Gymnastics Coaching.com

GymGemz has a super important post online right now. An overview of the impressive work being done in the NCAA:

… if you have been following the NCAA women’s collegiate gymnastics season so far, you are doubtlessly aware of the rising popularity of breast cancer awareness ‘Pink Meets’ all across the country. Just a partial sampling of teams who have had, or are planning to have, such a meet includes: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Iowa State, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Utah.

The University of Alabama and the University of Missouri can both lay claim to kicking off this trend. Each school held Pink Meets way back during the 2005 season. This past Friday night, at Alabama’s fourth annual Pink Meet, head coach Sarah Patterson helped present a check for $265,000.00 to Tuscaloosa’s Druid City Hospital Foundation for the Alabama Gymnastics DCH Breast Cancer Fund – for a total of over $600,000.00 in donations to the fund in the first four years.

Former University of Georgia gymnast and current Iowa Hawkeyes assistant coach, Talya Vexler, was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after her career as a gymnast with the ‘Dogs. Her experience with and recovery from the disease have prompted Georgia head coach Suzanne Yoculan and the Georgia athletics administration to set up a fund for the Athens Regional Medical Center’s Breast Health Center. To date they have raised more than $100,000.00 towards the cause. …

GymGemz

GymGemz on that post has links to specific fund-raisers at participating schools. As always, that site is the best source of information on NCAA Women’s Gymnastics.

Happy Valentine’s Day GymGemz!

by Rick McCharles

I’ve been posting medal predictions for Beijing. Slowly. (I need all the advice I can get.)

Gymnicestics? Seriously? predicts the finalists will come from this pool:

… three tiers, each with four gymnasts in them.

Tier 1;; Daiane Dos Santos – Cheng Fei – Sandra Izbasa – Shawn Johnson
Tier 2;; Alicia Sacramone – Beth Tweddle – Vanessa Ferrari – Jiang Yuyuan
Tier 3;; Yulia Lozhecko – Alina Kozich – Jade Barbosa – Cassy Vericel

Gymnicestics? Seriously?

Not one of that pool inspires me enough to make a prediction yet.

Wendy Allen emailed to let us all know that the Olympic qualifier from Colombia is currently training with her coach in Quebec:

I was at a meet in Gatineau, Quebec this weekend. They introduced a gymnast and her trainer who are here from Colombia training for the 2008 Olympics. …

This is the babelfish translation… A bit stunted, but it gives the overall idea.

Gymélites accomodates the Olympic first gymnaste of Colombia. Natalia Sanchez, 15 years, hardly measuring 4′ 5 and weighing only 75 pounds, are involved at present with the gymélites in preparation for the Olympic Games of Peijing envisaged for next August.

… trainer, Andres Llanos, are here for 50 days with an aim of perfecting his preparation for go of Peijing, where it will be the first woman of the history of her country to be taken part in it. This stay among us is made possible thanks to the generosity of the hotel Four Points, which offers a free lodging for this young young lady like to her trainer, for the duration of their stay among us.

Indeed, the Colombian government offered only one to them light per diem of 25 $ per day for their stay among us, which would have been insufficient had not been generosity of the Four Points.

If it is among us, that was made also possible thanks to the complicity of Mr. Dave Fallon, one of our highly skilled trainers, who had the chance of met for the first time at the time of the behaviour of the Pan-American championships in August 2006.

Wendy saw this in French on the Gymélites website.

Full list of Olympic qualifiers on the Gymnicestics? Seriously? blog.

Gymnicestics? Seriously? – Have you seen that new site yet? I’ve just subscribed.

Thanks to Head Coach Dan Kendig who warmly welcomed me to his gym. Dan’s coached Nebraska to team Championships 12 of the past 13 years.

In the first video, Assistant Coach Tim Garrison has the team practice landings at the same time as they work beat board drills. Efficient training. Gymnasts were required to stick a certain number of layouts. And a specified number of layout fulls.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The NCAA is so strong this season that, in the end, the team sticking the most landings will be the most successful. Personally I feel there is too much emphasis on landing in the NCAA rules. (It reminds me of FIG gymnastics circa 1984.)

In the second video, Assistant Coach Danna Durante trains beam tumbling sequences uphill on to mats. Later the girls took the same skills up on to high beam.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Nebraska Women’s Gymnastics

For the many girls who love gymnastics more than their boyfriend.

With All Your Heart on Flickr

Dan Kendig, Head Coach of Nebraska, was just talking to me about his concept of inserting air floor sections under the diagonals of a competition gymnastics floor.

