Gymnastics Coaching.com

I got the chance to see some of the closed podium training for FIG women at USA Championships Monday night.

First off, I should say it is an honour to be able to watch the American girls. They have so much depth! It’s staggering.

Congratulations to USA Gymnastics and all the coaches who were able to bring athletes up to this level of competitiveness.

I was happy to see Nastia Liukin looking healthy and stronger than a year ago.

Of course Shawn Johnson remains the favourite. She has an unusual body type (super muscular) and atypical technique on many skills. But what a dynamo!

Here’s a typical news story leading up to the meet:

Johnson, Liukin favorites for worlds team
By Robert Falkoff / WCSN.com

One way or the other, the United States women’s gymnastics team figures to head for the world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, with a “super seven” type of roster.

The question is whether that roster will represent more of the old or more of the new. With a deep pipeline of talent, Team USA officials will be watching with keen interest this week at the Visa Championships in San Jose as its established members try to fend off the next wave of ambitious competitors for those coveted seven spots on the world team that travels to Germany.

“It’ll be very interesting to see the competition between the two generations of gymnasts,” said Martha Karolyi, the women’s national team coordinator.

Among those who have already made a mark on the world stage are Nastia Liukin, Jana Bieger, Natasha Kelley, Chellsie Memmel and Alicia Sacramone. But 15-year-old Shawn Johnson has quickly burst into prominence as the leader of the next wave after winning the all-around at the recent Pan American Games. Then there are intriguing names like Samantha Peszek, Ivana Hong, Amber Trani and Bridget Sloan to throw into the mix.

The top two in the all-around at the Visa Championships gain automatic invitations to make the Stuttgart trip. Five other gymnasts will be selected to travel immediately after the Visa Championships and a final world championships lineup of six — plus one alternate — will be turned in shortly before the competition.

“We have to look for readiness,” Karolyi said. “After we finish [the Visa Championships], we’ll have three days left over to train as a team before we depart for the world championships. Certainly, we’ll be looking for the gymnasts which have the routines which are world-class routines. But also, we have to look to the fact that these gymnasts are very consistent with those routines and are able to perform them under high pressure situations. Those will be the criteria which have priority.”

Two of the bigger storylines at the Visa Championships revolve around Johnson and Liukin. Can Johnson continue her meteoric rise in the senior division? Can Liukin regain top form after battling back from a nagging ankle injury? …

WCSN.com

Watching training yesterday Shayla Worley was by far my favourite American gymnast. By far the most beautiful and artistic.

Her name is not mentioned in the WCSN article. Perhaps a simple oversight.

If i was Marta Karoli — and thank God I’m not under the pressure of that responsibility — I’d name Shayla to the team for sure.

Shayla Worley – wallpaper

Shayla Worley – official website

Paul and Morgan Hamm have a dedicated website called MakingTheOlympics.com.

They posted video of visiting circus artists from the show Corteo. It’s quite cute. High speed internet connection recommended:

hosting Cirque du Soleil VIDEO – MakingTheOlympics.com

They may certainly make the 2008 Olympics. But it’s highly doubtful the world will see them at World Championships in September. Paul and Morgan have both decided to compete only Floor and Pommel Horse at Championships.

It’s doubtful the US team coaches will choose anyone competing only two apparatus.

Cirque visits Ohio State – screenshot from video

BANGKOK, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) — World champion Zhou Zhuoru from China clinched the women’s gymnastics individual all-round title with a total score of 60.200 points at the Bangkok Universiade on Saturday. …

Olga Shcherbatykh from Ukraine took the sliver with 58.350 points.

Chinese Zhou wins women’s gymnastics all-round title at Universiade

official Championships 2007 website

Website editor Rick McCharles is in San Jose for Championships.

I will be linking to results as well as relaying the buzz from the competition venue.

Of course I’m not the only one blogging Championships.

