Personally I like to post a lot of videos, the occasional news bit, forward links from Twitter, and things like that on this blog. I’d like the readers’ input though! What do you want to see more of on this site? Photos? Videos? Commentary? Just post your answer on this post to let me know :)
Japan Cup is going on July 3rd and 4th in Tokyo at the Metropolitan Gymnasium, which is where the 2011 World Championships will be held.
The United States will be sending Jonathan Horton (Houston, TX), Chris Cameron (U of Michigan), Danell Leyva (Miami, FL), Alex Naddour(U of Oklahoma), and Paul Ruggeri (U of Illinois). Chris Brooks (Norman, OK) is the alternate. I’ve heard conflicting reports about who is actually on the team, but I’ve taken this information directly from the USAG press release (HERE), so hopefully it is correct!
Sad to see Chris Brooks always in the alternate position. He has a history of unfortunately timed injuries - both this year and last year he was supposed to go to the Moscow Stars meet and injured his back last year and ankle this year. To the best of my knowledge, though, he’s back at 100%, so I say USAG should give him the chance to show what he’s got. He dominated at Winter Cup and is a very powerful athlete, and I think he can hold up against the rest of the pack. Oh well…hopefully he will get his chance soon.
The other nations competing in the men’s competition include France, Great Britain, Germany, South Korea, Romania, Russia, and Japan. The team competition is on July 3rd, and the All-Around will be held on July 4th.
There will also be a women’s competition, which includes competitors from Japan, Vietnam, Russia, and South Korea.
The Official Meet website (HERE) lists the USA competitors as Brooks, Cameron, Horton, Naddour, and Ruggeri. I tend to think the USAG press release has the correct competitors on it, but you never know. I’ve also heard that John Orozco will be replacing Danell Leyva. So like a said….a myriad of options! It will be interesting to see who actually shows up!
According to Prosport, Nicolae Forminte has returned to help coach the Romanian national team. After Mariana Bitang and Octavian Belu were brought back in, Forminte left, saying that he felt let down by the Romanian federation. At any rate, it seems he is back now and willing to work with Belu and Bitang.
I think it’s good that he decided to return, as the girls are used to having him as their coach. Belu and Bitang must have been a change for them! Hopefully they can work out some sort of agreement, Forminte is obviously a good presence for the girls to have in the gym, but I think B&B will hopefully bring back some of the stability to the girls. Think back to ~2000 Romanian beam routines….did they ever fall?? No! Do they fall nowadays? Quite a bit. Fingers crossed this will all work out :)
It’s a shaky translation but the article is HERE. (new window) If that doesn’t work, go to prosport.ro then hover on Sports, then click Gymnastics. If you look up prosport on google, it will give you the option to translate the page.
Via Inside Gymnastics: Former Stanford assistant J.D. Reive named as Iowa men’s gym coach, replacing the recently retired Tom Dunn.
RT @AboutGymnastics: 6 ways to beat a mental block: http://bit.ly/aFOfyJ And share your own tips — what works for you?
So I posted via Twitter about this the other day, but it’s worth repeating for this good cause.
Cal Gymnastics Forever (link opens in new window) is a website established so people can show their support for the Cal Gymnastics team, which may be in jeopardy of getting cut. The reason for this cut is since the California economy isn’t doing so hot, so Cal Berkeley is contemplating cutting some athletics teams. We don’t know if the gymnastics team will be dropped yet, since Cal hasn’t made an announcement as of yet.
At any rate, you can send a letter of support for the gymnastics program, they provide all the information you need and even have some suggested points you can include in your letter!
Personally I think it would be a tremendous shame to cut the gymnastics program. They consistently have top gymnasts at both NCAA Championships AND the VISA Championships, and also have produced great gymnasts for the USA National team (for example Tim McNeill, Kyle Bunthuwong, Kyson Bunthuwong, Glen Ishino, and more). Hopefully with the support of the gymnastics community, Cal Gymnastics can be saved!
The Stanford women’s gymnastics team announced another international signing today, Shona Morgan, from Waverley Gymnastics in Victoria state in Australia.
Shona placed 2nd in the AA at the 2008 Australian National Championships and also represented Australia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In Beijing, Shona placed a respectable 15th AA and was an alternate for the Balance Beam final. She is a strong AA gymnast so this should be a nice signing for Stanford!
