Steve Nunno returns?

Controversial gymnastics coach Steve Nunno is in the news.

Steve Nunno who coached Edmond’s Shannon Miller to Olympic gold from his former Dynamo Gymnastics’ facility is opening a new gym Monday. …

Star Gymnastics will open at 757 Enterprise Drive, not far from the location of the Dynamo gym where Miller trained. Nunno has operated gyms in Oklahoma City for more than 20 years and is building a new Norman facility as well. …

NewsOK

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Shannon Miller with coach Nunno

Recall that Nunno resigned in 2006 after six seasons as coach of the University of Oklahoma women’s gymnastics team. Some say he was asked to resign due in part to his violations of NCAA rules.

HNI Gymnastics Invitational

Houston National Invitational 2009

George R Brown Convention Center â‹… Houston, TX, US â‹… Feb, 27 2009

The Houston National Invitational is an annual event hosted by the Houston Gymnastics Club. This is one of the larger invitationals in the US. Every year it brings fantastic international elites from around the world, and the top finishing teams will receive huge cash prizes!

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.

Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike

Thanks to Roberto Pumpido, Daniel, Steve, and Myron F. Steves Co. for the production of this video.

pommels – Reverse Stockli 1/1

From jbslife on the new gymnasticsLINKS.com site:

I was watching college gymnastics today on TV (Illinois vs. Penn State) and I saw Daniel Ribeiro do one of my favorite skills. Check out Daniel’s 360 degree reverse stockli in the following video. He calls the reverse stockli his “signature move”. After seeing him do it, I agree. It’s about 13 or 14 seconds into his routine ….

Click PLAY or watch it on gymnasticsLINKS.com.

It’s much like the Kehre 360.

mixed messages from Bruno Grandi

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The 26th Trampoline Gymnastics World Championships are set for St Petersburg (RUS), November 11 – 14, 2009. This competition falls just prior to the 18th World Age Group Competitions for the 11 – 18 year category, which will be subject to difficulty limitations. A first of its kind, the FIG and its Technical Committee engineered the competition to safeguard gymnast safety in high-level sport and to give even more precedence to execution over trendier risk taking. The Code of Points provides for this by making execution considerably more advantageous than difficulty.

The decision was guided by the political mindset championed by the Federation and its President, Prof. Bruno Grandi, who recently declared: “Gymnastics in any form is most importantly a means of body expression through which athlete and coach alike must give preference to execution, artistic expression, over reckless and dangerous risk taking.” The President’s message was clear, and the judges and experts present in St Petersburg will make it their priority to respect this order.

FIG

Isn’t this the same Prof. Bruno Grandi who championed the open-ended code after 2004, leaving girls on Floor and Beam no time for any kind of artistry?

… In 2004-2005 the FIG and its president Grandi developed a new scoring system, in which an open ended scoring will be used, so that the marks are theoretically limitless. The majority of the FIG did vote in favour of the new Code. This was a controversial move: many fans and athletes alike campaigned against it, speaking out in opposition …

Wikipedia

Sounds like Bruno is in favour of encouraging artistry in Junior competition. But letting Seniors throw the code.

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Who will succeed Bruno Grandi?

Men’s Technical Chair Adrian Stoica is travelling the world, glad-handing everyone he can. Positioning himself for a run at the top job.

I don’t think Stoica would be an improvement over Grandi.

We need start an Anyone-But-Stoica campaign now.

tallest male NCAA gymnast?

Stick It Media, inspired by our post on the tallest female gymnasts, updated their list of the tallest College gymnasts.

Russell Czeschin – Oklahoma – 6′ 3″
Matt Greenfield – Penn State – 6′ 2″
Kip Druecke – Air Force – 6′ 2″
Luke Stannard – Illinois – 6′ 1″
Jeff Harris – James Madison – 6′ 1″
Stirling Van Winkle – James Madison – 6′ 1″
Nic Blair – Cal – 6′ 0″
Ben Ketelson – Iowa – 6′ 0″
Gabriel Alvarado – Stanford – 6′ 0″
John Martin – Stanford – 6′ 0″
Matt Holmes – William & Mary – 6′ 0″
Sloan Crawford – William & Mary – 6′ 0″

Stick It Media – Who are the Tallest in Men’s Gymnastics?

