More From The Kellogg's Tour

Ah, the Kellog's Tour of Gymnastics Champions. Hard core gym fans hate it and blame
it for all the injuries the gymnasts receive. But it is great
publicity for our sport and also a great chance for some gymnasts to
earn a bit of money.

Here's another story about the latest from the tour.
http://www.examiner.com/article/kellogg-s-gymnastics-tour-showcases-olympic-local-gymnasts-and-fitness

Meet of the Week

This week we are going back to the 80's for the 1989 worlds women's team final. Some call this the golden age of gymnastics. Generally it is remembered as a time when quality prevailed. Although I did think some of the scores seemed a little suspect and there generally seemed to be little differentiation between good and great routines, but it is still a great competition to watch.

Meet of the Week 5

Back in the days of the 10, a new code of points was an exciting time. Gymnasts were forced to find new and interesting ways to get bonus points and it was a race to find loopholes in the code. In particular the 1997 code was a big change from the one used at the 96 Olympics. For this reason I found the 1997 worlds immensely interesting. So, this week we will look at the team and all-around competitions from the 1997 worlds.

Meet of the Week 4

This week we get to revisit some classic Soviet routines with the men's and women's all-around competitions from the 1986 Goodwill Games.

A glimpse at Team Future

Someone has put together a great video that gives us a glimpse at the girls who are part of 'Team Future' which is the next generation of Australian gymnasts.

Click Play or Watch on YouTube

Meet of the Week 3

This week it's the Women's Team Final from the 2000 Olympics.

Meet of the Week 2

This week our meet of the week is the 1994 world championships All-around. It was one of the first major competitions that I watched and I still think it is great.

Meet of the Week

To cope with post-Olympic boredom and the desire to watch more gymnastic,. I have come up with a new segment: Meet of the Week. In this I will revisit a gymnastics meet/competition from the past. Today it is the Women's team final from 1996. This is the American version so it's a bit American-centic. But it is still quite enjoyable.

Olympic Sounds Aren't Real

It turns out that many of the sounds in the broadcast of the Olympics are actually faked:

“That afternoon we went out on a canoe with a couple of rowers recorded stereo samples of the different type of effects that would be somewhat typical of an event,” Baxter recalls. “And then we loaded those recordings into a sampler and played them back to cover the shots of the boats.”

The real sound, of course, would have included engine noises and a helicopter whirring overhead. The fake sound seemed normal, just oars sliding into water. In a sense, the real sound was as much of a human creation as the fake sound, and probably a lot less pleasant to listen to.

So, in order to make a broadcast appear real, the soundtrack has to be faked, or to put it perhaps more accurately, synthesized. We have a word for what they’re doing: This is sonic fiction. They are making up the sound to get at the truth of a sport.

Read Full Story

It's just a pity that they go to so much trouble yet they can't even find a decent camera angle for rings, uneven bars and high bar.

Josh Jefferis on the Radio

Josh Jefferis appeared on Triple J (an Australian radio station) this morning. You can listen to the interview here:

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/s3572460.htm

Josh starts at 15:50.

Zou Kai Scammed

Controversial Olympic gold medalist Zou Kai and teammate Yang Wei have been caught up in a multi-million dollar scam. Wang Ti, a former footballer's wife apparently convinced a number of athletes and artists including Zou and Yang to hand over large amount of money under the false pretence of getting apartments at a discount.

Zhu Shiqun, the mother of Zou Kai, the gymnast who was allegedly cheated out of 1.5m yuan, told the Chengdu Commercial Daily she feared the scandal might hit China's chances at the Games.

Read Full Story

Latest Lauren Mitchell Videos From VISA

VISA had added some more videos of Lauren Mitchell:

Reach For The Sky (Movie)

I just stumbled across a gymnastics movie that I had never heard of before. It's called 'Reach For The Sky'. It's about 2 young gymnasts who aspire to train at the Romanian national training centre in Deva. It's well worth watching.

It just keeps going

Attention over Maroney's scowl is still getting attention. This time from TIME:

Worst Moment: American gymnast McKayla Maroney, the defending world champion on the vault, entered the Olympics as the heavy favorite to win that apparatus. She nailed performances during the team competition, and seemed invincible heading into the vault final. But after landing on her backside during her second vault attempt, the presumed gold turned into silver—and Maroney could barely hide her disgust. During the medal ceremony she stood on the podium with her arms crossed and wore a scowl rather than a smile. Read more: http://olympics.time.com/2012/08/16/the-best-and-worst-moments-of-the-olympics/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29#william-lee-adams#ixzz23lE5KftW

http://olympics.time.com/2012/08/16/the-best-and-worst-moments-of-the-olympics/?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Ftopstories+%28TIME%3A+Top+Stories%29#william-lee-adams

Aussie gymnasts return

The Aussie gymnasts have just arrived back in Australia after their Olympic campaign. There have been a couple of small mentions:

Several members of the women's hockey team also arrived, as did kayaker Alana Nicholls, javelin thrower Kim Mickel, gymnasts Emily Little and Lauren Mitchell, BMXer Lauren Reynolds, WA's lightweight fours rowers and members of the men's water polo team.

link

Gabby Douglas' Story

This is a really interesting video from a couple of months ago about our new Olympic champion. It shows a bit of her training and she also discusses a bit about how she got into gymnastics and her move to Iowa.

