Gymnastics Coaching.com

Great meet for the Canadian women!

Gymn.ca – Kristina Vaculik – 2007 Gymnix

Women’s Beam
1. VACULIK, Kristina (CAN) (16.3) = 14,975
2. WEVERS, Sanne (NED) (16.1) = 14,275
3. CARDENAS, N.Sanchez (COL) (16.3) = 14,275

Women’s Floor
1. HARMES, Suzane (NED) (15.9) = 14,525
2. ZIMMERMANN, Jasmin (SUI) (15.7) = 13,950
3. DAMIANOVA, Nansy (CAN) (15.3) = 13,900

Parallel Bars
1. CUCHERAT, Yann (FRA) (16.7) = 15,900
2. FOKIN, Anton (UZB) (16.6) = 15,750
3. PETKOVSEK, Mitja (SLO) (16.5) = 15,650

Men’s Vault
1. GWANG, Ri Se (PRK)
– (17.0) – 16,400
– (17.0) – 16,400 = 16,400
2. WIGNANITZ, Raphael (FRA)
– (17.0) – 16,250
– (17.0) – 15,775 = 16,012
3. CARANOBE, Benoit (FRA)
– (17.0) – 15,575
– (17.0) – 15,200 = 15,387

Click PLAY or watch GWANG, Ri Se on vault at the last World Championships on YouTube. Looks like he is still doing the same vaults.

Vault is the most impressive of men’s apparatus these days.

High Bar
1. PEGAN, Aljaz (SLO) (16.4) = 15,350
2. DIMIC, Alen (SLO) (16.3) = 14,950
3. SCHAERER, Christoph (SUI) (16.4) = 14,875

Great to see the Slovenians doing well in their own backyard.

full results men – GymnasticsResults.com
full results women – GymnasticsResults.com

competition home page

Related post: top gymnasts NOT going to Beijing (Pegan)

Sarah and David Patterson were in Athens, GA getting ready to coach their Alabama team at NCAA Championships last week when they got a phone call that their 16-year old daughter got in a minor fender-bender back in Tuscaloosa.

Both Mom and Dad were “busy”.

Most female gymnasts have both at least one male and one female principle coach. But how many have married couples as coaches?

More than I would have guessed:

… Spouses coaching on the same staff appears to be a winning formula considering that five of the 12 teams that reached the NCAA championships (2008) work with the person with who they are joined with in holy matrimony.

The others are Utah with coach Greg Marsden and assistant Megan Marsden, Arkansas with co-coaches Mark and Rene’ Cook, Oklahoma with coach K.J. Kindler and assistant Lou Ball and Oregon State with coach Tanya Chaplin and assistant Michael Chaplin.

Minnesota, New Hampshire and Towson are among other programs that have a wife and husband coaching team …

All in the family for many top programs – Online Athens

The Pattersons make a great case study.

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.”
-Vince Lombardi

… If anyone has mastered the habit of winning that Lombardi was talking about all those years ago, it’s Sarah and David Patterson. During their 29-year career coaching the Alabama gymnastics program, they have created a legacy of success in the gym and the classroom that is unequaled in collegiate athletics. …

Under their direction, Alabama gymnastics has gone to 24 consecutive NCAA Championships, winning four and finishing in the top six 23 times. The Tide has also finished in the ‘final four’ an NCAA-best 21 times.

Coaches: The Pattersons – Gym Tide

Inside Gymnastics has some of the best I’ve seen yet.

Inside Gymnastics – Gallery: Women’s NCAA Championships

There is only one photo / page. No slideshow function. Slow to load — unless you open each photo in a new tab or window.

Not a strong field on the women’s side, but some interesting performances from the men.

Gymnasts from five different nations won titles Saturday at the 41st Salamunov Memorial, a World Cup event in Maribor, Slovenia.

Canada was the most successful with three medals, including a 1-2 finish on uneven bars from Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs and Kristina Vaculik. …

IG – Amanda Turner (full results linked)

Women’s Vault
1. Hong Un Jong PRK 14.300
2. Marissa King GBR 14.075
3. Nansy Damianova CAN 13.387

Uneven Bars
1. Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs CAN 14.875
2. Kristina Vaculik CAN 14.850
3. Marta Pihan POL 14.500

Men’s Floor Exercise
1. Yevgeny Bogonsyuk UKR 15.400
2. Ri Se Gwang PRK 15.375
3. Arthur Zanetti BRA 15.000

