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Australian Gymnastics Blog pointed me to another excellent interview with Olivia Vivian, Olympic gymnast, now a freshman at Oregon State.

… Back in Australia, I trained 32 hours a week. That’s a full-time job without the benefit of getting paid. Of course, the rewards in the end far outweighed the hours of practice. But training became so boring, I lost the joy I used to get out of it.

Just over a year ago, when I was in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, my passion for gymnastics was almost on empty …

source – at Western Australian Institute of Sport

… Now that I have experienced college gymnastics, I have found my passion for gymnastics again. …

The atmosphere here at OSU is so much fun. The training assignments change all the time and small games are created to help keep things different and challenging – not to mention that the coaches are wonderfully refreshing and my teammates never fail to entertain me with their amazing traits.

I used to think about retirement and how great life would be when I stopped training. After experiencing what I have here with OSU gymnastics, I never want it to end. …

Barometer – Flipping back into love

Notes from Jurassic …

I love the venue — Jack Simpson gymnasium at University of Calgary — used by the hosts of the Jurassic Classic Gymnastics Invitational, one of Canada’s largest meets.

larger version

larger version

The equipment is excellent. AAI.

This despite the fact that one of the AAI trucks was delayed crossing into the Canadian border.

On the other hand … at least 6 coaches told me today, “This is the last time I’m ever coming to Jurassic.”

Why?

The competition flights take over 4hrs. Girls wait an hour between routines, at times.

At the recent Great West Gym Fest, the flights last about 2hrs. GWGF schedules 6 flights a day. Jurassic only 3.

Thanks to Jurassic organizers, despite the complaints. And THANKS especially to the judges. It’s not a fun meet to work.

official website – JurassicClassic.com

Arriving home from a competition, I logged in to see who won the showdown tonight.

official results

It was the farewell home meet in Salt Lake City for Kristina Baskett and Nina Kim. A new attendance record was set tonight in the NCAA.

And — for the first time — I logged in to the (nearly) live video feed on CBS Sports.

Let me tell you. I was impressed.

The best feature was Floor music. It is streamed without the background crowd noise.

I highly recommend it!

Utah looked great on the apparatus I watched — Floor and Beam. Balanced routines: difficulty, execution, and artistry.

Florida … much less impressive. Especially amplitude of jumps and leaps. They’ve really had a problem season. I knew for sure when I saw Ashley Kerr in the beam line-up. Her score of 9.5 was generous. That routine really is not worthy of a top 12 school.

Trivia:

Today’s meet is the last home meet for Baskett and Kim. Here is a look at some of their season highlights:

Kristina Baskett
» Leads Utes with 23 victories
» Ranked No. 2 in the all-around, bars
» Ranked No. 3 on vault
» Has hit 34 of 36 routines this season

Nina Kim
» Second on team with eight victories
» Ranked No. 11 in all-around, No. 6 on beam
» Has hit 33 of 34 routines this season

Baskett, Kim have fueled U.’s success

Nina had the highest AA score of her career – 39.60

Utes gymnastics: Seniors have master plan for gym team

UPDATE: I changed the name of this post from “impossible skills” to “possible skills”.

A video clip from perhaps 1991 — Monica Shaw from Rocky Mountain Gymnastics — doing Pak to Endo on low bar.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

WOW.

Pak Gyong Sil did the skill at the 1989 World Championships. (Video.)

This clip was linked by mandusky on the International Gymnast forum.

The thread is Are These Skills Possible?

A 90-minute film by director Gu Jun is the official documentary about the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

“Dream Weavers – Beijing 2008” is the official title in English translation. It was submitted by China as a contender for Best Foreign Language Film in the Oscars, but was not chosen as one of the finalists.

The full documentary broken into 10 min YouTube clips starts here.

Here is a short section with some gymnastics bars training:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The athletes are Deng LingLing and Nai RuoRu.

This documentary seems to provide evidence that Jiang Yuyuan actually was age eligible for 2008.

All these Chinese produced documentaries include a theme of perserverance under extreme coaching demands. And injury. Always injury.

From Utah Coach Greg Marsden on Facebook: Utah Gymnastics

If you can’t make it in person, we will provide FREE live internet video

and real-time scores

read press releases:

read newspaper articles

Marsden uses the internet better than any other College coach.

From FIG:

One of the biggest competitions in Canada, the University of Calgary Gymnastics Jurassic Classic starts tonight in the terrific Jack Simpson gymnasium venue.

If you are in Calgary, be sure to drop by for some of the action.

official website – JurassicClassic.com

The other day International Gymnastics Federation President Bruno Grandi was quoted as saying:

… there were believable indications that China had cheated with the age of some of their gymnasts at the Beijing Olympics last year.

Did he know this study was about to be announced?

BEIJING — X-ray bone analysis of 15,000 young Chinese athletes shows about 20 percent have lied about their ages, provincial sports authorities say.

The analysis was conducted by sports officials in southern Guangdong province and reported on the Web site of the Southern Metropolis Daily.

The confirmation of age-faking again puts pressure on Chinese sports officials. Several of China’s gold-medal winning female gymnasts at last year’s Olympics were widely suspected of being underage, although they were later cleared by officials of the sport’s world governing body.

…

The southern city of Guangzhou will host next year’s Asian Games, and provincial officials appear to be cracking down beforehand.

“We won’t allow those who faked their age to get any benefit at all,” said Ye Xiquan, deputy director of the provincial sports bureau.

ESPN – The Associated Press

How long before the IOC and FIG must decide what to do with age cheat Olympic medalists from 2000 and 2008?

If they do penalize those athletes, why not go back to other admitted age cheats from earlier Olympics?

I expect the coming media storm will focus on He Kexin, our Olympic Bars Champion.

Telegraph – One in five of China’s athletes lie about their age

Likely it’s coincidence, but new FIG Scientific Commission chair Keith Russell comes from University of Saskatchewan, a world leader in bone density research. Professor Russell did a study on wrist x-ray of gymnasts many years ago.

It’s very difficult to determine exact age by any scientific means. But the scrutiny of real assessment, rather than the blanket cover-up we had during the Beijing Olympics, will result in some athletes coming forward and admitting their actual birth date. Baby photos, date stamped, will turn up.

The truth will out. It’s only a matter of time.

Another video from Misha Koudinov in New Zealand.

Some skills you’ve never seen.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

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