Gymnastics Coaching.com

We were honoured to have “Kat” Lobaznyuk at our coaching course this week, a member of the Russian team at the 2000 Olympics. She is now coaching in Vancouver, Canada at Omega.

BRONZE – Vault finals. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

SILVER – Balance Beam finals. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Bin Fan, multiple Olympic medalist from China, is assisting me with the course, as well. Bin and Kat were comparing Olympic experiences at dinner tonight.

Bin is Men’s Head Coach at the host club, Calgary Gymnastics Centre. And coach of National Champion Adam Wong.

Bin will be hosting the final staging training camp before the Canadian Olympic Team flies to Beijing.

Crazy.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Thanks Cam.

University of Utah gymnast Daria Bijak has made Germany’s Olympic team after placing fourth in the all-around at the German National Championships on June 7 in Chemnitz. Bijak was notified of her selection to the team on June 11. The first three finishers qualified automatically.

Bijak’s 56.30 all-around score was .30 out of third place. She also placed fourth on beam, bars and vault and was sixth on the floor.

Her next competition will be at the Beijing Olympic Games, which start on August 8. Bijak, who won the German national all-around championship in 2005 and 2006, qualified for Germany’s Olympic team in 2000, but missed the Olympics due to an Achilles injury. Germany did not qualify for the 2004 Olympics.

Bijak becomes the fourth Ute gymnast to make her country’s Olympic gymnastics team, joining Cheryl Weatherstone (Great Britain 1984), Missy Marlowe (USA 1988) and current teammate Gael Mackie (Canada 2004).

CSTV.com

She hit all four events in their championships.

Translation: German » English

The DTB nominated for the women’s team Katja Abel (SC Berlin), Daria Bijak (TT Toyota Cologne / University of Utah), Anja Brinker (TV Herkenrath), Oksana Chusovitina (TT Toyota Cologne), Marie-Sophie Hindermann (TSG Tuebingen) and Joeline Möbius (TuS Chemnitz-old village). As the seventh woman will turn Kim Bui (TSG Tuebingen) with travel to Beijing and ready in case of failure.

The German men’s team were Philipp Boy (SC Cottbus), Fabian Hambüchen (TSG Wetzlar-Niedergirmes), Robert Juckel (SC Cottbus), Marcel Nguyen (TSV Unterhaching), Eugen Spiridonov (TV Bous) and Thomas Andergassen (KTV Stuttgart) nominated. As an additional Turner will Helge Liebrich (TSV sweetening) and Robert Weber (TSV Ehmen) with direct competition to prepare to travel to Japan.

On last Thursday (05.06.08) were the two trampoline Turner Anna Dogonadze (MTV Bad Kreuznach) and Henrik Stehlik (TGJ Salzgitter) nominated by the DTB.

DTB

(via difficulty plus execution)

Did Dominique have an eating disorder?

Of course not. She was a triple Olympian.

In this interview she speaks about growing up petite and muscular. The psychological challenges of being built like an Olympic gymnast in a world where magazine models are 5′ 10″ tall.

Dominique, 31, was the first African-American woman to win an individual medal in gymnastics, having won bronze in the floor exercise at the ’96 Games, the second of her third Olympics. She was recently named – along with her teammates on the “Magnificent Seven” from 1996 – to the United States Olympic Committee’s Hall of Fame and will be inducted in June.

BlogHer audiocast interview

VERA CASLAVSKA of Czechoslovakia is in the Hall of Fame. She won more individual Olympic gold medals than anyone in history.

You’ll hear her name in the lead up to Beijing:

After all these years the Tommie Smith-John Carlos Black Power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Games has come to dominate the discourse, at least in America, when it turns to protests by athletes at the Olympics.

But at those Games there was one other protest, equally eloquent and probably even more courageous: that of Caslavska, as she shared the victory stand with the Soviet gymnast Larissa Petrik. Two months before the Games began, the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democracy movement. So when Caslavska and Petrik stood atop the medal stand after tying for the overall gold medal and the Soviet anthem was played, Caslavska turned her head down and away, and kept it averted until the anthem ended.

… actively involved in the democracy movement. … She was almost denied permission to travel to Mexico City for the Games. But her performances there, the plight of her country, and the eloquence of her protest made her the most popular athlete at the Games. …

Caslavska’s protests had serious ramifications. Upon returning to Czechoslovakia she was denied employment, and she would remain unemployed until authorities finally allowed her to coach a gymnastics club in 1975. …

NY Times

There are many things to protest in China. I wonder if we’ll see any other symbolic podium gestures in Beijing.

Thanks to the Wordsmith from Nantucket.

As part of a 6 day National gymnastics coaching course, we spent the day with Choreographer Julia Spivak. She reviewed leaps, jumps, turns and physical preparation for artistic sports.

