Gymnastics Coaching.com

His old rival from the 2004 Olympics, Marian Dragulescu, is back in contention for medals at Worlds.

Kyle is in Vancouver, Canada.

I’ve done a ton of speaking gigs and events and the most recent one is happening right now in Surrey. I’m here to do a week and a half of school visits for one of my favourite Charities, Right To Play. …

details and more photos on Kyle’s blog

We saw a glimpse of this excellent series of drills in the Aerial Athletics training video.

Coach Ryan Snider of Aerial Athletics shows off the gienger progression he uses on uneven bars. He breaks down the skill into 2 quarter turns. This produces beautiful, high giengers with potential to even upgrade into a def later on …

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

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

I’ve never thought of it as 1/4, 1/4 … but there might be some advantage in adding those steps.

We could also have the gymnast do flyaway to stand on the bar, immediately jump forward with half turn … and regrasp on their own, without spot.

Leave a comment if you have additional drills for Geinger. There are some good orientation drills on tramp.

Special Army soldiers flip simultaneously as they demonstrate their martial arts skills during a rehearsal for the 61st anniversary of Armed Forces Day at the Gyeryong military headquarters, South Korea. South Korea will celebrate the 61st Armed Forces Day on Oct. 1.

BBC

Thanks Tim.

The best gymnast on Floor and Vault of the last decade is 28yr-old Marian Dragulescu from Romania.

… world titles on floor (2001, 2002, 2006) and vault (2001, 2005, 2006) …

Andy Thornton:

He’s still got it! Although we’ve seen him do a more difficult first pass (he used to do a punch front 1 ¼ out of that), he looks as controlled and powerful as ever. He made those passes look WAY too easy, and yet every single one of them is extremely difficult. How about that second pass of front full to front full 1 ¾? And he’s still doing a double-double as the SIXTH tumbling pass – unbelievable! He should definitely be in the gold medal mix on floor at worlds next month. …

American Gymnast – A look at the Romanian men’s team…

Click PLAY or watch his Floor from 2009 Romanian Championships on YouTube.

I’m not convinced. Marian has never had good form tumbling. And he does not look close to peak form here.

Recall that he was badly injured on a roll out skill in the past. Yet he’s still relying on those dangerous tricks … as is everyone else in contention for medals.

I wish the Men would ban roll out skills as the Women did long ago.

Marian is the favourite on vault, as Andy explains his blog post.

The new iPod Nano is also one of the world’s smallest video cameras. We think it could be a game changer. As it turns out, it could also create a new kind of privacy problem. A fitness chain in Minnesota has banned the new Nano from locker rooms in an effort to protect members from the possibility of photos or videos being taken with it. …

read more

Are you worried about cameras in your gym?

Recall coach John Valdez, who coached Justin Spring at the Beijing Olympics?

Jon Valdez, a former gymnastics coach in Illinois, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of unauthorized videotaping. Valdez set up a camera to film a gymnast removing his clothes.

Valdez was captured on a camera positioning his video cam in an open locker in Kenney Gym. Valdez’s camera taped a male gymnast stripping and appearing nude in the locker room. The victim was unaware he was being filmed. This incident happened on September 25, 2008.

Valdez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 24 months probation.

read more

Gymnastics Saskatchewan in Canada has opened registration for their 2009 Coaching Congress. This event is held only every 3yrs.

Guest speakers are invited in different disciplines. This year the Keynote Speaker is Camille Martins. The closing speaker is Keith Russell. Other presenters include Michel Arsenault, Bev Dickenson, Gord Bennett and Tanya Van Drunen.

Schedule and Details

by site editor Rick McCharles

VTB is the largest Russian bank, by capital, about 77% owned by the Russian government.

September 28, 2009: The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and Russian bank VTB recently signed a partnership agreement. The agreement seals VTB’s commitment to financially supporting FIG development programmes on all five continents.

The partnership is a manifestation of the bank’s objectives; VTB already sponsors national sport federations such as gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, athletics (IAAF) and the partnership is evidence of its international vision for the sport of gymnastics, which enjoys a strong, long-standing tradition within the Russian Federation. …

VTB President and Chairman of the Management Board Andrei L. Kostin, says he is proud and honoured to have this opportunity to contribute to the development of the FIG and gymnastics worldwide, a discipline that is closely tied to the cultural and sporting heritage of the Russian Federation. Mr Kostin also sits at the head of the Russian Gymnastics Federation. …

FIG

Sounds like great news. In fact, I’m (tentatively) booked to do clinics in Asia this Fall on behalf of FIG and IOC. These funds may help partially support those.

… But does this put the Russians in a position of greater influence with the International Gymnastics Federation?

How about stoop shoot immediate hop to undergrip? (I’ve seen that one, actually.)

And Shaposhnikova 1/1 !!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

From the most experienced meet scorer in Canada, Stu Cram, the latest version of his program for Women’s Artistic Gymnastics:

GymScoreLite-2010 is now available for the coming gymnastics competitive season. This is an Excel program aimed to help produce results and related forms at inter-club gymnastics meets.

New features include support for these items…
• 2 ways to compute ties (skipping places or not)
• team scores based on N best scores per event.
• improved options to create rotations & order of competitors
• 1 or 2 byes for WAG meets
• better options for meets with awards for achievement
• improved layouts and help
• several other minor improvements

A detailed User’s Guide for the new version is also available

As before, GymScoreLite is free to download and test out. If you find it useful for your club meets, please consider making a contribution to support future development and other aspects of the Gym-Score-Depot project.

Go to Gym-Score-Depot.ca to download your copy. Then click on the link to the software section.

The MAG version should be available around Oct. 30th.

high resolution October calendar available from Gymnastics Training Tips

I saw this first on Nastia’s twitter feed. It was expected.

President Barack Obama will travel to Denmark this week to support Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president, told The Associated Press Monday morning that Obama will leave Thursday and join his wife, Michelle, in Copenhagen, where they’ll make the pitch to the International Olympic Committee. Obama would be the first U.S. president to take on such a direct role in lobbying for an Olympics event.

The International Olympic Committee is meeting in Copenhagen to select a host city for the 2016 Summer Games. Chicago faces tough competition from Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo. …

They join a Chicago contingent already packed with more star power than a Hollywood red carpet. The first lady is one of the few people who rivals her husband in visibility, and she’ll be joined by talk show host Oprah Winfrey, who trails only Angelina Jolie on Forbes’ annual Celebrity 100 list, a ranking of the rich and famous’ most powerful.

Chicago is also bringing 14 Olympic and two Paralympic gold medalists, including Michael Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Nadia Comaneci and Nastia Liukin.

AP

Chicago will win the vote.