German Highs and Lows 2010

"awarded the Longine Prize for Elegance 2010"

Read my article “Germany: The Year in Review” on (at?) The Couch Gymnast!

…and a happy new year!

Just when GymnasticsCoaching mentioned the high popularity of the German Men’s team, I found some nice pictures of photo shoots which I didn’t know before. Enjoy!

front view

back view

See more pictures, shot for GQ Germany (spring 2010), on Philipp Boy‘s new website.

These ones are a bit older:

Fabian Hambüchen

What did they do to his hair??

Watch all photos! (Men’s Health photo shooting / 2008) & some behind-the-scenes stuff

Gymgalas – best performances

Ariella Kaeslin, Beth Tweddle and Aagje Vanwalleghem among others couldn’t get enough from gymnastics and performed at some gymgalas in europe.

Here’s my favourite part of every Belgium gymgala (Ghent) – the acrogym team show! They lost a lot of excellent elite gymnasts this year (Florence Henrist & Tatjana De Vos, Julie Van Gelder & Menno Vanderghote, the women’s group…), but still put together a great routine.

Click play or watch it on YouTube: (couldn’t find a better quality – UPDATE: Here’s a way better video, thanks for the comment!)

Some highlights from the gala in the Netherlands:

The acrobatic gymnastics group “Hakuna Matata” from Tanzania.

Click play or watch it on YouTube:

I like those pants! Here’s another great performance of the group (pole act)!

That’s an amazing routine from the women’s pair from Belarus - Alina Yushko and Katsiaryna Murashko (BLR)!

Click play or watch them on YouTube:

Nastia Liukin IS training!

Here’s a nice christmas present: Trans World Sport did a feature with Nastia Liukin, in which they tell her story from the time before Beijing until now. So in the last two minutes after some routines from the Olympics and a little promotion for her supergirl – clothing line you actually see her training in the gym! She does some shaky turns, a side somi and free walkovers on beam, some dance on the floor and some tumbling. It’s still a long way to go, but hey, there’s still more than one year left until London 2012!

Click play or watch it on YouTube:

Merry Christmas!!!

Where's the beard?

…and a happy new year!

6th place for Ludivine Furnon & Nicolas Besnard

Ludivine Furnon and her acrobatic partner Nicolas Besnard, Duo Maintenant, didn’t make it in the top three. Instead they earned the sixth place for their erotic performance in the final of the french tv show “La France a un Incroyable Talent” (French version of “Britain’s Got Talent’).

Click play or watch the final on YouTube:

They lost against two dancing kids, among others. Click here to watch their winning performance including a very, very bad round-off.

external source (French)

Christmas Time = Gymgala Time

When competitions are over, there’s always one thing left to talk about: Gymnastics galas!

Here’s the trailer for the Dutch Unive Gym Gala 2010 (17-19 december) – tumbling, acrobatic gymnastics, breakdancing, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline, artistic gymnastics and more performances all in one show.

Click play or watch it on YouTube:

Duo MainTenanT

The All-Around reported about the success of the former French gymnast Ludivine Furnon and her acrobatic partner Nicolas Besnard on the French tv show “La France a un Incroyable Talent” (French version of “Britain’s Got Talent’).

“The final of La France a un Incroyable Talent will be broadcast in France on Wednesday, 22 December. The winner will receive 100,000 euros and will have a place at Le Festival Juste pour Rire in Montréal.”

Click play or watch their first and second performance on YouTube:

More and more leotards, leotards, leotards

Once again, for the fourth time, here comes the best and worst of the new leotard collections for 2011:

Let’s start with Milano!

I had to include this leotard - Danusia Francis looks stunning!

Simple and Beautiful. I would love to see Isabelle Severino in this leo if she'd ever try another comeback...

It seems as if Milano has heard of GK's strategy to put the animal print on all the workout leotards.

Leotards in jeans pattern with cherries, bananas and ice cream? Seriously? Rebecca Downie doesn't look happy...

To all the coaches: would you wear this shirt?

Next the French “artist” Christian Moreau. For some reason the brand included grey/silver in almost every leotard – I would have replaced it with a less depressing color.

I'm pretty sure I've seen this leo already in a different color combination. I still like it - it's symmetric, classic, a bit sparkly and has pretty neckline.

see above

This one looks like a christmas present that just waits to be unwrapped. By the way, I didn't found one single high-necked leotard which looked good.

I don’t know why but somehow I always find more leotards which I don’t like on GK Elite than leotards which I actually like.

We all know the left one - an excellent choice of the Russians. It always reminded me of the characteristic onion domes of the Russian churches. But the right one looks even prettier.

Now the wavy zebra print took over the sleeved leotards, too.

Oh no, the zebra print won the fight!

Take a look at part 1 / part 2 / part 3!

Elite gymnast = Movie star (4)

Ekaterina Kurbatova in "Rocky" (no, I changed my mind: "Million Dollar Baby" is way better)

Dorothee Henzler (GER) in "Madagascar"

Viktoria Komova in "The Birds"

Greta Carnessali (ITA) in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

Katja Roll (GER) in "The Fearless Vampire Killers"

part 1 / part 2 / part 3