Ads with gymnastics

The recent Toyota Hybrid Camry ad here in Australia featured some gymnastics. Watch it below:

Rizzo has surgery

The shoulder injury that caused Philippe Rizzo to withdraw from the Pacific Rim Championships turns out to have been more serious than initially thought. He has recently had surgery on his shoulder, which now puts both Commonwealth Games and Worlds in doubt for him this year.

Keatings tears ACL

See press release by British Gymnastics here.

Oh No! This will be a big blow for Great Britain, and I was really looking forward to see how he backed up his all-around silver medal at worlds last year.

Rhythmic Gymnastics Improves Bone Density

An interesting study was done that shows that Rhythmic Gymnastics can improve bone density which can reduce the risk of bone fracture in later life.

See the article here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/tes-gti050310.php

I wonder if Arstistic Gymnastics has the same benefit. My guess is that it would, since the article mentions that it is the weight bearing exercisea that produce the benefit.

Interviews with Stephanie Moorhouse

Gymnastics Australia has put up a couple of interviews with Stephanie Moorhouse here:

Aerial Skiing

With the Winter Olympics here, let's look at the Aerial Skiing. In Australia there have been quite a number of ex-gymnasts who have gone into Aerial Skiing including 2000 Olympian Trudy McIntosh. This year former gymnast Bree Munro has qualified for the Olympics. Here is an interesting video about how Aerial Skiiers train:

Larissa Miller Interview

From News.com.au. Watch it here:

http://player.video.news.com.au/news/#fedqYxGwN9uqiVZh1_b9cc6pcgXGQueD

It is interesting that many gymnasts still see 17 as old even though many more gymnasts are now competing into their 20's. In fact, according to the stats from the FIG website here:

http://sportcentric.lg1x1.simplecdn.net/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,5218-198717-215940-156385-0-file,00.pdf

the average age has increased from 16.85 at the 99 worlds, to 18.79 at the 2009 worlds. So in fact 17 is now young, although admittedly there are a few top gymnasts who could not compete at worlds due to age restriction. However, I do hope that many gymnasts start to realise that they can continue to compete for longer if they look after their body.

Using Gymnastics to break world records

I have often pondered the use of gymnastics to do things faster or better than traditional methods, but this PE teacher has broken a world record in a way that I never would have imagined. He does a handspring to get the speed to do a soccer throw in. He throws it an amazing 49.78m.

View the BBC story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8469341.stm



There are also some YouTube videos of it:

The Gymnastics Minute

I think many people have already found this YouTube channel. But in case you haven't seen it, it has lots of great tips for coaching and learnings skills and is a great resource.

The Gymnastics Minute

Toyota Cup

Congrats to Prashanth Sellathurai, Phil Rizzo and Larissa Miller who all medaled at the Toyota Cup in Japan. Proshy came 2nd on Pommel, Phil came 3rd on High Bar and Larissa came 3rd on Uneven Bars.

Proshy put up an amazing score of 15.9 on Pommel. He had the highest start score of 16.7 but couldn't catch the amazing Chinese gymnast and current world champion Zhang Hongtao. However, he may be developing a rivalry with Hungary's Kriztian Berki. Berki got the silver ahead of Proshy at the world championships, but now Proshy has beaten Berki twice in a row since then.

Phil Rizzo claimed the bronze on high bar despite only having a 7.9 Execution score, indicating that he may have had some problems. Silver medalist Uchimura also had a low E-score, allowing winner Nakase to have the biggest winning margin of the comp (1.35).

Larissa Miller put up a solid 14.65 on Bars, matching her qualification score from worlds, but with an improved D-score of 6.4 vs 6.1 from worlds.

The comp was dominated by Japan who took 6 of the 10 golds. China also put in a strong showing with 3 golds and the only other country to win a gold was Russia with Kurbatova winning Women's Vault.

We are now waiting on the results from the Valeri Liukin Invitational where Sam Simpson and Josh Jefferis both competed.