YOG – free stuff

I’ve spent my last weekend as a volunteer for the Youth Olympic Day in Berlin, the first stop of the Journey of the Flame for the Youth Olympic Games. Before the torch arrives in Singapore for the 1. Youth Olympic Games ever, it flies around the world and is welcomed and celebrated in Europe (Berlin), Africa (Dakar), America (Mexico City), Oceania (Auckland) and Asia (Seoul).

I had the great job to take all the photos of the journey in Berlin. Anyways, I got some promotional items – nothing spectacular. But if there’s a huge Youth-Olympic-Games-Fan out there who wants to have it, you can leave a comment or send me a message!

wristband, sticker, pen, lanyard

The Journey of the Flame:

or HERE

By the way, does anyone know which gymnasts will participate? Is there somewhere an official roster in the web?

The World of Acrobatic Gymnastics

Watch this excellent Behind the Scenes video of the 2010 World Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships in Wroclaw (POL) including:

• extreme stretching
• chalking the forehead
• sewing the pants on the sox
• close-up acrobatics in HD…

or HERE

Spelbound at the Worlds

Adam Buckingham, Adam McCassey, Alexander Uttley and Jonathan Stranks, Britain’s Men’s Four about their success with Spelbound. They will compete at the 22nd Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships in Wroclaw (POL). It’s great they really use all the attention and point to competitive acrobatic gymnastics. Good luck, guys!

“It would have been too hard to choose between shows and competition. They go hand in hand. The people who saw us on Britain’s Got Talent will be watching us here in Wroclaw. They want to know if we can hold our own in a world class competition. People recognise us in the street, at the airport, even outside of Great Britain. A medal at this competition would be the ultimate victory.” And we’ve got our fingers crossed for these friendly young men!

Read the full interview here (FIG).

Unfortunately, Katie Axten (who also performed with Spelbound) and Nicolas Illingworth – one of my favourite mixed pairs – won’t compete. Hopefully it’s just because of Britain’s Got Talent and they didn’t retire.

Watch Acro Worlds online

The 22nd Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships will start in less than 35 hours. Wroclaw (POL) welcomes 25 different countries and 191 gymnasts for the competitions (men’s pairs, women’s pairs, mixed pairs, women’s group, men’s group) from 16-18 July.

I don’t want to write a long post – all I have to do is this link to the official FIG website (yes, FIG actually gives us good reports about a gymnastics competition). They have everything: interviews, reports, results, photos…

And for the one thing they don’t have – a livestream – just click on the following link to Acrogym TV! (First check the schedule in order to know which group will start at which time.) That’s great for a sport that barely gets time on TV – aside from the recent attention for the Spelbound on Britain’s Got Talent… by the way the some members of Spelbound will proof their excellence in front of “real” gymnastics judges.

From 10-12 the 6th Acrobatic Gymnastics Age Group (“Junior”) World Championships (age groups 11-16 / 12-19) already took place. The big winners: Russia (5x gold / 2x silver / 2x bronze), Great Britain (2x / 5x / -), Belarus (2x / – / 3x) and Ukraine (1x / – / 2x).

The “Fahrig” – new G-Element!

How many gymnasts will now start training the “Fahrig”? How many gymnasts will be capable of doing a piked double arabian with 1.5 twists?

The FIG just decided the new element will get the highest difficulty (G / 0.7) and it will be named after Matthias Fahrig if he does it successfully at an official FIG-competition… how about Worlds?!

Only two other elements have the same value: double back with three twists / triple back

Click play or watch Fahrig’s FX routine on YouTube:

Not only the first tumbling pass wowes gymnastics fans. The second (double twisting front layout + double somersault forward), third (2.5 twists backwards + 1 twist forward), fourth (double arabian piked) and fifth (double arabian) aren’t bad either! Obviously he likes arabians! It doesn’t look as if it takes much effort to do the piked double arabian…

He got 15.200. All he has to do is to clean his tumbling and fix the landings. Easier said than done.

external source: DTL / Gymmedia / Süddeutsche Zeitung (German)

UPDATE: Just found some new pictures from a recent photo shoot with Matthias Fahrig… click through to see more.

Amelia McGrath

Obviously I just watched the PacRim on YouTube. (Okay, I wrote this sentence before I took a four-week break. But at this time I just watched the whole competition – and it was fun!) Here’s another gymnast I really like (next to Wieber & Ross): Amelia McGrath. I can’t really describe what I felt watching her compete on balance beam. She was so unpredictable, innovative and yes, nervous (I haven’t seen a gymnast waiting THAT long before a skill!) but still somehow very confident and sure of what she was doing. This girl has everything to make the audience love her: a “real” mount, powerful leaps, flexibility, her own “swinging” style (the pauses will get shorter as she gets more experience) and last but not least some good elements. I definitely want to see more!

