For 500 years, worshippers at a Muslim shrine in western India have continued the tradition — a rite considered to bring good health and good luck to the children.
The infants land and bounce on a bed-sheet held taut by men 50 feet below, and are quickly passed through the crowd to their mothers.
Villagers say no babies have been injured during the ritual, which is practiced by Muslims and Hindus in Musti village in the district of Solapur, in the state of Maharashtra. …
Andrew Thornton on Gymnast.com has been at it again.
Comparing apples and oranges (scores from different meets) and extrapolating what would happen if these 3 all HIT …
Obviously these are all hypothetical scores …
Jiang Yuyuan: 63.2
Nastia Liukin: 63.0
Shawn Johnson: 62.9
WOW – those were honestly the first numbers I came up with – no adjustments! Keep in mind these numbers assumed Shawn WOULDN’T compete the Yurchenko 2 ½, and I think there’s a good chance she will. If we add that in, her score would go up around 7 or 8 tenths and she’d be in first place. …
Shawn by all reports can do the Amanar vault (Yurchenko 2 ½) easily (video) and remains the favourite. Jiang Yuyuan will likely be the gymnast pushed by China for the AA. She may well be Shawn’s strongest challenger.
Check out Andrew’s detailed analysis with video of Yuyuan’s Floor routine from last weekend on Gymnast.com.
Jiang Yuyuan of China competes on the beam during the women’s individual all-round final of the “Good Luck Beijing” 2007 International Gymnastics Tournament in Beijing, capital of China on Nov. 29, 2007. Jiang won the champion with a score of 61.225.
Almost everyone is predictingHe Kexin will win bars at the Olympics.
At Tianjing 2008 Chinese Gymnastics National Championships Event Finals her teammate Yang Yilin matched her start value, but did not score nearly as high: 16.725 (7.7 A)
Compare that routine with He Kexin in Finals 17.325 (7.7 A) – with 3 obvious deductions – video. Seems too high.
Are the Chinese judges are already “pushing” for specific girls on each apparatus? There’s no need to over score He Kexin on bars. That kind of strategy could easily backfire.
I’ve been critical of Jennifer Sey’s new book, the most recent to whip up a media frenzy about “abuse of girls in high level competitive Artistic Gymnastics”.
Before that I was critical of the book Little Girls in Pretty Boxes which whipped up a media frenzy about disordered eating of girls and women in Ice Skating and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics.
In both sensational books a few terrible incidents cited were purported to be endemic in all elite clubs.
That’s not true. But it sells books.
The REAL problem in gymnastics is the high drop out rate of young girls, disillusioned with competitive gymnastics.
I entered gymnastics when I was five and left when I was twelve. I entered being a happy kid who had fun in gym and left being an unhappy preteen who loathed gym. …
China dominated at World’s 2007. Here are the reigning gold medalists.
China’s Men’s gymnastic team with Yang Wei, Xiao Qin, Huang Xu, Liang Fuliang, Chen Yaibing, Zou Kai, from left, celebrates during the medal ceremony after winning gold in the Men’s team final of the Gymnastics World Championships in Stuttgart …
Who will be on their 2008 Olympic Team? (I’d heard last summer they were trying for minimum 7.0 start values on every routine for Team finals.)
Most of the top contenders:
2008 Chinese National Championships
May 10-11, Tianjin
Men’s Floor Exercise
1t. Zou Kai 16.300 (6.7 A)
1t. Liang Fuliang 16.300 (6.5 A)
3. Zhang Chenglong 15.700
Pommel Horse
1. Xiao Qin (A 6.6) 16.575 ……. WOW
2. Zhang Hongtao (A 6.6) 16.375
3. Chen Chen
Still Rings
1t. Chen Yibing 17.100 (7.4 A)
1t. Yang Wei 17.100 (7.5 A)
3. Yan Mingyong
Men’s Vault
1. Guo Jiahao 16.587
2. Hu Junjie 16.300
3. Liang Mingsheng 16.262
… Li Xiaopeng competed only one vault (16.900, highest score) during preliminaries as a safety precaution
Parallel Bars
1. Huang Xu 16.800 (7.0 A)
2. Feng Zhe 16.650 (7.0 A)
3. Yang Wei 16.475 (7.0 A)
High Bar
1. Zou Kai 16.55 (7.0 A)
2. Feng Zhe 15.925
3. He Jiajin 15.725
Next up for the Chinese Olympic contenders is this weekend’s World Cup in Tianjin. Slated to compete for China are Cheng Fei, He Kexin, Yang Yilin and Xiao Sha for the women, and Yang Wei, Chen Yibing, Li Xiaopeng, Xiao Qin, Zou Kai and Huang Xu for the men.
