The selection of world and Olympic teams (and even the national teams) have gradually become more and more subjective over the last ten years to coincide with the evolving nature of international competition formats and rules, which highly favor event specialists and require a very strategic team dynamic. Could this proposed points system be a way for our selection procedures to return to the completely objective, score-based process we all miss? Check it out!
In the coming weeks, American Gymnast will be releasing a brand new program entitled AG Premier - a service for Gym Club Owners, Gym Managers and Coaches. For us to best debut the service, we are asking that you take part in our short 1 minute survey. As a way of saying thank you, we will send you a 10% off coupon.
The next round of 5 floor routines in the top 50 countdown!
The top 50 countdown of the best floor routines of the last decade continues!
I was confident that nothing short of a volcano would stop the Reisport grips shipment that was scheduled to leave today. Alas, a volcano would stop this shipment! The volcano in Iceland has grounded planes in Europe. Reisport is hoping these gymnastics grips will be in the air by the middle of next week.
Floor Routines #45-41 of the last decade…
I’m sure many of you have picked up on some of my frustrations with the level of gymnastics in the elite women’ world nowadays, in particular on floor and vault. While the difficulty in the men’s tumbling and vaulting around the world has risen astronomically over the last decade, on the women’s side these two areas have gone in the other direction
The finals at the French International is underway today, but I wanted to go ahead and post some videos and comments on some of the awesome routines from the qualification round.
The Russian men haven’t won Olympic gold since 1996. A team bronze in 2000 was followed by sixth-place finishes in both 2004 and 2008.
I’ve already discussed how I test for those seven physical qualities that I consider most important to look for in a budding young gymnast. Now I wanted to go into more depth about how I look for the seven non-physical qualities I mentioned on my list
Ksenia Afanasyeva and Ekaterina Kramarenko are definitely two of my favorite Russian gymnasts…both were major players for the Russian team in Beijing, and both are still holding on for possible spots on more Russian world and Olympic teams.
Here are some more videos and commentary from some of the top gymnasts at the recent Trophy Jesolo meet, including former world all-around champ Vanessa Ferrari and a few of the Americans and Russians: