On the women’s side, here’s the current GymInfo ranking list:
Only one competition remains before the 12 qualifying teams are announced.
commentary on Gymgemz
lovely Rhythmic gymnastics photos
The best Rhythmic photos anywhere are on James Glader’s site:
rhythmicgymnastics1.com
I ask James here and now what’s going on with Rhythmics USA? He and I were at Championships last year. The American girls did not look all that strong. Yet they bested both Canada and Russia at Pacific Rim.
Rhythmic team and all-around final results
Team
1. USA, 236.325
2. Canada, 228.700
3. Russia, 218.300Senior all-around
1. Alexandra Orlando, Canada, 63.925
2. Lisa Wang, USA/Buffalo Grove, Ill., 62.325
3. Rachel Marmer, USA/Los Angeles, Calif., 59.575
4. Lina Gnirovskaya, Russia, 58.100
5. Demetra Mantcheva, Canada, 56.450
6. Naazmi Johnston, Australia, 56.325
Historically Rhythmic has been one of the worst Olympic sports for the USA. Has it been turned around James?
In any case, check out the work of James Glader for yourself:
advanced skills – trampoline – Cody variations
Cody has always been one of my favourite drills coaching trampoline. I love the psychological challenge of learning it. (Needless to say, I hated it when I competed tramp.)
It’s difficult to rotate backwards, unless your technique and timing are good.
Here are some MASTERS of Cody:
Click PLAY or watch Ronny do triple back Cody on YouTube.
Neil Gulati quad twisting Cody super slow motion. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Josh Dilworth – Cody Quadruple Full on Trampoline. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Leave a comment if you know of other Cody variations of this difficulty or better. What can Jason Burnette do out of Cody, for example?
bars – Pak full (Bhardwaj)
Known as the “Bhardwaj” after the wonderful American Olympian 2004 Mohini Bhardwaj, the first international star to compete it, this skill is rarely performed today.
Gymblog editor Blythe Lawrence and myself (as well as many of the coaches) rushed over to watch one of the Level 10 competitors at Battle in Seattle 2008.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Update: That’s Alicia Asturias from Technique Gymnastics.
Compare that one with Mohini herself at Olympic Trials 2004:
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
It is easy to do with spot. And the Level 10 girl makes it look EASY. (Leave a comment if you know her name.) All her warm-up turns were equally good.
Canadian super talent Christine “Peng Peng†Lee fell on the skill at the Pacific Rim Championships 2008, so perhaps it’s more difficult than it appears.
SEC Gymnastics Championships – WTF
Wow.
The best of the NCAA is the Southeastern Conference, in my opinion. Check how close the team scores are for the top 3 squads.
What parity!
Team Scores
Georgia 197.350
Alabama 197.325
Florida 197.325
LSU 196.500
Auburn 196.100
Arkansas 194.650
Kentucky 194.025
But that’s not the BIG story of the night.
Florida seemed to have this meet locked up. An unexpected fall from Amanda Castillo made it close.
Then the Georgia Head Coach made this statement: “Alabama was great tonight,” Yoculan said. “They nailed it on vault and they deserved to win it.”
In the end, due to a judging error, after over 30min of number crunching, Georgia was named the winner of its 16th SEC title.
I’m the one claiming the Women’s NCAA has our sport all figured out. But a judging debacle like this reminds me of some of the worst FIG competition disasters.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the whole story: Gym Dogs win 16th SEC title
Nastia, USA dominate Pacific Rim Gymnastics
Senior All-Around
1. Nastia Liukin (USA) – 62.85
2. Jana Bieger (USA) – 59.925
3. Dasha Joura (Australia) – 59.20
4. Ashleigh Brennan (Australia)
5. Kristina Vaculik (Canada)
6. Lauren Mitchell (Australia)
International Gymnast online posted live coverage of the competition in San Jose, California.
Junior and Senior Team combined:
1. USA – 245.275
2. Canada – 233.475
3. China – 233.075
4) Australia – 232.675
5) Russia – 230.250
6) Japan – 224.925
Considering Canada has not even qualified a full team to the Olympics, I have to see this as a terrible result for China, regardless of who they sent. CONGRATS to Canada, of course. The Canuck Juniors are strong.
… Grabbing attention with her long, elegant lines and flying blond ponytail, Liukin earned the top scores on the uneven bars and balance beam Saturday to win the women’s all-around … She won the American Cup all-around event earlier this month. …
Perspective from Down Under – Australian Gymnastics Blog
more Nastia photos from the competition – NastiaLiukin.com
first Olympic gymnast from Yemen
From John Crumlish on the fantastic all new International Gymnast online:
Yemen’s Nashwan Al-Harazi told IG he is “still in shock” after recently receiving a wild-card berth for this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
coach Jim Holt and Nashwan Al-Harazi
… Al-Harazi will be the first gymnast from Yemen to take part in Olympic competition, after a tripartite commission selected him and female gymnast Thuong Di Thi Ngan (Vietnam) for the two available wild-card berths for Beijing.
The tripartite commission consists of the International Olympic Committee, the International Gymnastics Federation and the Association of National Olympic Committees. Geographic representation at the Olympics is one of the factors for designating wild-card berths.
“I know that there are gymnasts with greater accomplishments than me who have not been invited to Beijing,” Al-Harazi told IG from Yemen this week. “I feel a great responsibility to them and to the international gymnastics community to perform my best, and to be a worthy example of what the Olympic spirit is supposed to mean.”
