Gymnastics Coaching.com

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.

Last chance to join in a Women’s NCAA Gymnastics Simgym game.

The game basically involves “teams” of athletes for each player, who compete weekly for the highest team score. Lineups for each week are selected by a deadline. The next week, scores are averaged and tallied based on the results of the week’s competitions. Weekly ranking lists are compiled, and at the end of the season, an overall winner is declared. …

It’s a version of the professional fantasy sport games.

Follow the link on honey bear‘s page on the College Gymnastics Board.

GOLD. Click PLAY or watch Lauren Mitchell on Gymnastike.

SILVER. Click PLAY or watch Yulia Lozhechko on Gymnastike.

BRONZE. Click PLAY or watch LI Shanshan on Gymnastike.

Full results.

What do you think?

I like Lozhechko best.

International Gymnast posted a good interview with four-time Swiss all-around champion Niki Böschenstein.

He’s “ready to rock” for the 2012 Olympics. That despite not qualifying for the last two Olympics. Niki explains that he missed out on Beijing due to a “rather complicated qualifying system”. Teammates Claudio Capelli and Christoph Schärer were ultimately selected to represent Switzerland.

The Swiss men live and train at one of the best facilities in the world, remote Magglingen/Biel.

His website is the most unusual I’ve seen since Kyle Shewfelt.

Check it out.

niki-boeschenstein.com (English and Swiss German)

Kara Patterson arrived at Duke Energy Convention Center Saturday morning to coach her gymnastics students in a downtown tournament.

But before the meet was over, she had traded in her Adidas warm-up pants and T-shirt for a white wedding gown – and had become the blushing bride in a surprise wedding planned by her fiancée, Army Staff Sgt. Ray Hignite, and her father, Brett Patterson. …

Patterson, 20, is a coach at Gym-Nation Gymnastics and Cheerleading in Mason and a student at the University of Cincinnati who has been a gymnast since she was 8. …

Cincinnati.com – Surprise! It’s your wedding!

Her new husband is deployed to Afghanistan for 12-14 months starting Jan. 1st.

Triple Full links to more videos from the recent Voronin Cup in Russia.

(Click through to Viktoria Komova‘s bar routine. Very clean.)

Click PLAY or watch Anna Myzdrikova‘s Floor Routine on YouTube. (Triple full to punch back tuck.)

That tumbling pass is going to be popular this quad. Also Round-off 3/2 twist step-out to any high value part.

Another beam video of the up-and-coming Russian star is linked via Triple Full.

In Finals at Voronin Cup she lands her backspring layout step-out to Arabian … almost.

photo: Stefan Wurzer/Gymnasticsunited)

Triple Full – Aha!

She’s one of their best up-and-coming juniors as identified by The C Score.

The C Score in another post linked to this video.

Click PLAY or watch Montage of Russia juniors on YouTube.