Gymnastics Coaching.com

I don’t know about you … but I’m ready for the “playoffs”.

This Women’s College gymnastics season has been the most exciting in years, but hurry up with the Conference, Regional and National Championships.

Manual on Handstands thinks that one of these 5 teams will win the Team Championships 2010:

Alabama: Not Invincible …
Oklahoma: Can they stay undefeated? …
UCLA: Finding consistency …
Florida: Don’t count them out …
Georgia: Needs a road win …

The winning team at Championships must hit 24 for 24.

UCLA I’d call the favourite. But can they hit 24 routines under pressure?

If you believe in momentum, pick Oklahoma. It seems to be their year.

I think Alabama has a good chance to hit 24 routines. If they do, it will be tough to beat the Tide.

Who do you predict to win? Leave a comment.

Gymnastike has up-to-date team rankings with video links, if you want to compare.

AshleyakaFlipper is a drama queen. But she’s got a superb touch editing gymnastics video.

This is reportedly her last montage ever.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Her computer hard drive crashed, many thousands of video clips lost. I left a comment recommending she sign up for Carbonite or Mozy, the two leading online back-up solutions.

… Is your computer backed-up?

ACTOR. CHOREOGRAPHER. DANCER. FREERUNNER. INSTRUCTOR. MARTIAL ARTIST. STUNTMAN.

This traceur has a serious career. He’s one of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD), for one.

Click PLAY or watch Travis on YouTube.

Travis-Wong.com

(via FlipCatch)

Kudos to Full Twist for turning up an excellent resource for coaches, interpretations on the International Code.

This document called Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Help Desk has the intention to clarify and give examples of the different rules of the FIG WAG Code of Points.

The goal of WTC is to reduce different interpretations of the rules, therefore provide a more objective work of the judges. …

WAG Help Desk

It’s a supplement to the code. Here are samples of the kind of “Help” included:

This document would be useful for any Artistic WAG coach. Download a copy to your computer: WAG Help Desk (PDF)

As a PDF document online, it will be inexpensive and easy to update.

Congratulations to the by FIG WTC for putting this together. Good work.

A happy follow-up to the disappointing story of how Canadian coaches opted not to put blind skier Brian McKeever into the line-up during the Vancouver Olympics.

… As Brian McKeever and his brother Robin raced toward Paralympic gold in the cross-country freestyle Monday, the announcers warned the raucous crowd to stop cheering and just wave to keep them on course.

But there was no silencing the spectators at Whistler Paralympic Park, who screamed wildly and flailed cowbells in support of the brothers from Canmore, Alta., who scooped up the country’s first Winter Paralympic gold medal on home soil.

“It wasn’t a quiet stadium when we rolled through so that was a lot of fun,” McKeever, 30, said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s quiet or not. I can see (a bit) so I just follow Robin.” …

read more – Vancouver Sun – For Canada’s Brian McKeever, it’s ‘a lot of fun’ winning nation’s first Paralympic gold

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

I still feel it was a massive coaching blunder not to compete McKeever in both Olympics and Paralympics.

Bridget Sloan tweeted the bad news that David Beckham tore his Achilles.

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

I always think of that as a gymnastics injury.

… David Beckham says he is determined to make a “swift and full recovery” from the ruptured Achilles tendon that has left his dream of playing in a record fourth World Cup finals for England in tatters. …

Times Online

Update: Full Twist has more information on the injury.

One of the feel good gymnastics stories of the year. The big comeback of Hollie Vise for Oklahoma. She competed the all-around for the first time in her College career, scoring 39.600.

How sweet after all the troubles she’s known.

Click PLAY or watch Hollie’s Bars on Gymnastike.

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

(via Aunt Joyce – Ms. Vise If Ya Nasty)

As a trivia side note, when I started my first gymnastics website (for Kyle Shewfelt in 1999), I identified Hollie’s as the best gymnast website online. It’s almost unchanged today, 11yrs-later. I still like it.

Check it out – HollieVise.com

Top 25 College gymnastics teams.

I’m surprised.

Susan Jackson has been atop this list all season. By what mathematics has Sarah overtaken her?

Susan’s not missed a routine all season, so far as I know. This seems an error.

top 25 all-around gymnasts

Update – Quentin explains:

… She seems to have peaked in the RQS time frame climbing up the list rapidly the last month or so. Sarah’s RQS for individual events has her ahead of Susan on BB and FX, tied on UB with Susan being ahead in Vault. The total season average has Susan in the lead 39.525 to 39.358 for Sarah. Vanessa Zamarippa actually has a higher season average than both but is tied for second RQSwise with Susan.

The RQS (Regional Qualifying Score) results in some surprising rankings. Here’s how it’s explained by GymInfo:

… Qualification for regional competition is based on a team’s and an all-around competitor’s six best regular-season-meet scores, of which three must be away. To obtain the regional qualifying score (RQS), the high score is eliminated and the remaining five scores are averaged. …

Therefore, if you have 3 meets away in which you got high scores, your ranking may be higher than if all your highest scores were at home meets.

Pole Vault coaches lurk around gymnastics gyms, eyeing the tallest gymnasts. Awaiting the day those gymnasts want to move on to another sport.

Her former gymnastics coach, Dana Brass, got the good news. Kelsie just finished 6th at World Championships in her new style of vaulting.

Congratulations.