Gymnastics Coaching.com

Balance out of whack without coach
‘It’s going to be a totally different experience without her there,’ says gymnast Hopfner-Hibbs

by Randy Starkman

Whenever Toronto gymnast Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs imagined the Beijing Olympics, she pictured long-time coach Carol-Angela Orchard right beside her every step of the way.

Now, it looks like Hopfner-Hibbs might be going it alone at the most important event of her life. Hopfner-Hibbs is Canada’s only hope for a medal in women’s gymnastics, having become the country’s first women’s world championship medallist two years ago on balance beam, and collecting six World Cup medals in the past 14 months.

But she placed second behind Nansy Damianova of Montreal in the women’s Olympic points selection race that wrapped up at the Canadian championships in Calgary on Saturday. So, the one women’s coaching accreditation pass available to Canada goes to Damianova’s coach Katerine Dussault, meaning Orchard will have trouble getting access to Hopfner-Hibbs in Beijing.

“It’s so important to me that she was there with me because she’s the reason that I’m there,” said Hopfner-Hibbs yesterday. “So, it’s just really upsetting.”

Gymnastics Canada will pay Orchard’s way to Beijing and she can stay at the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) high performance centre, but the veteran coach said she’s not sure yet if it makes sense for her to go to China.

“To be the Olympic coach and be able to have access to your athlete and help her be the best she can be is one thing,” said Orchard. “But to go as a tourist is not something I’m interested in. That would drive me crazy, to not be able to get in the gym. I’d have no access to the competition floor at all.”

Hopfner-Hibbs has worked with Orchard for nearly a decade, her biggest achievement coming when she finally broke the barrier for Canadian women with a bronze medal on the beam at the 2006 world championships.

“She’s always, always believed in me all the time,” said the 18-year-old gymnast. “No matter what’s going on or how rough of a competition or training I’ve had, she’s always there. It’s going to be a totally different experience without her there. I always pictured my Olympic experience with her there so it just makes it that much harder.”

Gymnastics Canada director Jean-Paul Caron said they’re trying to get Orchard access to Hopfner-Hibbs for training sessions. He said he’s confident the COC can get the accreditation needed, and that it might be possible to change the coach’s accreditation if Hopfner-Hibbs were to reach a final.

Toronto Star

There’s still hope for Carol-Angela to get to the Olympic. And possibly even on to the competition floor if Elyse makes the final on beam.

I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed.

Click PLAY or watch Elyse on YouTube.

I expect the Olympic “points system” blunder will be on the agenda of the Gymnastics Canada AGM this coming weekend.

BTW, one of Elyse’s future coaches from UCLA, Chris Waller, attended Canadian Championships and even got in a bit of a holiday with his wife Cindy while visiting the Great White North.

Related post: gymnast Hopfner-Hibbs on Olympic Selection

From Bernardo of Gymblog Brasil fame:

These are the results from the Qualifications of Brazilian Nationals 2008

Women’s Results
Team
1. Associação do Pessoal da Caixa Econômica Federal
2. Clube de Regatas do Flamengo
3. Esporte Clube Pinheiros

All Around
1. Jade Barbosa (CRF/RJ) – 60,367
2. Daniele Hypolito (CFR/RJ) – 59,233
3. Ana Cláudia Silva (APCEF/PR) – 58,133

Vault
1. Jade Barbosa (CRF/RJ) – 14,917
2. Joselane Santos (ECP/SP) – 14,133
3. Letícia da Costa (CRF/RJ) – 13,833

Uneven Bars
1. Jade Barbosa (CRF/RJ) – 14,833
2. Milena Miranda (APCEF/PR) – 14,800
3. Bruna Leal (APCEF/PR) – 14,467

Balance Beam
1. Daniele Hypolito (CRF/RJ) – 15,700
2. Jade Barbosa (CRF/RJ) – 14,867
3. Laís Souza (ECP/SP) – 14,733

Floor Exercise
1. Jade Barbosa (CRF/RJ) – 15,300
2. Ana Cláudia Silva (APCEF/PR) – 14,900
2. Daniele Hypolito (CRF/RJ) – 14,900
4. Daiane dos Santos (ECP/SP) – 14,667

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics

Team
1. SERC Santa Maria/SP – 254,467
2. Esporte Clube Pinheiros/SP – 252,633
3. Clube de Regatas do Flamengo/RJ – 249,733

