Gymnastics Coaching.com

Cirque du Soleil photo shoot at Mystere in Las Vegas in the popular reality TV show.

Watch it on YouTube. (8min)

Head Coach Jay Clark gives a video tour of their amazing gym. Click through to the Georgia Dogs website to see it.

more photos

One of the best gymnasts in the World … deemed too young to compete at the upcoming World Championships.

Welcome to Viktoria Komova Online, the Official Website dedicated to the talented Russian Artistic Gymnast Viktoria!

Viktoria is a 3-time Gold Medallist for the All Arounds, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam at the 2009 Japan Junior International and at the 2009 European Youth Olympic Festival! …

home page – English

(via coderoyal, site editor, on IG Forum)

Recall that Andrew Thornton named 6 gymnasts the main contenders for AA medals at the upcoming World Championships.

Here are 2 more contenders – American Gymnast – Andy’s Angle – Two dark-horses for London

They both have great Bars.

Click PLAY or watch Rebecca Downie on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch Youna Dufournet on YouTube.

Generally I have been critical of the 2008 code of points for Women. (It’s too soon to say regarding the 2012 revisions.) But it’s certain that we would NEVER have seen Bar routines anything like this without an open-ended scoring system.

I could even concede that Bars and Vault have been a success under the new rules.

Floor and Beam were more interesting and entertaining back in the days of a 10.0 maximum.

Get a glimpse of Cirque du Soleil HQ in a funny video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It’s promoting the big OneDrop.org performance art event Friday, October 9th.

disclosure – I love Cirque du Soleil

I can’t find any good overview article summing up the Kiwi Championships 2009.

There are some photos online from Championships 2008, this one of Ashleigh Wade.

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

… Judging from the results I’ve seen on my former club’s website (Christchurch School of Gymnastics), the Canterbury Team had a brilliant competition. Congratulations!

The last time (2002) I saw Holly Moon she was so tiny she could only barely clear the vault horse on a Handspring. This year she’s the winner of the Junior International division.

Thanks Jenny Jujnovich, meet director.

And shout out to Avril Enslow, who will be judging World Championships in London.

UPDATE: photos from 2009 Championships. Thanks Erin.

Blythe on Gymnastics Examiner linked to the this video from U.S. VISA Championships.

… 13-year-old teammate McKayla Maroney became the third U.S. gymnast ever to land an Amanar vault (Yurchenko 2.5 twist), which she did on the second day of competition. Shawn Johnson, who performed the vault successfully in 2008, and Jordyn Wieber, who did it at the American Cup earlier this year, are the only other Americans who have ever even tried Amanars in competition. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Man, those GymMax girls can vault.

This came from an article about her teammate, 12-year-old Kyla Ross – Kyla Ross, coaches taking things one year at a time

It’s a great read, especially to hear the philosophy of coaches Jian Hua (Jenny) Zhang and her husband Hao Quan (Howie) Liang.

Notes: Ross and Maroney aren’t the first Gym Max gymansts to make a splash on the national scene. Ivana Hong trained at Gym Max before moving to Iowa to work with husband and wife team Al and Armine Fong in 2004, and 2006 Pacific Alliance and Gymnix gold medalist Shantessa Pama trained at Gym Max as an elite.

==== Update:

MostepanovaFan just posted a video called The Amanar Club, inspired by Blythe’s post. It shows all the gymnasts who have competed the Yurchenko 2.5 twist in chronological order.

In response to a recent post:

We apologize for the crash of our site during the Inside Gymnastics radio show. However we will be posting the radio show as soon as possible on our website and through iTunes. We have lots of great things coming in 2010 and hope the gymnastics community enjoys what is on the horizon.

Remember – follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@insidegym) for live updates. Our Worlds section of InsideGymnastics.com is launching very soon. A big shout-out to our sponsors for making this great section possible!

Shane Womack
Director of Marketing
Inside Gymnastics Magazine

Thanks Shane. Looking forward to your audiocasts being posted on iTunes. As well as the archive being available to stream from your site.

Who is MunchTheSilivasFan?

WOW.

She put together an epic edit, almost 9min long. (When is the last time you saw a gymnastics montage of this length?) Plenty of slow motion and close-ups.

This is the first video in months that I’ve downloaded to my computer. It’s perfect for showing non-gymnastics types simply how amazing are gymnasts. By far the most impressive female athletes in the world.

Click PLAY or … much better, watch it on YouTube in the biggest size.

… If you saw only this video you’d believe WAG is still Artistic. Unfortunately, we know better.

Rachel from the U.K, age-18, has 164 videos posted. Check them out at MunchTheSilivasFan channel on YouTube.

Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté is orbiting the Earth. He spent $35-million to become only the 7th “tourist” to leave the planet.

Some have criticized him for the extravagence during a global recession.

Personally, I agree with this assessment from the Montreal Gazette:

… Laliberté provides jobs to thousands and pleasure to hundreds of thousands, and got rich in the process. Now he is spending some of his money to have fun. More power to him.

Guy Laliberté slips the surly taunts of critics

Guy has not made a serious mistake in the past. What makes people think this is a blunder?

His space trip is part of a huge campaign to raise awareness of the need to provide clean water to everyone in the world.

The main event is happening this Friday though the specific details are not yet revealed. You can get some hints on what to expect from the OneDrop.org website.

Some of those who will be appearing live:

Actors Matthew McConaughey and Salma Hayek, singers Joss Stone, Elisapie Isaac, Helene Segara, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Michel Fugain, Natasha St Pier, Lorie and Zazie, musical group Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Bolshoi Ballet principal dancer Nicolai Tsiskaridze and poet Touria Ikbal join their voices with previously announced Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, A. R. Rahman, Cirque du Soleil, Claude Challe, Dr. David Suzuki, Fnaire, Frank De Winne, Garou, Gilberto Gil, Gregory Colbert, Jean Lemire, Julie Payette, Maud Fontenoy, Patrick Bruel, Peter Gabriel, Peter Lik, Shakira, Simon Carpentier, Tatuya Ishii, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Tiffany Speight, U2, Vandana Shiva and Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

PR Newswire

It’s big.

Laliberté has already pledged $100 million for the cause of clean drinking water. This is part of that ongoing campaign.

Genius is almost always artistic. Or mad.

History will remember Guy Laliberté as a genius.