Gymnastics Coaching.com

The first time I saw this skill it was by Rico Andrade (2003): video – 1.5 twisting Kovacs

Noam Shaham from Israel, currently competing for Penn State, has had it named after him. Often FIG requires the skill be competed in a major international competition before honouring the “inventor”.

Yurchenko, for example, was certainly not the first gymnast to compete the Yurchenko vault. It was first done by a Soviet male gymnast — who’s name I cannot recall because the vault was not named after him.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Dvora over on the (un)Orthodox Gymnastics blog has got a bit of a thing for Noam …

… In this video, he speaks about the high bar element named after him in the Code of Points, A Kolman (full twisting double somersault) caught in a mixed grip. He says that his parents are very proud because their name “Shaham” appears in the Code. …

(un)Orthodox Gymnastics – My future husband

Of course you can catch in undergrip, mixed grip (easiest) or even el-grip + undergrip (that would be weird).

Related post: Cassina 2 – double twisting Kovacs

While the world’s attention will be focused on crowning the next gymnastics queen, American Alicia Sacramone and China’s Cheng Fei will be engaged in a battle of their own. At stake, the unofficial title of the world’s best three-event gymnast.

Neither Sacramone nor Cheng is likely to compete on the uneven bars in Beijing, but both are among the best in the world on vault and floor and competitive on balance beam. With similar strengths and a singular weakness, gymnastics insiders will be watching this … sideshow in Beijing.

A head-to-head look at who may be the best on three.

read the article – NBC Olympics

The two likely Team Captains, head to head. Interesting comparison.

I think Sacramone is psychologically tougher. She will thrive on Olympic pressure. But Cheng Fei is a slight favourite to qualify with the highest score on vault in prelims.

Are there any other top gymnasts likely to compete only 3 events in the qualifying competition?

I stopped in Las Vegas last week to catch up with friends with Cirque du Soleil. (Many Cirque coaches are former gymnastics coaches.)

Talent scout Marceline Goldstein showed me a list of proposed new projects for the world’s largest circus stretching into the future. The total number of artists on stage could double from 1000 to almost 2000 over the next number of years.

Cirque is already the biggest employer of acrobats. For coaches, this means future career opportunities for our athletes.

The circus looks for unusual body types: tall, slim, muscular, artistic, etc. Very small acrobats are in demand. And very strong men and women.

Unique physical qualities are helpful: strength, flexibility, power. Acrobatic specialties on trampoline, tumbling or bar can be useful. Other unusual talents like ability to surf, skateboard, inline skate are of interest.

It’s easy for adults to apply online. Click on the zebra guy (triple Olympian, Hungarian gymnast Zoltán Supola) on the top right corner of this page.

Related posts:

video – Cirque du Soleil audition

want to perform for Cirque du Soleil?

disclosure – I love Cirque du Soleil

Paul Ruggeri III from Illinois won what I thought was the weakest apparatus at NCAA Championships with this routine. (5.6 A-score, 15.0 final score)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… the first Illinois national champion since 2006, when current assistant coach Justin Spring won the crown on high bar as a senior. …

“It is a great thing for Paul to win the title after so much hard work all season long,” head coach Yoshi Hayasaki said. “He had such a great night, getting All-America honors on three events as a freshman. …

Freshman Paul Ruggeri Wins High Bar National Title – Fighting Illini

difficulty plus execution has found Kim Gwang Suk, the long missing world champion!

By coincidence I stayed in the same hotel hallway as the North Korean delegation at the 1991 World Championships, Indianapolis.

They were so, so happy when Kim Gwang Suk won bars. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened for North Korean gymnastics. In fact, the delegation stayed up all night singing and playing music in the hallway after Finals in celebration.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I was happy too. Happy that she was not screwed by the unbelievably politically-biased judges of the day. North Korea had absolutely no political influence.

But this routine was so obviously the best, she could not be denied.

Later it was confirmed that Kim Gwang Suk was several years too young for Olympic competition. North Korea was eventually sanctioned by FIG though Kim Gwang Suk kept her medal.

In 2008 people are outraged at age falsification. But back in 1991 it was not nearly as big a deal, common practice in totalitarian countries. For Universiade meets they would falsify the age higher to be more believable for University competition.

