Gymnastics Coaching.com

Doug Davis & Diana Hughes of my favourite equipment company Tumbl Trak are touring clubs in Australia. Doug mentioned he was impressed with the Northern Beaches club, Sydney. So I looked it up on the WWW.

Well named, the club is 5min from a surf beach.

In April 2007 the club moved into a terrific facility in Pittwater Sports Centre.

Northern Beaches Gymnastics was established in 1990 by husband and wife team, Mark and Gai Forrest.

Since its initial concept, the club has blossomed into one of Australia’s premier sporting facilities, attracting over 1500 members. …

official website

Lu Ming and Xiao Qing Li are two of the coaches there.

Soviet gymnast Alevtina Pryakhina. I had not thought of that name in years. Priakhina competed against Daniela SilivaÅŸ.

The Couch Gymnast has a great post comparing Aleftina Priakhina vs Shawn Johnson!
.

As far as I am concerned, they look alike. They flip alike.

For starters both were short, compact and as cute as buttons! Shawn and Aleftina share a lot of qualities as gymnasts as well as similar body types. They were both tiny with intensely muscular builds, moved quickly and had explosive leg power, meaning they were both capable of strong tumbling and and dynamic work in the air. …

Was Alevtina Pryakhina the first gymnast to compete standing 1/1 twist on beam? AND the first gymnast to compete double double on Floor?

Click PLAY or watch her 1986 Floor on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch her 1987 beam on YouTube.

Related – The Couch Gymnast’s World’s Worst Leotard contest continues.

Romanian Daniela SilivaÅŸ won seven world titles and three Olympic titles between 1985 and 1989. She’s one of the greats of all time.

What is she doing now?

She coaches 3hrs / day at Hammond Park Gymnastics in Sandy Springs, Georgia.

Read the interview translated by Triple Full – Daniela SilivaÅŸ: “We Were a Team in the True Sense of the Word”

Click PLAY or watch Daniela Silivas 1987 World’s Event Finals Floor on YouTube.

Daniela admitted in 2002 that her age had been falsified by 2 years in order to make her eligible for the 1985 World Championships.

Common practice in Romania in that era.

Like Double Salto, I preferred the beauty and artistry of Aurelia Dobre on that team.

Daniela’s Poodle Perm was a turn off too. Those were bad hair years.

Has any other gymnastics coach ever had one of these?

I think not.

Only the Georgia NCAA gymnastics coaching legend.

larger version – flickr – U-EET

more photos

The first 5,000 attendees at the Alabama vs Georgia competition got one.

Cool.

(via Chez Peg)

In a Stanford Athletics preview video the Stanford Men’s Gymnastics coach Thom Glielmi confirms that his is the NCAA “team to beat” in 2009.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

That said, since they’ve already been twice defeated by Cal Berkeley in early season meets.

My prediction. … Stanford will win the NCAA Championships 2009.

(via Stick It Media)

Anne Phillips is by far the world’s busiest gymnastics blogger.

Check out her 3min warmup footage of the meet. You really get the feel for the event.

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

Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike

We’re all wondering how she affords all that travel around the USA.

It’s not easy to make a back-to-back Olympic gold all-around medals DULL.

But this 10min video is almost unwatchable.

An exclusive interview with Nastia Liukin & Carly Patterson and their coaches Valeri Liukin and Yevgeny Marchenko about their Olympic Memories. The four discuss their personal experiences while they watch Carly’s 2004 and Nastia’s 2008 Olympic All-Around floor routines.

Watch 2009 GK/WOGA Insider – Olympic Memories on YouTube.

Ward Black, a former gymnast for the University of Michigan, wrote a scathing, funny and important article for International Gymnast.

Few Come Out Swinging at Winter Cup

Any gymnast wishing to make the U.S. men’s national team, or make a world championships or Olympic team: Master pommel horse. …

Seventy-seven gymnasts competed this past Thursday in two qualifying sessions at the U.S. Winter Cup in Las Vegas. Sixty-seven competed pommel horse. Evaluating just the B-Panel execution scores: One man (Tim McNeill of Berkeley) scored above 9.00 on pommels. Eighteen scored 8.30 and above. And 48 athletes scored BELOW 8.30. …

… Pommel horse form is horrendous, proper technique is questionable and routine consistency is out the window. …

This guy did not compete, however.

Sasha Artemev – Inside Gymnastics

… Something is amiss in the men’s Junior Olympic program, and/or at the NCAA level, and/or with the Men’s Program Committee. American men did great pommel horse in the past. Why not now? …

IG – Few Come Out Swinging at Winter Cup

The USA was slow to adopt the pommel mushroom. Slow to allow boys to compete the horse without pommels.

Perhaps that’s a factor.

Leave a comment if you have an opinion on why American pommel is so weak at the Senior level.

USA Gymnastics named the 2009 U.S. Men’s Senior National Team following the conclusion of the Winter Cup Challenge. The 15 members retain their national team status until the conclusion of the 2009 Visa Championships in August.

Guillermo Alvarez
Alexander Artemev
Raj Bhavsar
Chris Brooks
Kyle Bunthuwong
Chris Cameron
Joseph Hagerty
Jonathan Horton
Steven Legendre
Danell Leyva
Tim McNeill
Sho Nakamori
David Sender
Justin Spring
Kevin Tan

USAG

Note that 2007 Champion David Durante has retired.

Members of the National Team pose at the conclusion of the 2009 Winter Cup Challenge – Photo by Steve Lange

Shawn Johnson …

confirmed to Inside Gymnastics that she plans to return to competitive gymnastics after the conclusion of Dancing with the Stars. “Definitely,” she said of her return to the gym. “After the show, I’ll get back in the gym, start with gymnastics again and see where it takes me.”

Inside Gymnastics