…
“I’m looking to have my floor, pommel horse and vault Start Values in the top 15 in the competition,” said Al-Harazi, who placed 27th on vault at the 2006 Worlds and 21st on vault at the 2007 Worlds. “Ensha Allah, my goal is to perform my exercises cleanly!”
…
“Jim started me on the path that led to Beijing,” Al-Harazi said. “It was a dream come true for me to be able to live and train in America with him and Hannah this past year, and to be at Worlds with ‘my second parents.'”
In 1996 Holt conducted an IOC Solidarity Course in Sana’a, Yemen, where he asked a group of 40 Yemeni coaches and gymnasts to define their goals.
“They said, ‘We’d like to be competitive with the Arab countries,'” Holt recalled. “I responded, ‘That’s too small. If you’re going to do this, you need to pick an impossible dream and chase it. There’s no reason that Yemen can’t have a gymnast compete at the World Championships or even qualify for the Olympic Games.'”
Al-Harazi, then age 9, was among the group of gymnasts standing on a mat next to a homemade vault board. “I pointed to Nashwan and said, ‘This could be your guy. This could be the first gymnast from Yemen to compete at Worlds,'” Holt said. “And as Nashwan told you, he believed me.”
Al-Harazi “Still in Shock” Over Wild-Card Olympic Berth – IG
An inspiring story. Dream BIG is the lesson learned.
Related post: top gymnasts NOT going to Beijing
11yr-old track and basketball phenom
You’ve got to see this kid – Jashaun Agosto:
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
(via Straight to the Bar)
Hamm, USA dominate Pacific Rim Gymnastics
International Gymnast online posted live coverage of the competition in San Jose, California.
Senior All-Around
1. Paul Hamm USA 94.450
2. Sasha Artemev USA 92.300
3. Lu Bo CHN 91.350
4. Maxim Devyatovsky RUS 90.800
5. Raj Bhavsar USA 90.650
6. Takuya Inatera JPN 90.200
7. Wang Heng CHN 89.450
8. Joshua Jefferis AUS 88.600
9. Nathan Gafuik CAN 88.100
10. Liang Mingsheng CHN 87.900
UPDATED Team:
Final results — The U.S. beats China and Japan for the team title. Japan jumped in front of Russia with a great ending on vault.
read the details – IG online
Congratulations to Paul and Team USA. Things are looking good leading up to Beijing.
… Said Hamm’s coach, Miles Avery, “He’s done a good job in terms of working on his strength. If he’s going to win the Olympics, it’s got to look beautiful, and that’s what we’re going for.” …
original – Hamm on Vault – ESPN
Lightbulb Hands – The Perfect 10 Lives – blog
I am just working backward through a terrific, little known gymnastics blog posted by janghwa_hongryeon somewhere in the USA.
(… anyone else tiring of cryptic pseudonyms on the internet?)
Quality commentary on Women’s Artistic Gymnastics around the world.
A good sample post — Code Tweaking in 2009 — concerns rumoured changes to the international judging rules:
Finally. No, they’re not bringing the 10 back. It’s dead and its corpse is a feast for the maggots now.
The biggest change for the WAG side is the change from counting the 10 highest skills to 8. Still too many, IMHO, because BB will still be skill-pause-skill-pause and UB will be hour long sets with gymnasts trying to fit in a bunch of D and E elements, but hopefully this will end the side double full pass on FX. I doubt it’ll be the end of the double pike dismount, though.
“Gymnasts from all disciplines will have to show exemplary mastery in their exercises. Execution will be favored.”
These principles are not new, and exist within the philosophy of the current Code of Points. However, beginning in 2009, the women’s Code will reduce the number of required elements from 10 to eight. That should lead to shorter routines and longer careers.
…
The “longer careers” comment is debatable. That’s not happening as long as they keep putting emphasis on risky high level elements and chucking skills that are beyond a gymnast’s capabilities.
Actually, the change to fewer counting elements will likely lead to better routines. The most difficult skills will still be included. But there will be easy, clean connecting elements between them.
… Nellie Kim in an International Gymnast interview had said that when they picked the original number for skills to be counted, they picked some arbitrary number and it ended up being 10. Glad they all thought this through before putting it into practice. But she also felt it was too many and wanted it to go down to six. Six is a much better number. The gymnasts can put in a few big skills, don’t end up getting tired halfway through, don’t have to have five tumbling passes, can have their skills connected and flow much better on BB and UB, etc. Speaking of tumbling passes, I’m hoping they’ll put a cap on the number of passes in a routine, four being the max. Five is just excessive.
read the rest of this post
I like 6 counting skills better than 8, as well. At least on Floor. Perhaps on Beam. Not necessarily on Bars.
Nellie Kim’s first comment is nonsense. Counting 10 skills was included in the original concept as developed by Hardy Fink over 20yrs. There was nothing arbitrary about it. (Hardy is no longer involved in the code revisions. And is NOT happy with the current rules.)
Other excellent posts include:
On the VOX network, Lightbulb Hands – The Perfect 10 Lives is a pretty blog as well. I have to visit the site directly — Lightbulb Hands — as Google Reader cannot seem to find an RSS feed. THANKS. If you click on the RSS link in the right hand navigation, you can subscribe. (Auto-find did not work.) It has no “subscribe by email” function. We’ve linked to it under BLOGS in the right hand navigation.
Check it out for yourself: Lightbulb Hands
Gymnastics Coaching.com 