FIG needs to do something about age falsification. It has the potential to be the BIG scandal of the 2008 Games. What will be the main story line of Western media if He Kexin wins bars?

Can’t you see NBC Sports sending teams of reporters to interview her childhood friends? Neighbours of the family? Search out photos from past birthday parties?

I don’t think China can keep her real age secret. If she’s actually underage, it would be best to quietly not select He Kexin for the team.

Secret world of a gymnast: starvation, sex and fear – Guardian

“Why do these men want to coach little girls?” – Salon

Right now you can’t avoid hearing alarmist coverage of ex-gymnast Jennifer Sey’s new book Chalked Up. Certainly the publisher added this to the title: Inside Elite Gymnastics’ Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams in order to sell books in the run-up to the Olympics.

You and I know, there are very few “merciless” coaches. Some “overzealous parents”. And that eating disorders are no more prevalent than in the general population.

Getting to the Olympics is elusive. That part’s true.

(The story not interesting to the media is that gymnasts are amongst the best protected and nurtured kids anywhere. I wonder how many journalists covering this story go home after work and drive their kids to gymnastics.)

An Australian morning TV show called Sunrise (video) had slightly more balance than some of the American broadcasts I’ve seen.

At least, it referenced the official response:

Statement by Gymnastics Australia

“Gymnastics Australia is dismayed at former US gymnast Jennifer Sey’s critical view of the gymnastics world and the cloud that it casts over the high performance programs, coaches and athletes training and competing in the sport in Australia.

No one is denying that the goals for elite gymnasts are difficult to achieve and that the athletes require outstanding commitment, hard work and sacrifice to succeed. The athletes who take up this challenge are gifted. Gymnasts within our national high performance program receive the best possible support from Gymnastics Australia and from within our national and state institute programs. The athletes’ welfare is paramount and is an important factor in achieving their dreams. ”

Jane Allen, CEO, Gymnastics Australia.

Gymnastics under fire in new book by US star – Sunrise

Thanks Hannah.

Still, The Australia Gymnastics Blogger was incensed:

… I am sick of ill-informed and sensationalist pieces on our sport being put out for the public’s viewing. …

Let’s Give ‘Em Something Better to Talk About

I keep expecting media interest in this book to fall off the cliff as the events described happened so long ago. But this story seems to have “legs”, as they say. That’s why it was released in the run-up to the Olympics.

If you love gymnastics. And hate the skewed perception it’s getting from the media. Take comfort in the fact that the media is fickle. They will drop this story any day now. No one will want to interview Jennifer Sey.

On the bright side, it’s putting pressure on those few abusive coaches out there. And forcing clubs to be more transparent. Scrutiny on our sport is a good thing.

I don’t deny that the things Jennifer talks about have happened somewhere. But they are very rare.

Jennifer uses words like “endemic”. That’s simply a lie.

UPDATE – from the recent Salon interview:

Sey spoke with Salon by phone from her home in San Francisco. …

Salon: Is it possible that you were just the victim of rogue coaches? I know the Parkettes Training Center has a particularly bad reputation — it was even the subject of an unflattering CNN documentary in 2003.

Sey: [This behavior] is endemic to the sport.

When in “Maz“, escaping frozen Canada, I workout close to the beach every day.

A great gathering spot for local people interested in fitness. One of the best playgrounds I’ve seen anywhere.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube:

Related posts:

flying rings – on the beach (California)

RingFlyers – travelling rings (California)

Leave a comment if you have a playground you love.

An blog called (un)Orthodox Gymnastics — that’s cute — linked to the gold medal routine (9.975) of Lysenko at the Barcelona, Olympics 1992.

Click PLAY or watch her on YouTube.

It seems a bit silly to flag Jewish gymnasts as there have been so many great ones. But often we do in the context of what I’ve always called the “Jewish Olympics”, the Maccabiah Games started 1932.

Anyway, it’s a great excuse to see Lysenko once again.

She also won vault with a Double Twisting Yurchenko. WAY ahead of her time with that!

Click PLAY or watch her first vault to win Olympic gold on YouTube.

