Gymnastics Coaching.com

Of course I believe in Freedom of Speech.

Most Olympics athletes are completely focused on their sport.

But some use their high profile to promote human rights and charitable causes. Here are a few of those: Anna Rice Joey Cheek, Rosanna Tomiuk, Brian and Dennis Stever.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Right to Play – official website

Ideally I would like athletes not to advocate while on the field of play. Or podium. But at all other times they should be free to speak their minds.

China, I think, was very, very lucky not to have more vocal athlete protesters at the Olympics.

In solidarity with all those coaches starting back to the “regular schedule this week. …

Despair.com

School has started in many parts North America.

On the last long holiday weekend of the summer, I’m at the gym putting together rotations, conditioning and training plans. If you are too, my condolences.

Eveyone else is gone. Except the cleaner. And one Dad who took it upon himself to organize the massive job of painting the entire warehouse.

It looks GREAT.

I’m also still on the search for an experienced Head Coach / Administrator for our club of 600 – 700 gymnasts.

FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 1, 2009

Los Angeles, California

HOSTED BY
BROADWAY GYMNASTICS
LOS ANGELES, CA 90066
(NEAR MARINA DEL REY)
BroadwayGym.com

The 18th Annual Peter Vidmar Men’s Gymnastics Invitational (PVI) will be held on February 28-March 2, 2009. Peter Vidmar, 1984 USA Gold Medalist, will be at every session to meet the gymnasts, their families & friends, and present awards. This year’s competition will feature gymnasts from “Around the World” as well as a “Special Olympics” Session. In past years we have hosted gymnasts from 33 states as well as Armenia, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand & Russia. Foreign athletes compete in every session!

PeterVidmar.org

Most everyone agrees. The biggest problem with the “new” Code of Points used in Beijing is that athletes with high difficulty were rewarded more than athletes with superb form, line and technique.

But why did this happen?

Former American Champion Todd Thornton was blogging the Olympics for Inside Gymnastics. Like many others, he was very disappointed that the judges “boxed” the B-scores for execution.

Todd takes a very strong position on the Nastia vs He Kexin tie break in the Bars Final:

I was sitting a mere 30 feet away from the uneven bars, with a perfect side angle view during finals. In my opinion, Nas was underscored by two to three-tenths. …

He Kexin, the eventual gold medalist, on the other hand, had more deductions throughout her routine than Liukin, in my opinion. She missed several handstands, caught a few releases close, and on one transition was caught in a near dead hang. Oh, and she took a step forward and to the side on the dismount. In my opinion, Kexin was over scored by two-tenths. With a difference of about five-tenths in the routines, I thought there was no way the judges would keep Nas from taking home her second Olympic Gold. But they did, along with a tie-break system that just doesn’t make sense.

Both routines have the same difficulty (7.7) and on this day, the judges evaluated the execution equally, for a tie score of 16.725. But a tie-break rule that is ridiculously complicated awarded gold to Kexin and silver to Liukin. …

Some B-panel judges had Nastia ahead. Some had He Kexin ahead.

But the B-scores were so close that it could have gone either way.

The point is, somehow FIG must find a way to get the judges to make a greater range of B-scores between routines of conspicuously different quality. Right now judges are afraid of being too far “out of range” with the rest of the panel.

Coach Sommer of GymnasticBodies.com and others have made this same point:

Just look at the results from the (Olympic) pommel horse finals (or any finals or throughout the competition, actually). In pommel horse finals, the gymnasts who placed from second to sixth were all within three-tenths of each other in execution (ranging from 9.075 to 9.325). Watch the routines back and you’ll see a completely different quality to those routines – a lot more variance than three tenths. Look at the overall quality of Hiroyuki Tomita’s routine – his bodyline, his toe point, his overall manner of execution and compare it even with Louis Smith (who took home the bronze) and who had multiple form breaks, flexed feet and breaks in bodyline and rhythm. It just doesn’t make sense.

Thornton’s Take: The Scoring Controversy

Yahoo Sports

Bruno Grandi says he will insist the Technical committees make those changes to the rules. He called the scoring on the medal for Cheng Fei who fell on Vault in the Final “absurd”.

Will FIG “fix” the Code?

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Are you suffering from the Olympic Syndrome? Feeling lost, sad, helpless after the Beijing Olympics is gone for good?

You are not alone as many Chinese sports fans have suffered the same …

Beijing Olympics Fan

I’m still depressed.

However, in China:

… In the immediate future, one beneficiary of the Olympics is the Paralympics–with the passion for spectator sports fairly undiminished, tickets for events have been going quickly. …

What’s Next For Post-Olympics China – Beijing Olympics Fan

They begin September 6th in Beijing.

The 63 athletes in the Gold medal delegation have had a grueling post-Olympic schedule.

China’s gold medal winners Cheng Fei (R) and Yang Yilin perform during a demonstration in Hong Kong, August 30, 2008.

The visiting Chinese gold medalists displayed their superb sports skills again in Hong Kong on Saturday morning, whose performance impressed over 5,000 Hong Kong spectators face to face as well as tens of thousands of viewers through TV live broadcasts.

China.org.cn

Surprisingly, Hong Kong competed under its own name in the Olympics.

Next stop was nearby Macau, also known as “Las Vegas East”.

Macau late last night surprised the visiting mainland team of Olympic gold medalists with a HK$10.6 million check. …

The Standard

(Over US$1.3 million.) … No word on who actually gets that cash.

original – Jac

Summer is ending where I live.

THIS is what we’ve been waiting for. NEW TEAMS being added to the NCAA.

San Diego State will explore adding more women’s sports in order to meet a California State University target for gender equity in scholarship rates.

SDSU has been more than 6 percent under its female grants-in-aid target rate the past two years, according to a report presented to the CSU board of trustees this week.

“We are looking at our options, which include adding two women’s sports,” SDSU spokesman Jack Beresford said. “There won’t be any changes with our men’s sports.” …

Sign On San Diego

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Insiders knew that a teenager from England had an outside shot at a Pommel medal in Beijing. Louis Smith had finished 3rd at World’s in 2007.

When he took the Bronze, despite form breaks, he became “the first British gymnast to win an individual Olympic medal in 100 years.”

Click PLAY or watch the routine on YouTube.

His coach, Paul Hall, had this to say:

… “He is not the classic proportions for gymnastics, not the normal model for sport but what a competitor, put the pressure on Louis and he delivers”. …

British Gymnastics

Smith is a throwback to old school pommels. He reminds me of Magyar and Philip Delasalle. Very tall. Very slow circles.

I expect Louis will be much more stretched next time we see him. And have an even higher start score.

Of course he will be a media magnet in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics in London.