British Gymnastics has just conducted a study to find the answer to this question. Overall the findings are what one would expect:
Found it ‘boring/repetitive’ – a lot of people said it became boring partly due to waiting around and partly due to repeating the same sort of warm-up or activities in each session.
“More time doing actual gymnastics, less warm-up and standing around”
“They just did the same thing every week and the classes were very big so it was on a sort of a circuit. So I could see they were getting a bit bored when it was the same thing each week”
Of course, this does provide the challenge to coaches to make classes more interesting for the gymnasts while still developing the required skill, which can be quite difficult.
One of the big trends in men's gymnastics at the moment is the Tkatchev half turn. In the code the layout Tkatchev half is known as the Moznik:
But the straddle Tkatchev half is merely a side note. But over 20 years after it was first performed someone has finally discovered who first performed it. Turns out it was 1996 Olympic silver medalist Jair Lynch
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) recently approved naming a horizontal bar flight element after the USA's Jair Lynch, who won the silver medal on the parallel bars at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and is currently a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee's Board of Directors. Lynch was the first gymnast to compete the skill at an official FIG competition, having performed what is now known as the "Lynch" as far back as the 1992 season, and the skill is included in the FIG's 2013-16 Code of Points for Men's Artistic Gymnastics.
As many predicted Iordache topped qualifications on day 1, but Mustafina had 2 falls and fell to 4th. But finals starts from scratch, so it could still be a tight battle.
With no team competition Max Whitlock topped the all-around standings on day 1. Although he was only a hair ahead of favourite Verniaiev. It was also notable with the lack of Germans in the top 10 after the retirement of Boy and Nguyen and Hambuchen not doing the all-around.
There is also a livestream for the finals:
http://eurovision.digotel.com/ueg/index.html
Although it does say available to European viewers, so I'm not sure if it will work for those of us outside of Europe. We may need a proxy server otherwise.
It's sure looking like a busy weekend of sport, with Europeans and NCAA championships.
