, like me, you couldn’t muster enough enthusiasm to watch the The Progressive Skating & Gymnastics Spectacular, here’s a short clip linked from UNORTHODOX GYMNASTICS review.

Click PLAY or watch Crank it Up on YouTube.

There’s another profanely negative review on Aunt Joyce.

Actually, the stuff the guys do at these Spectaculars is quite good. Reasonable difficulty with panache and humour. I’d watch an edit of the Men’s gymnastics.

But a backspring on beam in a short skirt? Most 7yr-old gymnasts would be disappointed with that level of “difficulty”.

2010 WOGA Classic Gymnastics

All 4 four competitors from 2009 Worlds will be at the Elite Session. Bridget Sloan will sign autographs while the other three, Ivana Hong, Kayla Williams and Rebecca Bross, compete.

Bridget is on some sort of “break” from gymnastics.

WOGAClassic2010PosterWEB

competition home page

ELITES from AUSTRALIA – USA – CANADA – RUSSIA – UKRAINE – JAPAN – NEW ZEALAND – MEXICO – TURKEY – ISRAEL

Over 100 Level 10’s from CA, CO, FL, GA, KS, LA, MA, MO, MS, NJ, NM, NV, OK, PA, TX, WI, WV,

Australia, Japan, Turkey, Israel, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico

Nastia Liukin Cup Qualifier – College Recruiters

In fact, 5 Canadian teams are attending the 2010 WOGA CLASSIC this year, a record! A good contingent from my home Province, Alberta, are looking forward to a break from the cold, snowy winter we’ve been suffering.

Thanks Barb Durfee for the update.

MadisonIt will be interesting to look for the Rio Olympic cycle gymnasts coming up at WOGA. That includes Jr. National Team member Madison Kocian, not age eligible for Senior until 2013.

related – 4 More Reasons to Love WOGA (photos)

Tkatchev drills

I’ve been checking out the many drills posted by Coach Bart of gymnastics-skills.com on his broskoski YouTube channel. Several are dedicated to teaching Tkachev (Reverse Hecht).

If you have a bar fixed over a trampoline, … Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Be sure to slide an additional mat over the exposed bar during the learning phase. It’s no fun to land on the bar!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Good stuff.

I’m linking to a few here, but there are more Tkachev and Jaeger videos on that channel. Start at Bart’s main site, gymnastics-skills.com.

MIOBI – Follow The Leader

Is anyone using that acronym?

Make It or Break It?

Marty is in as “National Coach”, Sasha is out.

Episode 12 is online free if you live in the USA at ABCfamily.com.

And online here if you live outside the States.

Not much gymnastics in this one.

the week in gymnastics

These days my favourite blog post is Gymnastics Examiner’s The gymnastics week in review.

And this week’s edition by Blythe Lawrence is the best yet.

Some highlights and lowlights:

$1.5 million settlement for gymnastics abuse case: A Chicago-area gymnastics club’s insurance company has agreed to pay $1.5 million in a civil suit against former gymnastics instructor Michael Cardamone, who was first arrested in 2002 …

Gymnastics on skis: Aerial ski coach Peter Judge calls China’s aerialists “unbelievable classic overtrainers.” “I found it astounding — and they were wondering why all their athletes were getting injured and blown up,” ….

… China’s aerial skiiers are poised to win medals next month in Vancouver. One reason is a 19-year-old former gymnast named Xu Mengtao, who Chinese aerial ski coach Dustin Wilson said “will change the sport.” …

FIS Freestyle World Cup Day 2

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

Mary Lou Retton interview: The U.S.’s first Olympic gymnastics champion speaks out about the pressure on young athletes to win today, as well as being born with hip dysplasia, a condition that has led her to have hip replacement surgery before the age of 42.

click through for links to these stories and many, many more.

Gymnastics Examiner – The gymnastics week in review