Ruggeri on Uneven Bars

Paul Ruggeri does uneven bars... and pretty well too.

Episode 6 of Jefferis and Pichler's Journey to London

The guys are now in London in the final stages before the Olympics start. They now have episode 6 up.

Click play or Watch on YouTube

Sporting body types

The Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting article about body types for various sports which mentions Lauren Mitchell

Lauren Mitchell is the perfect size for gymnastics - 158 centimetres tall and weighs 49 kilograms - and is flexible. The average age of the Australian gymnastics squad is 21 and the average weight is 49kg, making them some of the smallest in London.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/olympics/news-london-2012/medals-await-those-with-the-mettle-in-their-genes-20120706-21mo6.html

Jefferis and Pichler's Journey to London

Josh Jefferis and Thomas Pichler are putting together a series of videos showing their journey to London. Of course, only Josh will compete, but Thomas is also going along as reserve and is Josh's training partner over the next few weeks. These guys are great fun and the videos are quite entertaining. You can watch the videos below or on YouTube. Keep checking Thomas' YouTube channel over the next few weeks to catch new videos as they appear.

Lauren Mitchell VISA Videos

Some more Lauren Mitchell videos are appearing on the VISA YouTube page. The latest ones are shown below:

Getting into Cirque Du Soleil

A show called 16x9 had a really interested episode that follows a few gymnasts as they audition and train to become part of a Cirque Du Soleil show.

Click Play or Watch it on YouTube

Devyatovskiy Retires

Known for being the brat of Russian gymnastics. Maxim Devyatovskiy has announced his retirement after he failed to make the training squad for the 2012 Olympics. Veteran Golotsutskov has also missed the Olympic squad after withdrawing from the Russian Cup due to injury. The Russian Olympic squad was announced as: Denis Ablyazin, Aleksandr Balandin, David Belyavskiy, Emin Garibov, Konstantin Pluzhnikov, Nikita Ignatyev, Sergey Khorokhordin, Igor Pakhomenko. This squad will be narrowed down to 5 for the final team in the next couple of weeks.

Jefferis on a roll

Josh Jefferis is putting up a great case for Olympic selection. He came second at the Kyle Shewfelt invitational with 84.55 ahead of Thomas Pichler in 3rd. He also came 1st on Rings and P Bars. Apparently China was also supposed to attend, but missed the comp due to a flight delay.

View the results here

Lauren Mitchell Updates

There have been a couple of (slightly conflicting) news articles on Lauren Mitchell today:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/a/-/other/13248377/mitchell-reduces-olympic-workload/

Former world gymnastics champion Lauren Mitchell will not be contesting the all-around competition at the London Olympics.

The WAIS scholarship holder has been nursing a shoulder injury and has decided to abandon her campaign to compete on all four apparatus focussing instead on the floor, beam and vault where she can make her greatest contribution to the overall team score where Australian finished sixth in Beijing four years ago.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/london-olympics/lauren-mitchell-not-yet-focusing-on-london/story-fn9dheyx-1226308501174

AUSTRALIA'S leading gymnast Lauren Mitchell refuses to focus on London, knowing that the burden of a nation rests on her shoulders.

Although, people are increasingly turning to blogs for their news as blogs seem to produce higher quality coverage for sports like gymnastics, it is still good to get some coverage in the old media.

Rizzo Retires

The Sydney Morning Herald had an article on Sunday announcing that Phillipe Rizzo has decided to retire from gymnastics. Unfortunately the article is not on their online version, however, it did say that he cited a lack of motivation as a primary reason for his retirement. Since, the AIS residential program was closed and the AIS was changed to a camps-based program he hasn't had a good environment to train in which contributed to his loss of motivation.

Conagratulation to Rizzo on an incredible career, but it is sad that it ended how it did, and hopefully Gymnastics Australia will realise how bad their decision to cut the AIS program has turned out to be.

Interview with Australian Team

Channel Nine did a short interview with some of the Australian team, which was shown on Wide World of Sports yesterday. You can view it here:

http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/london-olympics/video?videoid=5e077e35-06f5-423f-a7da-331f33528fa6

However, I suspect you will probably need to be in Australia to be able to watch it.

2012 American Cup

There has been some suggestions that Universal Sports would cover the 2012 American Cup, although there doesn't appear to be anything on their website. However, the USA Gymnastics website does have a link which looks promising:

http://usagym.org/pages/events/ac/live.html

Lauren Mitchell News

Lauren Mitchell is not only working hard to prepare for the upcoming Olympics, she is also getting out to clubs to help younger gymnasts.