All Around
1. Diego Hypolito (CRF/RJ) – 85,067
2. Péricles Silva (ECP/SP) – 84,233
3. Francisco Barreto (SERC/SP) – 83,967

Vault
1. Diego Hypolito (CRF/RJ) – 15,667
2. Renato Oliveira (AABB/SP) – 15,367
3. Jefferson Negrão (ECP/SP) – 15,300

Parallel Bars
1. Mosiah Rodrigues (UNIÃO/RS) – 14,467
2. Felipe Polato (ECP/SP) – 14,200
3. Raudison de Souza (BFC/SP) – 14,067

High Bar
1. Luiz Augusto dos Anjos (ECP/SP) – 14,367
2. P̩ricles Silva (ECP/SP) Р14,333
3. Mosiah Rodrigues (UNIÃO/RS) – 14,200

Floor Exercise
1. Diego Hypolito (CRF/RJ) – 15,900
2. Henrique Motta (CRF/RJ) – 14,700
3. João Paulo Souza (ECP/SP) – 14,467

Still Rings
1. Arthur Zanetti (SERC/SP) – 15,367
2. Henrique Flores (SERC/SP) – 14, 467
3. Francisco Barreto (SERC/SP) – 14,300

Pommel Horse
1. Sérgio Eras (SERC/SP) – 13,667
2. Danilo Nogueira (BFC/SP) – 13,533
3. Francisco Barreto (SERC/SP) – 13,500

If your gym is covered in hand painted, somewhat amateur gymnastics graphics (I’m looking at you Altadore) consider this alternative.

Professional wall displays, wallpaper, decals, window treatments, sponsorship walls, window signage and much, much more. Prices look very reasonable, I thought. (Wall coverings about US$6-10 / square foot.)

Here’s a sample “wallpaper”

see more

Sample “wallpaper border”:

see more

Plenty of choices of colours and themes. You can personalize it with your club “look”. For example, here’s a personalized banner:

see more

(I’m not sure I want to get underneath that Big Ass Fan, though.)

ArtisticCoverings.com

Join the community, upload your videos, show off your skills, and win a $100 gift certificate from American Gymnast.

Take a video of yourself on any apparatus, and stick it on Gymnast.com. Tell all your friends to rate your skills. July 1st, one winner will be selected and determined by a combination of views, ratings, and expert judging. Winner will be notified by email and awarded a $100 gift certificate to the American-Gymnast.com Shopping Mall, offering a full range of gymnastics equipment, mats, grips, wrist supports and more!

details – Gymnast.com

Coaches and gymnastics purists would be happy to see this well-trained, very artistic gymnast make the U.S. team to Beijing.

Though a fluff piece, it’s an excellent profile. I had no idea Bridget was so mature and well-spoken. I see her kind of confidence as a psychological plus.

In the final team selection Marta and the committee will chose those young women who they most believe can handle the pressure of 3-up, 3-count, in the lion’s den, Beijing.

Click PLAY or watch Bridget on YouTube.

(via Live.Breath.Love.Gymnastics)

Gymnast.com is projecting that “if Shayla makes it back for Trials next week, she may literally be going head to head with Bridget Sloan for the last spot on the Olympic team.” That two of these three will compete in Beijing: Peszek, Sloan and Worley.

Bridget’s routines on Bars and Beam from VISA Championships:

Click PLAY or watch them on YouTube.

INTERVIEW: Bridget Sloan – Inside Gymnastics

Olivia Howe let us know of this disaster:

In spite of a community’s sandbagging efforts Thursday night, Chow’s Gymnastics & Dance studio at 2210 Park Ave. in West Des Moines was knee deep in water Friday. …

The flooding displaced Olympic hopeful Shawn Johnson and other gymnasts from their practice facility.

“With the Olympic trials coming up next week, this can’t have found a worse time,” said Liang Chow, owner of the facility and Johnson’s coach.

Chow made arrangements with Iowa State University for Johnson and the competitive gymnastics team she practices with to train at that facility today and Saturday.

About 100 people showed up Thursday night to move equipment to a higher floor and to sandbag around Chow’s, including city councilmen and West Des Moines government personnel.

“I think it would have been a lot worse if we weren’t sandbagging,” West Des Moines city councilman Jim Sandager said. “Shawn is a community asset and we wanted to do what we can to protect her training schedule,”

…

“I’m not complaining,” Chow said. “I have a very touched heart to see so many people helping me.”

Chow’s Gymnastics knee-deep in water – Des Moine Register

(AP Photo/Mary Schwalm) – ESPN

Quebec Men’s Artistic coaches at the Canadian National Championships told me of a new program being tested.

Boys after Pommel Horse training were daily plunging their hands and wrists into a bucket filled with ice water for up to 5min.

Reports are that chronic wrist pain has been much reduced.

Interesting …

I asked Ed Louie who works with the medical support team of the Canadian Men’s National Team what he thought of the experiment. Ed could not see any downside to the treatment. If it works — great. (He did feel 5min is probably too long.)

I then checked with Anatomy Professor, former Canadian Men’s National Team Coach, Keith Russell. He too was supportive of the experiment and noted that other sports — e.g. Athletics — were using ice plunge as a daily recovery modality.

UPDATE: Dr. Bill Sands, Performance Services – Recovery Center, U.S. Olympic Training Center wrote:

Virtually all of the thermal modalities have one primary mechanism in common: increased blood flow. In the case of ice, there is also a potential for reduction of inflammation (and its concommitant by-products) along with increased blood flow. While ice and other (less) cold modalities have been in use since ancient times, we still find that some people respond well and others do not. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the two years of running our Recovery Center – one size does not fit all. We have a “cold plunge” in our Recovery Center (51 deg F), that athletes use primarilly for legs (since most sports, not gymnastics so much, rely most heavily on legs), but athletes have found that sticking a sore arm or wrist in the cold plunge seems to help them. We also provide ice bags, and of course it is very common to see athletes walking around complex with ice bags wrapped with a clear plastic wrap all the time (they get them from sports medicine).

One of the thornier questions I’m struggling with is where is the line between “rehab” and “recovery.” “Recovery” has become another garbage can term that is now so broadly defined as to have become pretty useless. Are we talking about “healing” something that is injured, or are we talking about returning a “fatigued” athlete to top form more rapidly. Of course, you can get into a fist fight regarding a definition of “fatigue.”

In closing, I would say that ice baths for sore wrists is unlikely to do harm, and may do some good. However, it is important to realize that the body part in the cold must be moved rather continuously to prevent blood pooling. The pooling of blood can ultimately result in some damage to tissues, so the blood has to be kept moving.

From Tom Burgdorf’s Oct. 15th GYMNET Sports FREE Parenting An Athlete weekly newsletter:

We hate to do it in most cases. We know that there are relationships between the coaches and the athletes and their parents. We know the history. We know the ups and downs. We know that the athletes are sensitive and that the coaches are important to them. And we want it that way. But.

When you are running a business like a gymnastics club, martial arts business, dance studio, or similar business, the coaches have 2 jobs. One job is to coach. The other job is to be a productive, positive, loyal employee of the business. Not everyone does a good job at both. We have seen numerous times where the person is doing a great job with the kids and the parents but they are not doing a good job with the other coaches or maybe the owner.

For all of you who own your own business, I think you can relate. You might have the best chef in the city for your restaurant, but if she doesn’t show up on time, takes too much time off, etc., etc. you may have to make a change. That change being in the best interest of the entire business. …

So there can be a time when we give chance after chance for the coach to change but when they don’t we have to let them go. We know it hurts. It hurts us too. But the gym, our business, is more important than any one person, except for the owner who has risked so much.

What You Can Do

When a coaching change happens, use the situation to teach your athlete about business and about how sometimes changes have to be made. We don’t have to get into the negatives, just tell your athletes that not everyone fits into every situation. And that the coach will be happier in a new situation. Yes the coach will miss her/his athletes. And there will be a period of sadness for everyone. But in life you have to get over these disappointing situations and move on. The new coach will do a good job too. …

Coaching changes are a way of life. We all need to get through the situation and get back to normal as soon as possible.

You might want to subscribe to Tom’s FREE Parenting An Athlete weekly newsletter. Simply send your e – mail address to tom at tomgymnet @ aol.com and get it every Monday morning via e – mail.

Laura Figueroa recommended this Olympic promo video featuring Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, and Alicia Sacramone.

I love this stuff.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Music by ANDRES FIERRO. (MySpace)

UPDATE: If you like that video, Laura recommends this follow-up: Beijing 2008 – “Dejame Tocarte”

Dean Potter is the controversial rock climber increasingly attracted to B.A.S.E. jumping.

Here Dean combines the sports of slacklining with a B.A.S.E. jump — something he calls baselining.

A Walk in the Clouds – NY Times

Related: Aerialist – The Movie