Gymnastics Coaching.com

I predicted Georgia would win.

But they have their work cut out after the first rotation!

Florida hit BIG on beam. Cory Hartung has the best routine at Championships, I feel. (Regardless of scores.)

Fantastic.

The No. 1 University of Florida gymnastics team advances to the NCAA Super Six team final after posting its highest score ever, 197.40, in NCAA Championships competition.

For the first time this season, the Gators didn’t finish or tie for the top position in the team standings. Georgia won the NCAA Championships Session I Team Qualifier at 197.70, its third-highest team score of 2007. Florida’s runner-up total of 197.40 is the highest ever in NCAA Championships’ competition and the top road mark ever for the program.

Gator Gymnastics News @ Gatorzone.com

Utah Fans on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Ann Lovell, who has lived in Asia for 8 years, posted a terrific series of visuals. Great colours.

The Beijing Chinese Acrobat Show features the countries top gymnasts, many whom are just children.

Chinese Acrobat Show – a photoset on Flickr

Only the top 3 teams from this second qualifying session advance to the Super 6 Team Finals.

Utah Fan favourite Kristina Baskett started with a fall on FX. The loud home crowd grew nervous.

But the Utes really impressed me. They got stronger as the evening progressed.

Actually, the second session was notably weaker than session one. Consistency, difficulty and artistry were not as stunning. There were fewer HITS and STICKS overall.

But the Super 6 is “sudden victory”. Everyone starts over from zero.

It’s going to be a great fight.

Utah Gymnastics

Who does Cirque du Soleil boss Guy Laliberté call when he wants something “special”?

Pam Rocks of Moment Factory.

Directing insane multimedia shows and events is all in a day’s work for Rocks.

She describes some of her favourites to plan: Guy Laliberté’s private parties (a.k.a. “test runs” for the Cirque du Soleil), which have involved a “virtual Guy” and a 100-foot dome turned into a smoking pumpkin, crystal ball, enchanted forest and “rocking cathedral.” …

Currently, most of Rocks’ contracts (about 70 per cent) come from the “New Adventures department” at Cirque du Soleil, a place where the interactive arts (video, lights and live performance) are pushed to extremes, and where there’s room to play under a big budget. …

Pam Rocks is off to the circus

Those in charge of lighting and special effects are at least as important as choreographers.

The top AA score in the NCAA TEAM competition (first session) was Courtney Kupets of Georgia.

She was solid as a rock.

But that’s not how she felt:

Question: “Talk about your all around performance, since it looks like you’re on your way to another individual title.”

Answer: “I was kind of nervous today. I felt like a little kid competing for the first time. As a team, we really got into it and today was all about the team and what I could do individually to help the team.”

2007 NCAA Gymnastics Championship Quotes :: Press conference quotes from Session I on Thursday, April 26.

The pressure is unbelievable in the qualifying round.

After the first of 2 qualifying sessions three teams move on to finals:

Team ranking results.

A few wobbles and missed landings made the difference.

Florida was definitely my favourite team to watch: energetic, artistic, enthusiastic.

But Georgia was more polished, I thought, More exacting.

Congratulations Nebraska! They had dynamite tumbling and vault.

WOW. What a meet. I could not be more impressed with NCAA Championships and the young women who qualified to get here.

I learned a long, long time ago how to keep track of the insanely high scores.

Simply drop the 9:

9.75 = 7.5
9.825 = 8.25
9.95 = 9.5

Easier to keep straight?

NCAA meets are more about the show than accurate ranking of the athletes. More a performance than a competition.

Thankfully the judges have given very few impossible 10s over the past 2 years.

Check the time stamp on this post. Only the first preliminary rotation of 12 is finished.

George put on a BEAM CLINIC. (One fall.)

They look awesome.

NCAA Championships 2007 home page.

photo is Grace Taylor – Georgia

For so many years, Utah’s Greg Marsden, Georgia’s Suzanne Yoculan, Alabama’s Sarah Patterson, UCLA’s Valorie Kondos-Field and a handful of other coaches have been the faces of success in collegiate gymnastics.

They are credited with building the sport into what it is today, a fan-friendly, increasingly popular sport that draws some of the world’s best athletes.

They’ve been around so long, some of the newer programs that have benefitted from their success are now in a position to beat them.

Florida coach Rhonda Faehn (UCLA), Denver’s Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart (Florida), Stanford’s Kristen Smyth (Cal) and Oklahoma’s K.J. Kindler (Iowa State) are all coaches who came from successful programs as athletes and have guided their teams to the 2007 NCAA Championships as coaches.

Faehn, in her fifth year, has the top-ranked Gators positioned to become the first team other than Utah, Alabama, UCLA and Georgia to win the national title since the event was sanctioned by the NCAA in 1982.

Salt Lake Tribune РNCAA GYMNASTICS: Veteran coaches now being challenged by prot̩g̩s

Rhonda Faehn – Gator Zone