Gymnastics Coaching.com

Will you be watching tonight?

It’s going to be thrilling.

Vault: Bridget Sloan, Shawn Johnson, Alicia Sacramone
Uneven bars: Chellsie Memmel, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin
Balance beam: Alicia Sacramone, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson
Floor exercise: Alicia Sacramone, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson

via Gymnast.com

Expect the girls to be psyched after the Men’s “Miracle on Mat” Bronze Medal last night.

He Kexin will be competing bars for China. There’s no way she’ll fall two meets in a row.

International Gymnast has famed bar innovator Li Ya blogging for them.

Li Ya is the only Chinese woman to have two skills on the uneven bars named after her in the Code of Points: the Jaeger ½ + Jaeger release-release combination, named the “Li Ya salto,” which China’s He Kexin now uses as her signature skill on bars; and the “Li Ya dismount,” (half-in, front-out piked) which will be performed in Beijing only by world uneven bars champion Ksenia Semyonova of Russia. In 2006 Li first debuted the “Li Ya salto” on the World Cup circuit, and to date Li and He remain the only two gymnasts to successfully perform that combination in competition. Li is also known for her unique, graceful style on balance beam, an event on which she won the 2006 World Cup Final title.

On the Chinese national team, Li, He and another 2008 Olympian for China, Li Shanshan, all trained in the same group, under coaches Liu Guicheng and He Hua.

Li Ya – 2003 World Championships – more photos

Her preview of the showdown between the USA and her beloved team is one of the best and most honest I’ve read:

… Personally, I’m a big fan of Nastia Liukin’s bars. Unfortunately, the top two American bar workers [Liukin and Chellsie Memmel] both faltered in prelims, but Liukin is lucky like He Kexin in that she still qualified to finals. She has a 7.7 A-score, just like He Kexin and Yang Yilin. It’s always been a hope of mine to compete head-to-head with Liukin in a bars final. That match played out many times in my head, but unfortunately it didn’t happen in reality. To me, Liukin is an original. Her quality of execution and body lines are first-class, but her routine composition is also dynamic and interesting — such a rich variety of skills and connections all smoothly stringed together. She has her own unique style and represents a whole different direction of developing difficulty on bars under the new Code of Points. …

Praise from Li Ya is praise indeed. Nastia does have the most complex, interesting routine ever.

… Women’s team final will be one fierce battle till the last second for sure. China has a clear lead in A-scores, while Team USA has more seasoned competitors and traditionally higher consistency. It’s really impossible to say who has the overall edge. …

Click through to read the entire blog post. An excellent overview.

Click PLAY or watch the Li Ya release combination on YouTube

.

I was wondering if one of the other coaches might replace Miles after Morgan withdrew.

Here’s what happened:

… Avery, the head coach at Ohio State, is the personal coach of the Hamms. Avery had offered to step down from his position as assistant coach of the U.S. team in Beijing, following Morgan’s withdrawal Thursday. The team requested he stay, however.

“I certainly wanted to, for myself, to step down, but these guys said ‘We want you on the floor,” he said. “And that’s why without, an athlete on the floor, I went out on the floor with these guys. They wanted me as a part of that family on the floor. And so I went out there with them and everything came to fruition. It was absolutely amazing.”

Avery formerly coached Bhavsar, who attended Ohio State. …

Avery: Family Focus Put U.S. on Podium

This was the 4th Olympics with Miles Avery as one of the coaches. The USA finished 2nd in 2004, 3rd in 2008.

Blythe posted the Most/Least Impressive performances on her Gymblog. I enjoyed her earlier post too: Chinese men: Gold!

International Gymnast posted a nice recap:

The Chinese men marched to the gold medal Monday at the Olympic team final in Beijing.

Japan earned the silver, 7.25 points behind the Olympic hosts, while the American team won the battle for the bronze.

As expected, China blitzed the competition, taking the top team score on five of the six events. After a slow start on floor exercise, the team was untouchable. World champions Xiao Qin (16.100 on pommel horse) and Chen Yibing (16.575 on still rings) were superb on their respective specialities. On vault, Yang Wei scored 16.600 for a near-stuck Tsuk triple full, and Li Xiaopeng took 16.775 for his namesake vault (Yurchenko half on, Randi).

In the fifth rotation, Huang Xu took the top mark for China on parallel bars with a 16.475, followed by Li at 16.450. China held such a high lead that by the end of the sixth rotation, team anchor Zou Kai needed only 8.75 to secure the gold on high bar. A routine with a stuck dismount delivered 15.975 and the gold medal. The Chinese team, which included three veterans of the gold medal team from the 2000 Olympics, were moved to tears after the victory. …

IG – Chinese Men Win First Gymnastics Gold

In many ways, the “Athlete of the Meet” was Jonathan Horton. He nailed 5 routines to lead the USA to a Bronze.

more Horton photos – NBC Olympics

As expected, there was no “meltdown” in the Team Final this Olympics … as we saw in 2004.

Congratulations China. That was an awesome, dominant performance.