MEMBERS of the Castle Hill RSL Gymnastics Club last month had the opportunity to meet their idol, Australian artistic gymnast Lauren Mitchell, who is only the second Australian woman gymnast to win medals at a world championships and the first to win gold. Mitchell is one of VISA’s ambassadors for the London 2012 Olympic Games. During her visit, she shared tips with the local gymnasts and signed autographs.

Read on Hills News

WAG Olympic Qualification Results

Following the conclusion of the London Olympic test event, Italy, Canada, France and Brazil have qualified full teams to the London Olympic after their top 4 finishes today. As we did with the MAG, we can now try to work out who the potential olympic individual qualifiers are.

12 Qualified Teams: USA, RUS, CHN, ROU, JPN, AUS, GER, GBR, ITA, CAN, FRA, BRA.
Worlds apparatus medalist: Phan (VIE)
Continental Places: 2 places to Africa (all other continents are qualified).
Wildcard: To be determined.
Teams that placed 5th - 8th get one individual: BEL, KOR, ESP, NED.
That leaves 30 places to be filled from the all-around results (to make a total of 98).
1. Steingruber/Muelhauser (SUI)
2. Gomez (GUA)
3. Garcia/Lago Serna (MEX)
4. Lopez/Rojas (VEN)
5. Maksiuta (ISR)
6. Millousi/Mitrakou (GRE)
7. Boczogo/Gombas (HUN)
8. Pihan-Kulesza (POL)
9. Palesova (CZE)
10. Gasser (AUT)
11. Gil Ortiz (COL)
12. Kononenko/Kysla (UKR)
13. Adlerteg (SWE)
14. Erceg (CRO)
15. Pereyra (ARG)
16. Elizarova/Galiulina (UZB)
17. Golob/Sajn (SLO)
18. Uctas (TUR)
19. Castro (CHI)
20. Svilpaite (LTU)
21. Mileva (BUL)
22. Wong (HKG)
23. Urvikko (FIN)
24. Quinones (PUR)
25. Homolova (SVK)
26. Lim (SIN)
27. Azimbay (KAZ)
28. Marachkouskaya (BLR)
29. Maqques (POR)
30. Pena (DOM)
Reserve: Rae (NZL)

MAG Olympic Qualifiers Confirmed

FIG has confirmed the list of MAG qualifiers. The list is here.

MAG Olympic Qualifiers

Now that the Olympic Qualification part of the London Test Event is over, we can start to work out who has qualified for the Olympics (based on the results here. The FIG has put up the process here. Based on my interpretation of the process, the olympic qualifiers will look something like this:

12 teams: JPN, USA, CHN, GER, KOR, ROM, UKR, GBR, FRA, ESP, ITA
Apparatus medalists from worlds (not part of a team): Hypolito (BRA), Shatilov (ISR), Berki (HUN), Zanetti (BRA), Tsolakidis (GRE)
Continental Representation: Africa is the only continent not to qualify, so there will be 2 spots allocated to countries from Africa based on Worlds results.
1 Wildcard: Yet to be determined.
4 spots to the teams placed 5-8 (1 each): CAN, BRA, PUR, BLR
The remaining spots (98 total) to be filled by all-around results based on the London Test Event. So, I think there are 26 spots remaining. So these spots will probably be something like the following:
1. CORRAL BARRON (MEX)
2. GONZALEZ SEPULVEDA (CHI)
3. SHEK (HKG)
4. UDE (CRO)
5. MARAS (GRE)
6. PIASECKY (SVK)
7. LEIMLEHNER (AUT)
8. GIRALDO LOPEZ (COL)
9. KULESZA (POL)
10. CAPELLI (SUI)
11. ZONDERLAND (NED)
12. JEFFERIS (AUS)
13. DAVTYAN (ARM)
14. ALMEIDA CAMPOS (POR)
15. GORBACHEV (KAZ)
16. GUSCINAS (LTU)
17. PHUOC HUANG (VIE)
18. TREFILOVS (LAT)
19. ARONOVICH (ISR)
20. HIDVEGI (HUN)
21. JOVTCHEV (BUL)
22. MOLINARI (ARG)
23. VERBAEYS (BEL)
24. KONECNY (CZE)
25. BEHAN (IRL)
26. SHIKHALIYEV (AZE)
Reserve: PALGEN (LUX)

In addition, the following countries had their 2nd gymnast above the 1st reserve, so they possibly will be able to choose which gymnast to send (out of the 2 who competed today in London): COL, AUS, NED, POR, SUI


Note that this is my interpretation, so it is possible that I have made some mistakes.

Sam Offord Out of Olympic Test Event

Some bad news has come through that Sam Offord has unfortunately received an injury during podium training and is out of the Olympic Test Event. Unfortunately this will eliminate any chance he has to gain Olympic selection, as the final Olympic places will be based on the results of the Test Event. He will be replaced by reserve Josh Jefferis.

NCAA commences for 2012

The NCAA season for WAG started today with Florida defeating NC State (196.025 to 194.675), Washington defeating Michigan State (193.175 to 191.825) and WMU defeating Centenary (191.45 to 186.175). The MAG starts next weeks.