The Age Rule

I disagree with the age rule that we have in place now, personally I don't think there should be a minimum age for senior competition and I think we should just trust the gymnastics associations in each country to decide whether a gymnast is mature enough and can cope withthe pressure or not. Different gymnasts will be ready before others and I think their coaches should know as they spend so much time with them! At this time the only sensible thing to do is remove the age limit as some countries are always going to be able to get away with falsifying ages (eg. China) whereas others will never get away with it (eg. America).

Below are some gymnasts who I would like to see get a chance to compete at the London 2012 Olympics but unless the age rule is changed I won't and who knows if they will last until 2016?
Angel Romaeo (born 1997) - Great Britain. Our team needs some style and she has it all style, skills and good form lets hope she makes it to Senior so everyone gets to see her. Beam is her best event but unfortunately there is no video of that.

Viktoria Kuzmina (born 1998) - Russia. She has a cute style but with some big skills especially on beam and floor for her age. You can see her recent floor here

Madison Kocian (born 1997) - USA. She has beautiful form and made her 1st National Team at age 12 at her first Visa championships! Unfortunately she will have to wait until shes 19 for her Olympic chance who knows how her body will be then.

Lizzy Leduc (born 1997) - USA. We all know about Lizzy and her talent and I think she can only improve at WOGA. She reminds me a lot of Dominique Moceanu on floor and she was still 14 at the 1996 Olympics. Lizzy also has excellent beam scoring 14.30 at Nationals.

Katelyn Ohashi (born 1997) - USA. Another gymnast with nice form and she was 2nd overall on floor at Nationals. She is now also training at WOGA.

Lexie Priessman (born 1997) - USA. She has an exciting style with good routines on all events and she already has a double twisting Yurchenko at 12 so there must be potential for an amanar?

Roxana Popa (born 1997) - Spain. She is Romanian but trains in Spain and seems to be the next star and from the results over the last few years (except Ana Maria Izurieta) Spain seems to need a star and I think she could be it.

Choreography

A lot of people say that the artistry has gone from our sport especially on floor, I tend to agree and love to watch the choreography from the soviet gymnasts and other nations from the 1970s and 80s. Although I think that these gymnasts didn't have as much variety in tumbling as now with the over use of skills especially double backs and full ins I can still appreciate these routines more than what we see now. I wish that we could combine the choreography and presence of the soviets with the range of tumbling in womens floor that we see today.
After recently watching many old gymnastics floor routines I found that different versions of the same music was being used by some gymnasts today so I thought I would provide a comparison to see which you prefer. I'm not criticizing any gymnast I'm just saying that their choreographers could have done a better job!
Irina Baraksanova and Ivana Hong - Sweet and Tender Beast. Ivana's routine isn't bad but I just thought WOGA could have done something better for her, Im hoping for bettr this year!


Aurelia Dobre and Jordyn Wieber - the music is not exacty the same but its similar, I personally don't like Jordyn's choreography at all but what I do like is that she smiles and looks like she is actually having fun!


Silvia Mitova and Sam Shapiro - Blues for Klook. I love both gymnasts I just hope Sam gets healthy soon so she can show the world her style and form.


Ludmilla Tourishceva, Svetlana Lebedinskaya & Nastia Liukin - Dark Eyes, all use different versions but I think I prefer Nastia's but then I am a huge Nastia fan!



So which one do you all prefer?

Competing 'In The Moment'

While watching the Australian Open Tennis an interview with Venus Williams came on where she talked about how she plays and lives in the moment. Between matches she doesn't think about who she is playing next or the pressure she will have to deal with and more importantly she doesn't think about mistakes she made in the previous match or what she should have done better if she loses. When she is playing she focuses on only the point she is playing and rarely lets mistakes affect her focus.

Although tennis is obviously a different sport to gymnastics, there are similarities and Venus describes the ideal way to approach high pressure competitions. The way she talks about it makes it seem easy but as many athletes know it is not. The difference between being successful in minor competitions and taking that next step up to winning Olympic and world medals in gymnastics is how gymnasts mentally deal with the pressure. Do you think this ability to deak with pressure is genetic or learnt through experience? Can it be learnt? As a sport psychologist I obviously believe it can be taught but some athletes are naturally better than others. There have been many times during my coaching and watching of gymnastics where gymnasts who have the most talent and potential during training but can never seem to reproduce this during important competitions. Some examples in Elite Gymnastics I can think of are Tatiana Groshkova, Ksenia Afanaseyeva, Vanessa Atler, Anna Pavlova, Mo Huilan, Daria Zgoba, Irina Krasnyanska, Yang Bo (there are so many!).

If only more athletes could learn to deal with pressure like Venus Williams, Roger Federer, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin etc. So how do you coaches out there help your gymnasts who can't deal with the pressure of competition or if you're not a coach how do you think the elite gymnasts who have problems performing in major competitions should be helped? I look forward to reading your ideas!

A montage I thought suitedthis post well, it highlights how some deal with the pressure and how some do not...

Originality and Innovation

Recently I read a topic on IG forum about Overlooked Innovators and I found a few routines and gymnast I had never seen including Anastasia Dzyundzyak on beam whose mount I have never seen anyone else do, not too keen on the rest of the routine but I would love to see someone attempt her mount this year in competition. Ivana how about you bring back your McCool mount and add a front to it!?

Another gymnast I hadn't seen before was Aleftina Priakhina here beam routine is below and I especially like the mount (competed it before Zamolodchikova) and the gainer rulfova.