(L-R) The Chinese team … celebrate winning the gold medal. (Photo credit: Xinhua)

Photos: China wins Men’s Gymnastics Team gold at Beijing Olympics

Here is the list of competitors for the upcoming Olympic Trampoline event, as posted on the Official Web Site of the Beijing Olympics. Note that the original list included US woman Brittany Dircks, I’ve modified the list to show the actual US woman competitor, Erin Blanchard.

MEN:
1 Ye Shuai replaced by ?? China
2 Dong Dong China
3 Alexander Rusakov Russia
4 Dimitri Ushakov Russia
5 Yasuhiro Ueyama Japan
6 Sotomura Tetsuya Japan
7 Henrik Stehlik Germany
8 Flavio Cannone Italy
9 Yuri Nikitin Ukraine
10 Jason Burnett Canada
11 Peter Jensen Denmark
12 Nikolai Kazak Belarus
13 David Martin France
14 Diogo Ganchinho Portugal
15 Ben Wilden Australia
16 Chris Estrada United States

WOMEN:
1 Irina Karavaeva Russia
2 Natalia Chernova Russia
3 Huang Shanshan China
4 He Wenna China
5 Karen Cockburn Canada
6 Rosannagh Maclennan Canada
7 Anna Dogonadze Germany
8 Tatiana Petrenia Belarus
9 Jaime Moore Claire Wright Great Britain
10 Hammoto Hiromi Japan
11 Anna Savkina Uzbekistan
12 Ana Rente Portugal
13 Olena Movchan Ukraine
14 Luba Golovina Georgia
15 Brittany Dircks
Erin Blanchard United States
16 Lenka Honzakova Czech Republic

read more on the Tramp and Tumble blog

But is Ye Shuai competing for China? Or has he been replaced?

NBC Olympics – Inside Trampoline

China wins; U.S gets bronze

Beijing – The heavily favored Chinese gymnasts have a history of faltering when the pressure is on. It appeared early on that tonight would be no exception when the first athlete up, Chen Yibing, faltered on the last pass of his floor routine. But then Yang Wei rebounded with a solid routine followed by another from Zou Kai, and China was back on track. There would be no more faltering today. They clinched the gold medal with the rowdy crowd behind them every step of the way.

After the withdrawal of the Hamm brothers before the games began, it wasn’t even clear if the U.S. men would qualify to the final round of team competition. But the U.S. came in fourth in the preliminary round and in a stunning fashion, were leading the gold medal favorites, China, half-way through the event. As expected, they lost ground to China during the fifth rotation on floor, but were able to onto an unexpected bronze medal. An incredible accomplishment considering the adversity they faced leading into the Olympic Games.

China wins; U.S gets bronze – NBCOlympics.com

My congratulations to Team USA. That’s an unbelievable accomplishment.

And my apologies for ever doubting you. I was quite sure 5th was the highest possible rank.

Final Results

International Gymnast is reporting that:

… 2005 world champion Hiroyuki Tomita will replace one of his teammates to compete in the all-around final in Beijing, Japanese head coach Koji Gushiken said. …

Koki Sakamoto who qualified 5th AA will be replaced by Tomita who finished 6th. (Tomita fell on Vault.)

But is this “right”?

Fair?

How does Sakamoto feel about it?

… My personal opinion is that it is fair. It is right. It is ethical.

Coaches in sport are responsible to put up the best players at game time. Not easy, sure. But that is the coach’s job.

In the past the replaced athlete was required to announce they were “injured”. That deception always bothered me. I assume coaches no longer have to live that lie.

And I’m looking forward to Tomita challenging for an AA medal!

I feel Andrew Thornton is the top “pundit” when it comes to International Gymnastics.

Here are his predictions posted after the preliminary competitions:

Click through to Gymnast.com to read his rationale.

Not a lot of surprises here. After prelims, more are predicting Nastia Liukin will will the AA. I’m still calling Shawn Johnson. But it will be closer than I expected. Nastia is doing much better on Floor and Vault than I expected.

Andrew is calling the USA to be victorious over China in the pressure packed Team competition. Despite the injury to Peszek.

I agree.

… Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs was good yesterday, good enough to qualify for the all-around final in 14th position and a shot at Canada’s best ever result in the event.

But her ultimate goal had been to reach the podium on the balance beam, the event in which she became the first Canadian woman ever to win a world championship medal. She had trouble on her mount and on her planned three-move sequence – where she’s supposed to do an aerial, layout, layout – she stopped after the second trick because she could feel she was about to fall.

It comes down to the finest detail at this level, and on this day, Hopfner-Hibbs was missing some key elements and ranked 20th on the beam – only the top eight advance.

“It was a good day, but it wasn’t her best and it wasn’t good enough,” said Orchard, her long-time coach.

“That was painful. She certainly is beautiful in that event. All the judges said she was so unique, really classy. I’m very proud of her.”

Uneven day for Canadian gymnastics dynamo – The Star

Elyse goes to UCLA after the Games. Coach Carol-Angela Orchard is getting married.

Congratulations to both for all the many good years on the Canadian National Team.