Click play or watch her beam on YouTube:

And one last thought about the PacRims: Rebecca Bross’ pokerface is perfection – and it would look even better if she wouldn’t wear her hair girlie-like-curled but straight and clean.

ITA wins over GER and FRA

At the recent meet (06/26/10) between France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland in Toulon (FRA) the Italian girls took the title (163.550) over Germany (153.400) and France (143.500). Switzerland placed fourth with 137.500 points. All gymnasts weren’t older than 13.

italian team

(From left to right:) Lara Mori, Martina Rizzelli, Elisa Meneghini was the best on UB (13.600) & BB (14.250), Enus Mariani and Serena Bugani had the highest score on VT (15.100) & FX (13.700). Click on the links to see the best routines on YouTube – they are worth to watch!

Elisa Meneghini (55.70) and Serena Bugani (52.60) placed 1st and 2nd in the AA. Germany’s Cagla Akyol (51.00) came third.

german team

Alizee Quiroga-Duffard, Emilie Poirson, Julie Roemer, Oceane Seggio and Emma Swanek competed for France.

Selina Giger, Ilaria Kaslin, Alice Jelmini, Eliane Schreiber and Conny Guissani were in the Swiss team.

results: team / individual

external source (French)

German Junior Champions

Two weeks ago the German Junior Championships were held in Detmold. Here are the four new (junior) Champions (age 15/14/13/12):

Katja Roll

Rosa-Lynn Schmitz

Cagla Akyol

Jannika Greber

Jannika Greber (12) – most successful: winning 4x gold and 1x silver (UB) (AA: 49.800)

Cagla Akyol (13) – showed off her new skills on FX: piked Tsuk, 2.5 twists bwd. + front tucked, 1.5 twists + front layout, piked double back (AA: 51.100)

Click play or watch her EF floor routine on YouTube:

Rosa-Lynn Schmitz (14) – 3x gold (AA, FX, VT) with Katja Roll on the junior team for the Europeans (team: 8th place) (AA: 51.000)

Katja Roll (15) – younger sister of Maike Roll (AA:51.700)

Bernhard (gymfan.de) took some good photos – click through to see the other gymnasts. (videos on german-gymnastics)

Those were the days… Finja Säfken (13 / 5th place) is still small enough to run under the lower bar and jump to the high bar + kip to handstand as her mount on UB. I guess she didn’t want to do the Gienger between the two bars.

Click play or watch her UB on YouTube:

And Nadine Jarosch (15 / 2nd place) wore the Milano leotard which I really like for workout but I never expected a gymnast to chose it for a competition.

Nadine Jarosch

all results on gymmedia (German)

Stick it?

Since the new landing rule on floor forced the female gymnasts to keep their feet together after every tumbling pass (like the men), I saw a lot of hopping around on the floor (with both feet glued together) or some simple jumps (especially after double arabian) which were supposed to look coordinated (+ give an extra 0.1 for the D-Score) but sometimes couldn’t cover the fact that the tumbling just wasn’t that well controlled. And I’m not really sure if hopping or jumping uncoordinated looks better than taking a small or medium step.

Kyla Ross‘ FX at the recent PacRim is an exceptional and rare (proof me to be wrong and leave a comment, I would love to see more “perfect-landing-routines”!) example of “perfect landings”. She sticks every single one of her four tumbling passes. Great job!

Click play or watch her routine on YouTube:

(Even though I’m not sure whether the judges still took 0.1 for the tiny little hop after her double arabian & the double back dismount seeing her 8.75 E-score…)

Walking in Zurich…

While I was taking a nice walk through the beautiful Swiss city, taking a break from blogging, just enjoying the warm weather and looking for a place to stay for the next two years (and maybe longer – yes, I’m moving again – and the Swiss Cup in October is already on my schedule), I couldn’t escape from gymnastics. A bank (yes, they DO have a lot of banks!) exhibited some old gymnastics posters in their windows. I tried my best to get some good pictures…

Ostschweizer Satus-Kunstturnertag

Somehow his legs follow perfectly the branches.

je suis une chamberienne sportive

Just imagine it’s only her & a blue background – nothing else.

III. Eidgenössischer Kunstturn...

I think he’s on the floor and the the high bar is just in the background. Otherwise he would surely fall in the next second. 🙂

Bischofszell 1929

Tkatchev?