It seems to me that every single WAG gymnast has been announced that’s competing in the Olyympics. Keep in mind though that these are nominative rosters and countries have up until 24 hours until the games start to change their team.
Yang Tae-young is the gymnast who’s coaches screwed up during the Individual AA competition at the Athens Olympics. A huge blunder, they did not check his start scrore on PBars.
He finished with the Bronze in the AA.
… “Whether I’ll be competing with him (Hamm) or not at the Olympics, I don’t really care,” Yang said in a joint interview with South Korean media this month.
“There are other gymnasts who are better than him and I’d like to focus more on them and also on my performance,” he said in the interview recently released to international media.
With the FIG refusing to redistribute the medals, Yang and the South Korean Olympics committee filed an appeal with the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Hamm said he would return the gold if the decision of the Lausanne-based CAS went against him but the court ruled in the American’s favour.
Yang accepted the verdict when it was made a few months after the Athens Games and pledged to win gold in Beijing. …
PHNOM PENH, July 16 (Xinhua) — China Wednesday donated a batch of gymnastics equipment worth around 14,000 U.S. dollars to Cambodia for its gymnastics federation to carry out daily training of national athletes.
The equipment included balance beam, low balance beam, spring board, crash mats and landing mats, according to the relevant certificates signed by Cambodian Tourism Minister and president of the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia (NOCC) Thong Khon and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Zhang Jinfeng.
While delivering his speech for the donation ceremony, Thong Khon wished that the upcoming Beijing Olympics and the current series of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries would score success.
The proceedings were hampered by an electrical outage caused by a HUGE thunder storm. But the Cambodians were charmed by the Chinese ambassador who spoke fluent Khmer and seemed genuinely interested in the young gymnasts who demonstrated for her.
Cambodia now has a full set of F.I.G. equipment for Artistic. But the Floor is badly damaged. Currently they tumble on a slightly less broken tumbling strip about 3ft wide.
It’s comments like this that make me cheer for Yang Wei.
I’m one of those who wished Hamm — and USA Gymnastics — would have handled Paul’s controversial 2004 Olympic win differently. As did this blogger:
… Hamm not only refused to give his gold medal to Tae-Young, but even announced his opposition to Tae-Young receiving a second gold …. in doing so Hamm missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime. If he had stepped up and given Tae-Young his gold, he would have gone down as one of the great heroes of Olympic history, held up to generations of children as an icon of virtue and sportsmanship.
This is a video of a drill progression used to teach high level release skill like Kovacs, Kolmans and so use it for double layout flyaways. … The performer in the video is Alexei Bondarenko during a training in his club Dynamo Moscow. The body shape is not ideal and this is by no means a perfect example of how to perform the drill but it does illustrate the idea and it shows its application. Notice the safety mat that is slid on the bar after the release. Play safe. This video was used in the March 2008 Vol 2 Issue 1 of the TheGymPress.
I recall when we first saw it at Taiso Gymnastics in the early 1990s. And went straight to the gym to ask all the boys to try it.
They were a bit “freaked”. (I recall the first to do it successfully was Trent McClements.)
After that, all the boys did it easily. Found it FUN.
We did it first as a progression for Geinger.
Later I came to realize it was even more beneficial psychologically. Once the guys landed on the bar (with very little impact) the fear of hitting the bar was much reduced. At Taiso we always slid a mat for every release and dismount.
UPDATE: Ana-Lia points out that, if this is the line-up, that only two of Shawn, Nastia and Chellsie would qualify to the All-around Final. That Chellsie might score higher than Nastia due to her better positions in the line-up.
As projected by Andrew Thornton on Gymnast.com:
… Bridget Sloan could end up only doing one routine in the Olympics – bars in prelims!
It’s for this reason that the selection of the 6th and final competitor hardly mattered. Whoever was picked would not likely compete.
On the other hand, Sloan was a good choice as she can be back-up on any appartus … in case one of the named gymnasts needs be replaced between prelims and Finals.
Since the U.S.A. will certainly qualify in the top 8 to Team finals, the goal of the preliminary competition will be to qualify athletes to AA and individual apparatus Finals. Team rank is unimportant.
I’ve had Olympic Selection fatigue. What about you?
The girls look very happy it’s DONE.
I.G. stated that “Johnson’s coach Liang Chow is the head coach. A female assistant coach will be named at a later date.”
Congratulations to all 9 superb athletes and their coaches! The alternates should be very proud. They will be training just as hard as the selected 6. And may yet compete, … if there is another stress fracture.
The team alternates will train in Tianjin, hometown of Peszek’s coach, Peter Zhao.