From World silver medalist Chelsie Memmel’s blog:

I leave for Championships this Sunday and have my first training at the HP Pavilion on Monday the 13th. We will train there for a few days and then compete on Thursday, August 16th and Saturday, August 18th. You can watch it on NBC TV on Saturday and Sunday evening!

I am really excited for Championships. My whole family is going, along with a few people from the gym. My best friend, Katie, is also coming!!

Chelsie’s blog

I’m surprised we are not seeing this vault.

I know it can be difficult to get “into” the tucked position. (You need a strong “block”.) But clearly many of the top vaulters in the world have enough angular momentum to do it.

Perhaps Yurchenko double pike will be done first.

from FIG

I posed this question some time ago.

Several coaches got back to me with specific examples of female gymnasts who do it easily.

UPDATE: Kecks sent me a link to a CrossFit video.

These are non-gymnast adult women doing muscle-up series on rings. Their relative strength is better than 99.99% of the Men on the planet.

To see the CrossFit video click here. (.wmv file)

The Romanian Men are still strong in Artistic gymnastics. But many have been anticipating a decline in the performance of the long time dominant Romanian Women.

But here’s some good news:

BUCHAREST — Triple Olympic gold medalist Catalina Ponor has come out of retirement to head the Romania squad for next month’s world championships in Stuttgart.

Ponor, 20, retired after last year’s European championships where she won gold on the beam and bronze on the floor, her favorite apparatus.

“With Ponor in the team, Romania hope to qualify for the 2008 Olympic team contest,” the head of the Romanian gymnastics body Adrian Stoica told reporters on Tuesday.

Without Ponor, a young Romania team failed to win a woman team’s medal for the first time in 25 years at the 2006 world championships in Aarhus, Denmark.

The first 12 teams at the world championships from Sept. 1-9, will qualify for the Beijing Olympics.

Last weekend, Ponor dominated the Romania national championships, winning on the beam and floor.

WCSN.com: News

The level of competition was much reduced this year as the meet was scheduled so close to the (higher priority) World Championships qualifying for Olympics 2008.

China won the Women’s Team, Japan the Men’s Team.

Despite a string of falls from apparatus, the Chinese females gymnasts made an narrow escape to defend their Universiade team title on Thursday.

Led by three world champions Zhang Nan, Fan Ye and Zhou Zhuoru, China was definitely the hot title favorite before the final as its strong rivals Russia, Ukraine and Romania sent their second teams to the 24th Universiade.

…

Best in individual all-around qualification was FAN, Ye from China with 58,250 points. ….

MEN’s Competitions

Japan’s men team was on top at the Friday’s Team decision with a score of 273,700 points, followed by China (265,200) and Ukraine (263,150).

Hasashi MIZUTORI (JPN) was the best gymnast in all-around qualification (92,000) and also the new world champion of students after the all-around final at Saturday.

With 92,450 he won in front of GUO, Weydong (CHN) and Koki SAKAMOTO (JPN).

GYMmedia.com

I’m a coach. And was a lousy athlete.

It’s easy for me to go along with the conventional wisdom that “great athletes make poor coaches”.

The sport came “easily” to great athletes so, the thinking goes, they cannot relate to the normal child.

Certainly this is wrong — in some cases.

Charlie Tamayo from Cuba is certainly one of the greatest gymnasts of all time. But he’s also a naturally gifted coach and motivator.

Click PLAY or watch Charlie on YouTube.

He’s wearing “old man” make-up at Woodward West Gymnastics Camp in California. Spotting Stalder on bars.

Do elite athletes make good coaches?

It may simply be the case that there are very few elite athletes in any sport. And that very few of those go on to be coaches.

This could be the simple explanation why most of the great coaches you can name were not elite athletes in their sport.

At Woodward West Gymnastics Camp the trainers have had plenty of experience protecting hands for swinging bars. (They have over 100 gymnasts some weeks.)

Unless you have a system you like better, this is what you get when you go into the trainers room for “repairs”:

In practice, they seemed to work very well.

Of course athletic tape is very expensive. You would not want to make these on a daily basis.