Lu Bin, who unfortunately suffered a major elbow injury just days before Nationals … is likely out of Olympic contention.
Detailed, excellent post by Lisa Wang just went up on International Gymnast:
The Chinese National Championships, which also served as one stop of the Olympic team trials, concluded Sunday in Tianjin.
When asked to recap the weeklong competition and where the Chinese women currently stand as a team, Head Coach Lu Shanzhen reiterated that “the [Olympic] team gold is of course of the utmost priority.” Comparing the Chinese and U.S. teams, Coach Lu noted that “the U.S. National Championships have not taken place yet, so we are not certain what secret weapons or new upgrades the U.S. team will unveil. However, from the information gathered so far, in a 6-3-3 team scenario, the Chinese team can now match or even outscore the U.S. on vault, on bars we can outscore the U.S., and on floor exercise if we hit our routines the way we’ve hit them today we’ll be on par with the U.S. team for a good fight.”
Coach Lu’s optimism is wisely tamed with caution though, as he emphasizes that “while we’ve made significant technical upgrades across the board, competition results are not determined on technical ability alone. We have a relatively young squad, so stress management under high-pressure continues to be an area we work on and improve upon.” …
… there’s the rub. Can China hit 12 for 12 in the Olympic Team Final?
I’m still thinking the team with the highest start score will win preliminaries. The team toughest psychologically will win Finals. That will be the USA.
Some of the top contenders for the Chinese Olympic Team:
2008 Chinese National Championships
May 10-11, Tianjin
Women’s Vault
1. Cheng Fei 15.812 (Double-twisting Yurchenko, 15.50/Cheng 16.125)
2. Deng Shaojie 15.45
3. Deng Linlin 14.90
Uneven Bars
1. He Kexin 17.325 (7.7 A)
2. Yang Yilin 16.725 (7.7 A)
3. Pang Panpan 16.475
4. Jiang Yuyuan 16.40
Balance Beam
1. Sui Lu 16.575 (7.0 A)
2. Guo Wei 16.500 (6.9 A)
3. Zhang Nan 16.300 (6.8 A)
4. Cheng Fei 16.175 (6.8 A)
5. Li Shanshan 16.125
6. Cui Jie 16.050
Women’s Floor Exercise
1t. Sui Lu 16.200 (6.4 A)
1t. Cheng Fei 16.200 (6.5 A)
3. Yang Yilin 15.675 (6.2 A)
4. Cui Jie 15.500
5. He Ning 15.625
6t. Guo Wei 15.500
6t. Jiang Yuyuan 15.500
8. Xiao Sha 15.450
IMHO, the Chinese girls on Floor are not nearly “on par” with the USA. Here’s co-winner Sui Lu in Finals. Her score of 16.2 out of 16.4 for this routine is clearly absurd.
I don’t particularly like Cheng Fei’s Floor routine (video) either.
more videos from the meet on YouTube posted by fanbutterfly
UPDATE:
Routine-by-routine analysis is bringing to light more questions about the validity of these scores. For example:
BEAM – Gold: Sui Lu (7.0 A-score, two wobbles and a sizable step on the dismount. A 16.575?! These Chinese judges put even the Scam Cup judges to shame when it comes to the outrageous over scoring of home gymnasts.)
The highest ranked current great is Dragalescu. But he has problems and did not compete at European Championships. Some suspect he will not be competing in the Olympics, either.
The REAL problem in gymnastics is the high drop out rate of young girls, disillusioned with competitive gymnastics. 
Gymnastics Coaching.com 