Another international gymnast joining the Cardinal for the 2010 season is Canadian Kristina Vaculik, who has been dominating since she returned from a rather lengthy break to heal an elbow injury, and recently won the Canadian National title.
Stanford already has some great gymnasts on the team, including one of my favorites from the 2010 NCAA’s, Ashley Morgan, no relation to Shona!
Stanford’s other incoming freshmen are: Lucy Meyer, Lauren Caldemeyer, and Amanda Spinner.
YOU can help Cal keep its men’s team! Follow the link, thanks Kyson! RT @kyson: www.calgymnasticsforever.com #gymnastics #cal #berkeley
Hope everyone is enjoying the 2010 FIFA World Cup going on in South Africa right now! I jokingly call soccer my “other sport”, so of course I am loving this month of top-notch soccer. For those of you who weren’t aware, it’s only held once every four years, and is a huge deal - outside the United States anyways!
The games are all on ABC or ESPN mostly in the US and are available online at ESPN3, I’m told. Not sure if that’s just in the US or not.
Basically there’s groups of 4 teams, who play within their group during the group stage. The top 2 teams from each group then move on to a knockout round, where they play one game against another team. Whoever wins moves on, whoever loses is out of the tournament.
I know many of you may not be soccer fans, but like I said, it’s only once every four years, so check it out if you can! You can at least discover what the heck a vuvuzela is, and, maybe your country is in it! :)
And now back to your regularly scheduled gymnastics commentary!
Earlier this week, Canada’s women’s national team coach Vladimir Lashin resigned. Yesterday we found out that Penn State women’s coach Steve Shephard is resigning as well. Probably just a coincidence timing-wise, but still a little strange!
Lashin was apparently criticized for his Soviet style of coaching, which I’m sure works great for some gymnasts, but could be controversial. The Canadian coaches voted unanimously against him, so it seems to be a necessary change. Rick at Gymnastics Coaching isn’t concerned though, he thinks it’s the right move for Canada, who hope to qualify a full team to the 2012 London Olympics.
Shephard, on the other hand, was a well liked and respected coach who had a long and distinguished career. Assistant Coach Jess Bastardi will take over, temporarily I believe. She is also a great coach, recently we put up a video on Gymnastike about her role at Penn State, and she discussed something sort of unique to female coaches - her role as a spotter on floor! Check it out!
RT @universalsports: U.S. gymnasts from ‘80 Olympic team to be honored: The American gymnasts who could not attend the Moscow Olympics . …
Well, it looks like we’ve got practically the entire 2008 Beijing team back in the gym training! Alicia Sacramone announced her return to training in December and said recently that she’s planning on competing at the Cover Girl Classic later this summer. She hopes to qualify to VISAs and wants to be a beam and vault specialist, although she’s training a little floor as well.
We’ve already heard from Shawn Johnson that she’s returned to the gym, plus we’ve got Ivana Hong coming back from her knee injury, Sam Peszek allegedly tearing up the Elite scene before she heads off to UCLA. Chellsie recently confirmed that she is NOT retired from the sport.
Who else does that leave us with? Nastia, I’d say not returning to the gym anytime soon. She’s in Italy right now with some of the WOGA girls. Bridget, of course, is still plugging away at gym, probably hoping for another world championship! I haven’t heard anything about Jana Bieger recently, but since she was at VISA’s last year, I’d guess she’ll be training for this years as well.
Who would have thought so many of them would still be training?!
Though to be fair, some of them did take considerable time off. But still….this should make things REALLY interesting when it comes time to select the 2012 team. With the 08 girls shaking things up, some of these amazing juniors may have to really prove themselves to Marta! Exciting times!
Sounds good to me!! :) RT @ShaylaWorley: [Australia] was amazing. A once in a life time experience. I sky dived, snorkeled, and scuba dived!
I wanna go to VISA’s. Or Worlds. Anyone wanna sponsor me? I can give you free Starbucks beans for a long time as thanks!
And if you didn’t already have it bookmarked (ha!), my blog is: http://amygym.tumblr.com. It’s a gymnastics blog, you know you love it!
It’s already on my blog, but for the rest of you, here’s a clip I love. Ksenia Afanasyeva BB from Pac Rims. Gorgeous! http://bit.ly/dv1xeA
