Gymnastics Coaching.com

Scott Bird of the excellent Straight to the Bar blog linked to The 6 Sickest Playground Workouts You Can’t Do.

One of those that caught me eye instantly includes using safety straps on a playground bar:

… Hailing from Colombia, these kids’ workout is more a performance than a exercise. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

More videos like this posted by William Steven Santana, age-17, on the Dragonsamurai91 channel.

This is what I love about the internet. Some teenagers with a camcorder and a playground can “invent” a new sport: Arte En Barras. It’s like Parkour on a bar.

I assume they’ve studied the (very similar) travelling rings videos.

Playgrounds are fantastic outdoor “conditioning gyms”. And they are FREE.

related post: the playground I train at myself when on holiday in Mazatlán, Mexico.

claus wrote to confirm that his old friend Espen JANSEN is still unbeaten in Norway. He’s 40yrs-old.

In fact, last April Espen won the All-around at a World Cup competition at age-39.

Norwegian Espen JANSEN was not only the by far oldest gymnast (39) in Lausitz-Arena at the last Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, but also the only participant who started on all the six apparatuses – he was therewith (unofficially) the best in the all-around competition in this event and gained remarkable 81,725 points.

Already at the last World Championships 2007 in Stuttgart the man from Oslo was the oldest WOLRDS-participant and holds a record of 13 participations in World Championships since his debut in 1991 in Indianapolis. This record was formerly held by Austrian Thomas Zimmermann with 12 WORLDS-participations …

The father of four kids thinks about quitting somedays …

GYMmedia

Merry Christmas Espen. You are an inspiration.

I saw this on Sports Girls Play.

Gymnastics Girl Personalized Christmas Ornament

Inside Gymnastics magazine’s photographic year in review is up.

Some nice pics.

Photo Gallery: A Look Back At 2008 In Pictures

Sadly there are no captions, no thumbnails, no photographic credits. No slideshow.

A nice Christmas present from the magazine … badly presented online.

Inside Gymnastics has great potential. But I really wish someone who “gets” the internet would get onboard and improve their website.

larger version

Looking for the perfect very-last-minute gift for a gymnastics fanatic?

Zirkeltraining (Circuit Training) is a line of fashion items made from recycled gymnastics equipment.

… Bernd Dörr is the only one who make bags from recycled sports equipment leather and gym mats.

His new brand “Zirkeltraining” (Ciurcit Training) is since October 2007 on the market and was presented on the “Blickfang” in Tokyo. Retro gym teacher reinforced his efforts about the gym equipment, so the collection grew bigger with models like handstand, croush, roll, pommel horse and buck. Every piece is handcrafted and unique, extreme resistant, carrys sweat – inducing and informatory memorys with it and is not only interesting for sport freaks.

You can buy Zirkeltrainingâ„¢ only in selected bag shops in Germany, The Netherlands, Itlay, Japan and Austria.

Zirkeltraining

Retro chic.

see more on NOTCOT

Me, under the Christmas tree I’m hoping to find this bag made from an old mini-tramp.

Controversial French coach Yves Kieffer (who coached Emilie Lepennec and Isabelle Severino) is taking over the National Team program.

Gerrit Beltman is out. Also departing are coaches Marja Beltman, Rene Poutsma and Sofie Naert.

Kieffer and his wife Marjorie Heuls take over in January, along with Iouri Kiritchenko and Valentina Soldatenkova.

The drama has been documented by Triple Full – Yves Kieffer to Coach Flemish Girls After All

Gerrit Beltman sounds like my kind of coach. I wish he’d move to Canada.

UPDATE: … ” national champion Aagje Vanwalleghem accused the Flemish Gymnastics Federation of ignoring its gymnasts’ wishes on national TV, and asked the President of the Federation, Rik Dombrecht, to resign.” – Triple Full

This story was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.

No biggie.

The International Olympic Committee is in much better shape financially than most other organizations that size. They won’t be downsizing.

larger original – flickr – cool_colonia4711

IOC finance commission chairman Richard Carrion told The Associated Press the Olympic body has about $4.8 million at risk in the alleged Ponzi scheme by Bernard Madoff. …

A week ago, Carrion said the IOC has financial reserves of more than $400 million – a fund designed to keep the Olympics afloat in the event of the games being canceled.

“It’s a little over 1 percent of the money in the portfolio,” Carrion said of the funds tied to Madoff. “It is possible that we could lose a substantial portion of that. That is not something that makes us very happy.” …

At an IOC meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, last week, Carrion said the amount of money in the IOC reserves had dropped about 14 percent in recent months due to the fall in stock prices and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the IOC’s non-dollar investments. On Saturday, Carrion reiterated that other monies are hurting the IOC more.

“Probably the improvement of the other currencies vis-a-vis the dollar is bigger,” Carrion said. “We’ll have to see when all the dust settles how much is lost.”

Moreau, the IOC spokeswoman, said the organization’s financial foundation was solid “due to a conservative budgeting and investment strategy.”

“We have already reached agreements with nine partners through 2012 … and broadcast rights have been secured for the vast majority of territories for games in 2010 and 2012,” she said in an e-mail.

Moreau also said the host cities of the next three Olympics are all financially sound.

“As of today, we have received assurances from all Organizing Committees (Vancouver 2010, London 2012 and Sochi 2014) that they will meet their obligations and are taking appropriate steps to manage any financial risks,” Moreau said.

Team USA – IOC has nearly $5 million tied to Madoff

Finally someone identified the gymnast who did that fantastic Shaposhnikova 1/1 on bars.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

From Vegas Ute:

It turns out the athlete is none other that Chelsey Colman who was a Utah signee but retired and returned to Arizona w/o ever competing for Utah. 😦

I don’t know if we would ever of seen that skill in competition but it would have been a rare treat.

BTW: Chelsey has turned into quite the bodybuilder, that is not my cup of tea but there are some competition pictures of her on the the internet and she really has an amazing physique.

College Gymnastics Board

Marketing Manager Nicole Harris got back to me after I sent some very critical feedback to the Inside Gymnastics magazine website.

I complained about their “Best of 2008″ year end survey. Nicole wrote:

*Regarding the survey, based on the comments, we have revised the format of the survey so that not all questions have to be completed.

I complained about the potentially fantastic new audiocast feature. Nicole wrote:

*In terms of the radio show, the broadcasts will be available soon as podcasts on iTunes. The first show is also archived on our website and the Dec 17th show will be available on our website soon as well. Going forward, we’ll try to be a little more visible in terms of promoting the broadcasts in advance as well as making them easier to find on the site.

The radio show will be a monthly broadcast throughout all of 2009.

SWEET.

Thanks Nicole. I’m very impressed with your response. And looking forward to the podcast in iTunes.

Inside Gymnastics online

And some good holiday news:

GK Elite Sportswear and Inside Gymnastics magazine, two of the leaders in the gymnastics industry, partnered in a “Spirit of Giving” outreach, benefitting a California gymnastics club that has touched the many lives with its unique approach to teaching. This year’s recipient is the Community Youth Center, based out of Concord, CA. …

press release

CYC offers scholarships to children from inner city and underprivileged areas.