Russell is one of most impressive gymnasts I’ve seen. The guy is massive, yet very stylish. A two-time All-American on floor.

… floor routine at OU on March 15, 2008.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Triple Full blog says farewell

My favourite blog of recent months is no more.

Sadly, the editor and main contributor, Mihaela, does not have time to keep up Triple Full.

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… keeping a blog like this is a tremendous time sink …

Triple Full – And So We Reach the Final Curtain…

Click through to see the many comments praising the site. And mourning the end.

Triple Full specialized in finding important gymnastics stories in countries world wide. Often translating them to English.

I hope they keep the blog alive as an archive of the old posts. And that — once-in-a-while — one of the contributors puts up a new post.

another talented British gymnast

The UK has selected 6 male gymnasts to stream towards the 2016 Olympics.

One of those is 13-year-old Great Britain under-14 boys gymnastic champion Frank Baines.

Click PLAY or watch his his stylish Floor routine on YouTube.

He trains at Southport YMCA Gymnastic Club under coach Jeff Brooks.

The UK is definitely a team to watch for the future. They have plenty of young talent.

Canadian tramp medalists interview

Karen Cockburn has won 3 Olympic medals in the past 3 Olympics. She’s widely respected as a leader in her sport.

The Star interviews Karen, her Olympic teammate Rosie MacLennan and Beijing silver medalist Jason Burnett.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Trish Quinney linked this video on Facebook. Thanks Trish.

If you liked Jason’s new world record difficulty trampoline routine, Paula Vinnick suggests you check out this elephant doing trampoline. A short by Nicolas Deveaux.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Universal Gymnastics training video

As part of a regular series, Anne Phillips visited controversial Cuban American coach Yin Alvarez to see just what makes his athletes so successful.

Workout Wednesday with the Universal Guys

… Last year the small gym in Miami was home to 3 US Junior National Team Members in Danell Leyva, Edward Mesa, and Max Mayr. …

This workout was filmed January 12, a few days after their home meet, the Universal Invite. Typically theses guys train twice a day, and this is footage of their morning workout.

One of the cool things you’ll notice in this video is the huge amount of support these guys have for each other. Everyone helps each other out. They’re like a bunch of brothers.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-4.2/player.swf

Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike

A few weeks after this filming, Danell Leyva finished 2nd at Winter Cup Nationals and was named to the Senior Team.

GymSmarts gymnastics DVD sale

Beth_Gardner-Etiquitte.jpgTom & Reiko Beach are celebrating the release of their 100th instructional gymnastics DVD.

Newest release: Coaching Etiquette by Beth Gardner

CONGRATULATIONS.

Starting late in 2004, they’ve grown GymSmarts into by far the biggest and best distributor of gymnastics videos in the world.

top 10 DVDs released 2008

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Developing Leaps and Jumps  by Tammy Biggs

Developing Flexibility for Gymnastics by Tammy Biggs

Inbar work for Uneven Bars by Tom Forster

Advanced Tumbling-3 disk set by Tony Gehman

Developing Great Round-offs by Tammy Biggs

Balance Beam- It’s about Stability by Debbie Rodriguez

Five Bar Skills Every Gymnast Needs by Tony Retrosi

Learning the Finer Points Beam & Floor by Cheryl Jarrett

Teaching Tumbling Fundamentals-3 Disk set by Mas Watanabe

Developing Strength by Mas Watanabe

 * * * * * * *

DVDs from GymSmarts SALE until 3/31/2009:

Get $5.00 off your order of $25 or more use
Promo code: FACE1
or
Get 10% off your orders of $75 or more.
Promo code: FACE2

The FACE refers to their new Facebook pageGymSmarts Community – Gymnastics. (Be sure to join that group if you are a Facebook addict.)

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GymSmarts home page

This is the first “sale” I can recall of GymSmarts videos, by the way. If you’re ever going to buy, now’s the time.