Now I hear that Doug Davis of TumblTrak has already made ENTIRE floors with an air floor base:

2004, Tumbl Trak introduced a revolutionary product called the Air Floor. In the last 4 years, the Air Floor has become widely popular for tumbling and cheerleading. If you are unfamiliar with the product, an Air Floor is a 3-inch thick, semi-sealed, inflatable mat that uses “air-cushioned” technology instead of spring technology to create rebound or bounce. …

A frequent comment heard since the first Air Floors were introduced is, “Wouldn’t it be great to have a whole floor of this!” In response, Tumbl Trak has developed, over the last three years, 6-foot wide Air Floor strips that can be connected side-by-side, creating the Air Cheer Floor that is either 42’x42’ or 54’x42’ depending on how many strips are used. This development has been motivated, in large part, by the cheer industry. …

In March of 2007, the Air Cheer Floor was well received when used as a practice floor at the European Cheer Nationals in Denmark. In December of 2007, the Air Cheer Floor was used as the competition floor at the Flygirl meet in Toronto, Canada. And finally, in January of 2008, PAC West Spirit Group’s Apple Cup in Tacoma, WA became the first USASF sanctioned cheer meet to use the Air Cheer Floor.

Kiki Bittner, General Manager of the PAC West Spirit Group, commented on how well the Air Cheer Floor performed during the competition noting that it does not resonate like the spring floor, providing a more stable and consistent surface on which to stunt. Pleased with the Air Cheer Floor, PAC West Spirit Group plans to use it for their Lilac City Competition in Spokane, WA as well as for their National Competition in Portland, OR in March 2008.

… If you have any questions about this product, do not hesitate to call us here at Tumbl Trak (800-331-4362).

TumblTrak February 2008 email newsletter

Product details are not yet on the TumblTrak website.

Who’s going to be first to set up an Air Cheer Floor for use at an invitational Artistic Gymnastics competition? I want to be there.

The Nebraska Husker’s Mabel Lee Hall training gym is a classic.

Reminiscent of European gyms of the past. It’s small and I like that everyone is close together in the gym at all times. This leads to a much better atmosphere than the huge, impersonal “modern” facilities.

With elevated pits, it’s crammed with every possible training set-up. Belts, bungie systems, tramp catcher, air floor, etc.

Head Coach Dan Kendig is a fan of specialized training equipment.

Thanks to Dan, the coaching staff and the team for making me feel at home during my visit.

Nebraska Women’s Gymnastics

You’ll be seeing this image again during the Olympics:

… one of England’s darkest moments in the sport.

The venue: Berlin’s Olympic Stadium; the date: 14 May 1938. As the English players lined up alongside their German counterparts for pre-match ceremonies captain Eddie Hapgood and his men issued a Nazi salute to the crowd. …

It was a Foreign Office order that the England team, which included the legendary Stanley Matthews, perform the salute.

BBC

The British Olympic Association (BOA) is back peddling on the addition of “a controversial clause into their athletes’ contracts preventing them from criticizing the Chinese government while participating in the ’08 Beijing Games”:

The clause states only that athletes “are not to comment on any politically sensitive issues,” which would include China’s dismal human rights record and its occupation of Tibet. The move has been widely condemned as an infringement on the athletes’ rights of free speech.

Those who do not sign the contract will not be permitted to travel to the Olympics, and those that violate it while in China will be sent home, according to the BOA.

It’s inevitable that the world will be scrutinizing all aspects of the totalitarian dictatorship over the coming months. No manner of whitewash is going to prevent it.

The BOA should be ashamed.

This blog will happily link to criticism of China voiced by Olympic athletes. That nation has made fantastic progress. But the faster they move to transparency and accountability, the rule of law, and a truly open free market, the better.

The Olympics is the best chance the world has to influence decision-making in China.

Related: Shameful picture of England squad giving Nazi salute still haunts British sport. Why, 70 years later, do we still suck up to dictators?

Update: New Zealand and Belgium athletes facing the same controversy

It a big statement when a girl puts a (temporary) tattoo on her face.

They’ve become common in NCAA competition. Last night I saw a 6-year-old girl wear a Nebraska tattoo into the gym. Makes me wonder if they, one day, might become fashionable in age group competition.

original – flickr – UNC Gymnastics team member Christine Nguyen

North Carolina sophomore Christine Nguyen was named the EAGL Gymnast of the Week for her performance against EAGL rival NC State. Nguyen won the all-around competition (39.375) and placed first on all four events against the Wolfpack. She scored a 9.850 on vault, beam and floor and a 9.825 on bars. This is the second week in a row that Nguyen picks up the honor.

Carolina Gymnastics

Leave a comment if you have an opinion pro or con on tattoos.