Gymnastics Coaching.com

GymnasticsRecruiting.com is a site providing information for gymnasts, parents and coaches considering making application to compete in the NCAA.

Check it out: GymnasticsRecruiting.com

They have products for sale, as well, priced from $10 – $99.

Andrea Barnes, author of those materials, posted a good article on College Gym Fans:

Top Ten Things You Should Know About College Recruiting

#1 Athletic Preparation

#2 Academic Preparation

#3 Relationship with Your Club Coach

#4 College Research

#5 Know What Types of Scholarships are Available

#6 Record-Keeping

#7 The Recruiting Timeline/NCAA Rules for Recruiting

#8 The Marketing Process

#9 Questions Every Gymnast Should Ask

#10 Physical Fitness and Your Health

Top Ten Things You Should Know About College Recruiting

You become an official prospect for college recruiting in the 9th grade. Gymnasts need to start planning EARLY.

There are 86 women’s gymnastics teams in the country. 65 are Division I teams and 21 are Division II and III teams. Not all offer scholarships.

Better, though likely more expensive, is the personalized service offered by Victory Recruiting.

Florida gymnast Melanie Sinclair finishes her floor routine with a chomp – Alligator

So says Oleg Ostapenko who left Brazil to return to the Ukrainian women’s national team.

International Gymnast confirms it.

Ostapenko was the head coach of the Ukrainian women at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, as well as the personal coach of Ukrainian standouts Tatiana Lysenko, Natalia Kalinina and Viktoria Karpenko.

He also worked with Lilia Podkopayeva, the 1995 World and 1996 Olympic all-around champion.

Ostapenko and his wife, Nadia Ostapenko, moved to Brazil in 2001. They worked at the national training center in Curitiba, and helped oversee a strong improvement in the Brazilian women’s team.

…

The Ukrainian women finished 11th in Beijing, their worst team performance in history. The team finished fourth at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Ostapenko Back in Ukraine

Good news for Ukraine. Bad news for Brazil. What will they do now?

So many problems in Brazil!

With Daiane dos Santos – GLOBOESPORTE.COM

The 2005 World Champion has postponed his previously announced retirement since he qualified for the World Cup Final in Pommels and Horizontal Bar.

We get one last chance to honour one of the best gymnasts of the decade.

original – flickr – hturtdekan

… His exciting gymnastics with its elegant execution, and great resistance to be the most complete gymnasts in the world have become one of the most valued gymnasts on the international scene.

Ana Gulica’s Weblog

Jason Burnett, the Silver medalist in Beijing, is the world record holder for Degree of Difficulty with 17.5 on April 2, 2007, at the Lake Placid Trampoline World Cup.

But back in 2004 he put together an 18.5 routine — likely the highest DD ever on a regulation tramp — in training:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Here’s that same 18.5 duplicated in Walabers Trampoline, a video game. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Search YouTube for “Jason Burnett” for more extreme feats of trampoline genius.

related post: trampoline – Thriller, Turgeon, Killer, Polyarush

China is ordering its basketball players to stop faking their birth dates, local media reported Friday, turning the spotlight back on allegations of systematic altering of athlete’s ages.

Sports authorities have sometimes been accused of altering players’ ages to show them as being younger, mainly to qualify them for youth tournaments. Those false ages stay with athletes and can result in embarrassment and regulatory sanctions when athletes move on to greater success.

While that practice, known as ‘age shaving,’ is considered widespread in sports such as basketball and football, the opposite was suspected in the controversy surrounding the women’s gymnastics competition at the Beijing Olympics. …

China warns basketball players to be honest about their ages – The Canadian Press

So, China has admitted to age shaving.

This was forced mainly because of the Yi Jianlian age controversy. He plays for the New Jersey Nets.

This must be pressuring those in China who falsified the ages of Olympic gymnasts.

… The International Gymnastics Federation eventually cleared the Chinese women’s Olympic gold medal gymnasts of amending birth records to appear older than they were, but continues to investigate the ages of Chinese gymnasts who competed in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Female gymnasts are required to have attained a minimum age of 16 during an Olympic year to be eligible for competition. …

Chinese tighten age rules

One day the truth will out.

It’s simply a matter of time.

AP Photo by AMY SANCETTA

Chinese gymnasts Yang Yun, left, and Dong Fangxiao wave flowers after recieving the bronze medal in the women’s gymnastic team finals at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. – Daylife

Marcela Lopez from Brazil is the reigning World Champion of Aerobic Gymnastics.

The strength and flexibility of these athletes is astonishing. Check her planche in this routine from the 10th Annual World Championships held in Ulm 2008.

Click PLAY or watch Marcela on YouTube.

Here she is at the Gala at that same Worlds.

Marcela started in classical ballet at age-4. Has many years of rhythmic dance and jazz dance training. And Capoeira, of course.

In training at the University of Georgia.

Beam is the toughest event to win in the NCAA. It’s the most competitive apparatus.

Click PLAY or watch it on Gymnastike.
http://www.gymnastike.org/assets/portal/add_ons/mediaplayer-3-16/mediaplayer.swf

Visit Gymnastike For More Videos

related post: gymnastics workout at Georgia

Helen Colagiuri (Australia) has been selected by the FIG as one of the 8 judges to officiate at the World Cup Final, Dec. 15-16 in Madrid.. Helen will be A2 on Beam and B panel on all other apparatus. Only the top 8 gymnasts on each apparatus are invited.

Recall the name?

Helen Colagiuri was the judge singled out by Valeri Liukin, Tim Daggett and others in the American Camp after Nastia finished Silver behind He Kexin in the Olympic Bar Final.

original – flickr

There are no ties allowed in the Olympics. In Beijing, if a tie occurs, it is first broken by start value…which in this case was identical. Then it’s broken by the deductions taken by the middle four judges…which were also identical. The third tiebreak was the average of the three lowest of the four counting judges’ deductions and this is where the difference was made.

Colagiuri awarded He 9.300 and Liukin 9.000, while none of the other five judges scored He’s execution better than one-10th of a point above Liukin.

I defended Colagiuri and the judging panel at the time, even though I personally wanted Nastia to get the Gold. The pirouette angle deductions are so debatable, that any of the top 3 could have won.

I still believe no “Australian Judging conspiracy” against the USA exists.

Sadly, it became a huge media storyline: Nastia’s score correct, says beleaguered judge

Seems FIG believes Helen Colagiuri is one of the very best judges in the world. Otherwise they would have found a way not to select her for the World Cup Final to appease the Americans.

MostepanovaFan posted an excellent video guide to balance beam mounts using the 2009 Code of Points.

Here’s another. Her guide to dismounts.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Finally, after being premiered Nov. 21st, the audiocast rebroadcast is available.

Hosted by three-time Olympian John Roethlisberger, monthly broadcasts will be streamed live.

IGRN – THE INSIDE GYMNASTICS RADIO NETWORK

It would not play for me in Firefox on a Mac. AND I had to download some software from Microsoft.

But it did then work in Safari on the Mac.

Surprisingly, they’ve not published it in iTunes.

Of course it’s a very interesting and entertaining podcast — 2hrs long — featuring Shannon Miller, Nastia Liukin, Todd Thornton and Shawn Johnson.

Inside Gymnastics has made it so difficult to find, I wonder how many people have listened so far?

related post: Inside Gymnastics bungles again?