tumbling, tramp, diving, acrobatics, circus, cheer, dance, martial arts, X sports … and more
Stanford may be ranked #1 for 2008, but Ohio beat them out in grade point average.
… With a 3.4 cumulative grade point average (GPA), the Buckeyes snapped Stanford’s four-year streak as the top academic team in the nation. Not only was the award a Buckeye first but it also logged a Big Ten Conference first. With the honor, Ohio State becomes just the fourth program to receive the title and joins the ranks of Stanford, MIT and William & Mary.
After my post bemoaning the lack of good resources, Blair Lowe alerted me to this book of 53 games available from GymnasticsMan.com ($25).
Sample:
screen shot – source
Blair knows and uses all the games himself. It’s valuable. But even more interesting to me is a service where you can download games one-at-a-time on-line. This is future. (On the other hand, $1 / game seems a tad expensive to me.)
See it for yourself: Games to Download
The Big Book of Gymnastics Games – Amazon
Despite the many predictions I’ve heard of their system “collapsing”, it’s still bloody difficult to finish ahead of Russia in important international competitions. Though many coaches departed the former Soviet Union for better paying work abroad, there are some of the best coaches in the World still in Russia.
With a total of 11 medals Рof which 7 were golden, 2 silver and 2 bronze Рthe Russian gymnasts were the most successful during the 25th Trampoline WORLDS in Qu̩bec (Canada), followed by Canada (5 medals) and China (4 medals). The best Russian athletes were without any doubt Irina KARAWAJEWA and Kirill IWANOW.
For the first time during Trampoline World Championships, China won a gold medal for the men’s trampoline competitions with YE, Shuai and Japan was happy about their first WORDLS-gold in synchronal gymnastics with Totsuya SOTOMURA and Yasuhira UEYAMA. …
I talked with one of the Canadian athletes, Jeremy Mosier, after the competition.
Though disappointed his Men’s Double Mini-tramp team just barely missed qualifying for finals, he was happy that Canada had it’s best ever World Championships.
A big highlight for the hosts was Women’s Double Mini:
1. Charles (CAN)
2. Warnock (CAN)
3. Barry (USA)
And Jeremy raved about the new world record difficulty routines of Ivanov from Russia who blew away the competition on Double Mini:
– Half out triffis tuck into triple back pike with opening. …
– Unbelievable pass once again!!! Half out triffis pike into triple back tuck with a vertical opening. perfect landing. 39.10 pts. NEW WORLD RECORD of the highest scoring routine. 10.40 pts. DD. He is the well deserved new World Champion. Very loud cheers from the crowd.
Click PLAY to see Kirill Ivanov in Team Finals doing his (comparatively easy) tucked triffus to tucked triple back. Or watch it on YouTube.
Final competition results – PDF files
This is not difficult, but looks cool.
I’ve never seen it before.
http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/901739/new_stunt.swf
New Stunt
I’d better throw down the challenge to Don Eckert and the Woodward West coaches to post a 4 person version on-line.
Amateur Gymnast (1894)
Thomas Edison, was the “inventor” behind some of the earliest films.
…By the beginning of March, Dickson and assistant William Heise had shot The Barbershop and Amateur Gymnast, both full-length subjects. As with most films made during the coming year, these were slightly less than fifty feet long, shot at approximately forty frames per second, and lasted less than twenty seconds. …
Amateur Gymnast shows a young man performing a somersault: it was probably one of several films taken of members of the Newark Turnverein, a nearby athletic club. Others show two men on parallel bars and a brief boxing match. …
Leave a comment if you know of any earlier “moving pictures” of gymnasts.
Note that we’ve added a new category called “movies” in the right hand navigation.
Steliana Nitor of Romania performs on the balance beam during the international mixed pair gymnastics competition Swiss Cup at the Hallenstadion in Zurich, Switzerland, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007.
(AP Photo/KEYSTONE/Eddy Risch)
UPDATE: Steliana and Flavius Koczi easily won the Mixed Pairs competition for Romania.
At the Banff Mountain Film Festival this weekend, my favourite movie was “20 Seconds of Joy”, a documentary about one of the top jumpers anywhere, fascinating Karina Hollekim from Norway.
This was a World Premiere so it’s not available yet. But you can see the trailer now.
“I don’t want to die, I want to live. I’m pretty good at running away, and this is my escape!†This is how Karina Hollekim describes her dedication to BASE jumping. Documentary filmmaker Jens Hoffman first met the now 30-year-old Norwegian in 2002. He immediately started to film, accompanying her through many stages of her BASE-jumping career, until it comes to a sudden stop, changing all aspects of her life.
best film – Banff Mountain Film Festival 2007 | besthike.com
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on MySpace.
http://lads.myspace.com/videos/vplayer.swf
It’s a study in the psychology of high risk activities.
China took half the medals (men and women) at the World Trampoline Championships individual competition.
We can expect good media coverage of Trampoline in Beijing as this will be one of their strongest sports. In fact, all the acrobatics sports are strong for China.
1. Shuai Ye (CHN)
2. Dong Dong (CHN)
3. Yasuhiro Ueyama (JPN)
On the last day of competition during the 25th Trampoline WORLDS in Québec (Canada), top-favorite Irina Karavaeva from Russia won the women’s finals in Trampoline …
photo – Irina Karavaeva and her coach
1. Irina Karavaeva (RUS)
2. Shanshan Huang (CHN)
3. Rosannagh MacLennan (CAN)
read more – GymFamily.Com
This is what I’ve been waiting for all weekend.
Based on results at World Championships in Quebec, nations are invited to the Olympics. Congratulations to the qualifying countries:
China, Russia and Canada each earned two spots in the women’s competition in Beijing, while Germany, Belarus, Britain, Japan, Uzbekistan, Portugal and Ukraine can send one athlete each. Georgia got the other wild-card spot, and the final spot in the 16-person field will be decided by the International Olympic Committee.
In the men’s competition, China, Russia and Japan earned two spots, while Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Canada, Denmark, Belarus and France got one each. Portugal and Australia are the wild cards, and the 16th spot will be awarded at a later date.
US women earn one spot in Beijing for trampoline – USATODAY.com
I expect the trampoline competition to be very high profile at the 2008 Olympics.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 