Pommel Horse
1. Zhang Hongtao CHN 15.925
2. Robert Seligman CRO 15.300
3. Donna-Donny Truyens BEL 15.000

Still Rings
1. Yuri van Gelder NED 16.675 (video)
2. Yan Mingyong CHN 16.575
3. Danny Rodrigues FRA 16.325

full results men – GymnasticsResults.com
full results women – GymnasticsResults.com

competition home page

Related post: top gymnasts NOT going to Beijing (van Gelder)

This is why gymnast prefer avoiding strength training “machines”.

bet you can’t guess what happens!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Igor Cassina from Italy was 2004 Olympic Horizontal Bar champion in the final that was delayed 15min by audience disapproval of Alexei Nemov’s score.

He’s known for the Cassina, full twisting layout Kovacs.

Click PLAY or watch his routine in the Olympic Final on YouTube.

Now check out the Cassina 2. Outrageous.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (lousy quality)

Obviously he actually only caught one. And the video clip was looped.

Here’s an even worse video clip of the skill.

Related:

Andrade, a one-and-a-half twisting Kovacs

Peter Kovacs High Bar 1979 – YouTube

Courtney McCool won Floor. And deserved it.

Her wild techno music and wonderful choreography is a crowd pleaser. And there is no one else in the NCAA with better leg form on tumbling.

I’m very happy for Courtney, winning this event in Athens, GA. She’s had some tough times making the the transition from the “best gymnast in the world” in Athens, Greece in 2004 (my opinion) to they grown student athlete she is today.

1. Courtney McCool, Georgia
2. Tasha Schwikert, UCLA
3. Nicola Wills, Florida

full results and photos

Click PLAY to see Courtney’s routine earlier this season on YouTube.

Beam is almost always the best apparatus in NCAA competition. Tonight was no exception.

Performances are amazingly stable.

The maturity and confidence shown is wonderful — especially after watching little girls in FIG competitions chuck as many difficult skills in sequence as they can, regardless of wobbles or falls.

1. Grace Taylor, Georgia
2T. Ashley Postell, Utah
2T. Emily Parsons, Nebraska


full results and photos

I love Grace Taylor, by the way. She was “inspired” by the all the “fun” McCool was having over on Floor. The home town crowd was going nuts for McCool. Grace competed immediately after.

Click PLAY or watch her routine from earlier in the season on YouTube.

Some of the best vaulters did not qualify to Finals. I wanted to see Em Parsons from Nebraska, for example. She didn’t make it.

It’s easy for me to predict scores in the NCAA. Except on vault. Those can mystify. A “perfect” vault will score only 9.80. Yet the next girl will show a flawed vault and score 9.90. Those rules need to be revised.

Vault Finals was a let-down. The weakest apparatus of the four in Finals.

Under NCAA rules the girls qualify with ONE vault. Then are required to compete TWO “different” vaults in Finals. That format is almost always a mistake. It’s unfair. It’s unsafe. (I know some of the top NCAA coaches feel this way too.)

As a result, many of the finalists tonight had either a relatively simple second vault. Or a difficult second vault with which they are less comfortable. We saw errors and even falls.

Congratulations to those who survived the stupid regulations to get to the podium:

1. Susan Jackson, LSU
2. Kristina Baskett, Utah
3. Julie Dwyer, Auburn

full results and photos

Baskett did good and safe Yurchenko 1/1 and Yurchenko 3/2.

Coach D-D Breaux confirmed what I expected. Even the champion did not train two vaults regularly:

Susan trains one vault throughout the year. … she trained for two routines in loose foam just towards the end of the season. It was just pure athleticism.

Marcia Newby said she had not done her second vault in 4 years.

Eighteen competitors qualified for Finals. Wow.

It was a great show. The “winners” are not much separated from the rest of the field.

1. Tasha Schwikert, UCLA
2. Katie Heenan, Georgia
3. Kristina Comforte, UCLA

full results and photos

Highlights:

superb handstand work, almost Chinese, from many girls

bad “line”, not deducted, from more than a few

highest Tkachev = Anna Li, UCLA

second highest Tkachev = Ashleigh Clare-Kearney, LSU

double layout full twist – Summer Hubbard, LSU

Comaneci salto – Grace Taylor, Georgia (love that trick!)

Dismounts were strong, in general. Seeing Ashley Postell get big deductions on double front (form and landing) reminded me why it is not good dismount for most kids. Double layout has far more potential.

It’s strange seeing high level gymnasts still doing simple sole circle bar transfers, allowed under NCAA rules.