Her second vault was handspring front, half-out, STICK. (YouTube)

Jewish Gymnasts – (un)Orthodox Gymnastics

The next big thing in U.S. diving is 4 feet 11¾ inches and weighs 95 pounds if you put her on the scale immediately after she emerges from the pool, dripping wet. She’s also 15 and as recently as four years ago hadn’t jumped off a 10-meter platform.

USA Diving

Haley Ishimatsu

But before Ishimatsu could dream of learning how to translate her gymnastics skills to the pool, much less competing internationally, she had to jump off the 10-meter platform – the equivalent of a three-story building – for the first time. She climbed to the top, walked to the edge, peered at the shimmering water below and shook her head. No way.

For five minutes she stood there, until Tory climbed up, held her hand and jumped with her.

Both Hayley and her sister Tory were gymnasts who moved to diving. As was 2000 Olympic platform champion Laura Wilkinson, who is still competing.

Laura Wilkinson … started diving the same year Ishimatsu was born. Now, after Haley Ishimatsu has spent only 3½ years in the sport, U.S. national coach Chen Wenbo is saying things such as:

“When she learns how to put all the dives together, I think she has a good chance to win an Olympic medal.”

In 2012? In 2016?

“No,” Chen says, “I think she has a chance to win a medal in these Olympics (in August).”

Tiny ex-gymnast making big splash in U.S. diving – Sign On San Diego

I checked with Dr. Jeni McNeal, sport scientist working with the diving team. She assured me that Haley is the real deal.

There was a time as a club coach when I was dismissive of the Women’s NCAA.

It seemed a place for past-their-prime gymnasts to compete watered-down routines for outrageous scores like 9.95.

I was way wrong. The Championships this year, on podium, was fantastic.

UCLA gymnast Anna Li competes on the balance beam during the first day of the NCAA Gymnastics Championships Thursday April 24, 2008, in Athens, Ga.

(AP Photo/John Amis) – original – ESPN

The Women’s NCAA is by far the “best” gymnastics competitive program in the world:

85 schools had teams Division I, II, III in 2004-05 (down from 179 in 1982)

wonderful opportunity for girls to keep doing the sport while getting a degree

scholarships at some Universities

employment for coaches

fan appeal

media and TV appeal

motivation for young girls to one day get to the NCAA

superstructure of the entire NCAA sport system

beam, floor and bars are very entertaining to watch

most extreme floor choreography anywhere

where else am I going to hear ACDC as floor music?

The success of the NCAA, I feel, is mainly due to Nadia’s perfect 10. Everyone in the world understands the 10. It’s easy for fans and the media to follow what’s happening at a meet even if they cannot recognize a full-in or Jaeger.

This is BIG TIME sport.

A few things I disliked at the Women’s NCAA Championships 2008:

Only 4 programs have ever won Team: Utah, Georgia, Alabama and UCLA. That’s too predictable. I would prefer rule changes allowing other teams a better chance to upset the superpowers.

Clarification added: Too much weight put on Team and All American lists relative to the All-Around and Event Finals winners.

Not enough I wish there were MORE emphasis on All-Around and Apparatus medals. They seemed to be deemed “less important” for some reason than All-American status.

Courtney McCool FX (Georgia), Grace Taylor Beam (Georgia), Susan Jackson Vault (LSU), Tasha Schwikert Bars (UCLA) – event winners

The Men’s NCAA Championships has a better system for determining the All Around winner. The women should use it too.

Women qualify to finals with one vault. Then are asked to competed “two different vaults” in Finals. That’s not safe. The Men qualify with one vault, and compete only one vault in finals. Much better.

On vault there are too many Yurchenko 1/1s. It’s boring. Provide more incentive for different vaults, not necessarily more difficult vaults.

Too much emphasis on sticking landings. An average routine with a stuck landing is often over-valued.

The NCAA is super strict on hitting handstand on bars. But judges do not seem to deduct bad body alignment. Performances are so good in 2008 that those girls with superb line should get more credit than they do.”

The greatest criticism of the NCAA program looking from the outside is the injury rate. But I’m not completely sure that’s true. Certainly the NCAA teams provide far, far better medical than anything the girls had in clubs.

I do wish they competed fewer meets in a season.

Leave a comment if you agree, disagree or having something to add. I’ll send the comments on to the NCAA Coaches organization as feedback from the fans.