When watching recent gymnastics I get bored of seeing the same old skills in every routine and so I started to think of original dancework or choreography and innovative skills and connections that we saw in 2009. As the innovators do not get enough credit with the new code I thought I would praise the few gymnasts who are still trying to make their routines interesting.

One of the first gymnasts I thought of was Viktoria Komova, recently at the Voronin Cup she showed a new move on bars - a Khorkina transition from clear pike circle that I have never seen done before. On beam she brought back her flick+layout step-out+arabian connection (although she fell) and the Patterson dismount. I also like that she is doing 1 1/2 step-out into double arabian even though I know she is not the only one to do it. Oh and an amanar.

I will also quickly mention Anna Myzdrikova and her triple full into tuck back which I know she performed in 2008 but she only performed it at Worlds in 2009. I found a video of her in 2008 performing it here where she actually does it better than at Worlds. Here other pass the whip into double arabian is also interesting but I would like to see her do a front out of it as well.
Yulia Belokobylskya a promising Russian junior has some original choreography and her 3rd tumbling pass is a front double twist into a sissone which I like and wouldn't mind seeing more leaps and jumps out of tumbles. Kim Bui also does the same tumble which can be seen here

Guan Wenli showed a new acro combination on beam of free walkover into arabian whch she performed best in the all around at the National Games shown below at 2:19.


Another innovative junior who I have to mention Mai Murakami who recently attempted a triple spin into layout step-out whch probably wasnt counted but still exciting to seeand her other skills also include free cartwheel into sheep jump and 3 1/2 twist on floor.


I'm going to add more examples of this in another post because I'm sure there are others, feel free to add any that you can think of from 2009.

The New Code

Last night I watched the Beijing Olympics Team Final again and although the new code that was used last year is not perfect I actually noticed the differences from 20089 especially the beam and floor routines. I forgot how packed they were for the Olympics with so much difficulty and no dance at all! So although I don't like parts of the code we are using now I've decided perhaps it is better than I originally thought on Beam especially. I prefer the beam routines from 2009 over 2008 with the just the 8 skills and a minimum of 3 dance elements as there is time in theory for some dance and artistry work! So we won't end up with routines like the one below:

I actually like Stela but the poor gorl didn't have time to breathe in that routine, let alone for artistry.
Floor is another piece that I think has benefited from the 8 skills only rule as last year in the Olympic Team Final you couldn't get a high score without a minimum of 4 tumbling passes and in most cases a 5th side pass! Kramarenko's floor below for example was beautiful with what I think are difficult tumbling passes could only score 15.025 for 5th place! I actually preferred her routine to watch over Izbasa and Johnson. Another similar routine is Anna Pavlova's floor routine in the All Around Final where she performed a near perfect routine for just a 15.050 which was not high for last year and I don't care about her difficulty that routine was underscored. I feel like Anna was always underscored her whole career the judges just seem to appreciate her artistry.

So at least again with 4 tumbling passes being the maximum now and artistry being given some value I hope that the judges start to take more points off for lack of artistry in some way and we can maybe start to see more artisitc routines again. However the rule of landing on two feet out of tumbles and no dance step out has to go, we do not want our women's floor routines to look like the mens, so please FIG take that rule away. I mean I love Beth Tweddle because I'm from the UK but her floor routine is awful and her dance although has got better, is embarassing for me to watch!

Artistry

People say the code doesn't encourage artistry but I think coaches are just becoming lazy because it is not as highly rewarded as it used to be, however there are still routines from this year that have artistry and still score well. I have posted a few floor routines that I think are 'artistic' as well as having high difficulty. So I urge all coaches please make more effort to produce artisitc routines please for the sake of the sport!

Ana Porgras (I also love the beginning of her beam routine) - Worlds 2009 Event Finals Score 14.125 (probably under scored as well).

Aliya Mustafina - Doha Gymnasiade 2009 Score: 14.650

Viktoria Komova - Voronin Cup 2009 Event Finals Score: 14.850

Huang Quishuang - Japan Cup 2009 AA Score: 14.350

How much Difficulty is Too Much Difficulty?

In gymnastics today high difficulty in routines is emphasized over form and execution and this has led to junior gymnasts routines to become more and more difficult. Junior competitions to me are often more interesting than Senior competitions with the top juniors often becoming injured before they become seniors. My question is how do we determine how much difficulty is too much especially at younger ages and for those juniors who have a great amount of talent? Where is the line of not holding gymnasts back and preventing them for doing too much too soon so they make it to senior?

A few examples on youtube highlight this: One is Rose Kalam Woo who is 9 years old and trains in Canada at Gym Richelieu. She has a wide range of difficult skills in her routines including: double pike on floor, double front dismount on bars and double back dismount off beam. Below is her beam routine from this year:

I'm not saying I don't like to watch these routines becasue I do and am amazed at how many skills she can perform with reasonably good form but does a 9 year old need to be performing a side somi, free cartwheel, free walkover+back flip and a double back dismount? Perhaps this was too much as highlighted by the 2 falls. What do you guys think?

Another example is Tyesha Mattis who is a ten year old from East London Gymnastics Club in England. Her skills include shoot half and geinger on bars, dbl pike on floor and. On facebook there is also a video of her performing a full in which she has done on the hard floor! again she is an amazing talent but in the UK she will not even be able to perform these skills until she is 12-13 years old. Training montage below:

I'm not criticizing anyone for this it happens everywhere these are just 2 examples but I just don't want talented juniors talent to be wasted if they burn out or are injured before they get to senior level. Let me know your opinions.