Most of the coaches were feeling guilty that we do not do enough Artistic preparation with our gymnasts. Clubs in Canada have two problems:

not enough training time

not enough money

Competent, experienced dance coaches and choreographers are normally more expensive than coaches. When the budget is tight, the dance instructor is often the first to go.

Julia charges around $350 / floor routine including music. It will be original.

Follow-up work is needed periodically or quality of movement will likely decline.

gymnastics clinic with Julia Spivak – original photos – flickr

spivak (at) telus.net

Gymnicestics has a most interesting prediction. Sandra Izbasa could compete a record 6.9 A-score at the Olympics and steal the gold medal away from Shawn Johnson, Cheng Fei, Dasha Joura and the others touted as “favourites”.

Here’s her current routine starting at 6.5.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

See how she can jump to 6.9 on Gymnicestics.

I like the friendly interface on this video database (currently over 800) of conditioning drills.

trunk rotation with medicine ball and feet up

trunk rotation with medicine ball and feet up
(Click on image to view this exercise…)

squat and medicine ball side throw
(Click on image to view this exercise…)

PhysicalFitnet is a free website, for both fitness professionals and fitness buffs, that gives you information and resources only from top professionals.

PhysicalFitnet

(via Straight to the Bar)

It was an honour for me this year to visit the gym at Stanford.

The Women’s team graduated 6 fantastic young women: Tabitha Yim, Liz Tricase, Aimee Precourt, Alex Pintchouk, Stephanie Gentry, and Lauren Elmore.

A very cute, very touching, thank-you was posted by twest10.

Click PLAY or watch the tribute on YouTube.

Stanford finished 3rd at NCAA Championships, tied with its best finish in school history. That was a fantastic performance. Congratulations to Head Coach Kristen Smyth, Mike Lorenzen, Chris Swircek and assistant Hillary Anderson.

(via College Gymnastics Board)

Related: Stanford Men’s Gymnastics Senior Class of 2008 comedy tribute – YouTube
(Eli Alcaraz, Chris Harper, David Sender, Sho Nakamori, and Jason Shen)

===== UPDATE:

2008-09 Stanford Women’s Gymnastics Letters-Of-Intent

Alyssa Brown — Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Catherine Nguyen — Plano, TX
Nicole Pechanec — Phillipsburg, NJ
Lenika De Simone – Madrid, Spain
Jenny Peter – Lincoln, NE
Allie Skoly – Providence, RI

The rumours were true.

Canadian gymnasts Nansy Damianova of Montreal and Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs of Toronto are bound for Beijing.

The two were deemed the country’s top two female gymnasts at the conclusion of the Canadian championship Saturday and punched their tickets to the 2008 Olympics in August.

The Canadian men’s team of six gymnasts for Beijing has yet to be finalized.

Damianova, 17, and Hopfner-Hibbs, 18, were ranked first and second respectively after Saturday’s event finals.

Points accumulated at both national championships and in their international competitions counted towards qualifying for the Olympics.

“I’m really, really happy because it has been a long year and we’ve travelled a lot this year,” Damianova said. “Nationals was our last meet before the Olympics. I’m glad it finished with a happy ending.”

… Damianova tied for first on the vault and was second on the uneven bars to overtake Hopfner-Hibbs Saturday in the overall rankings.

Hopfner-Hibbs was third on both the bars and beam Saturday, but she’d also won the all-around title Thursday and that helped her nail down the second Olympic berth.

Gymnastics Canada will send Damianova’s coach Katerine Dussault with her to Beijing because Damianova is the country’s top-ranked female gymnast.

Hopfner-Hibbs was disappointed to finish second because she wanted to also secure a trip to Beijing for her coach Carol-Angela Orchard.

“The Olympics, I’m going, and that’s outstanding, but it’s bittersweet,” Hopfner-Hibbs said.

“I know Carol-Angela can come to Beijing, but I don’t know if she’s going to or how many training sessions she can come to. It’s hard because she’s the reason I’m here.” …

CANADIAN PRESS – via Gymbrooke Sports News

I’ve yet to speak to one coach who thinks this is the correct ranking of the Olympians. The points system was flawed.

2008 Canadian Championships
June 7, Calgary

Senior Women’s Vault
1. Nansy Damianova (Gymnix, QC) 14.050
1. Kristina Vaculik (Gemini, ON) 14.050
3. Charlotte Mackie (Omega, BC) 14.000

Senior Uneven Bars
1. Kristina Vaculik (Gemini, ON) 15.600
2. Nansy Damianova (Gymnix, QC) 14.900
3. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs (Sport Seneca, ON) 14.600

Senior Balance Beam
1. Peng-Peng Lee (Sport Seneca, ON) 15.850
2. Kristina Vaculik (Gemini, ON) 15.500
3. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs (Sport Seneca, ON) 14.950

Senior Women’s Floor Exercise
1. Peng-Peng Lee (Sport Seneca, ON) 14.900
2. Kristina Vaculik (Gemini, ON) 14.800
3. Sydney Sawa (CGC, AB) 14.700