31-40 of 45 result(s)
Last week, we talked about the Multi-Olympian. I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of comments it received. I appreciate everyone’s opinion. I have the utmost respect for gymnasts who competed under the original Code. They are the ones who have given us what the sport is today as far as skills and a standard for today’s gymnasts to be held to. However, there is no doubt that the current Code makes it very hard for gymnasts to make it to more than one Olympics. The comparison to the harshness of the new Code to the origina...
Categories: elite
In today’s world of Artistic Gymnastics, there seems to be a dying breed. The Multi-Olympian. I have had many people ask me, ‘Why do so many gymnasts retire after one Olympics?’ or even, ‘Hey, is Kerri Strug still competing?’. It is important to look at the structure of today’s gymnastics. The Code of Point has been changed to make gymnastics much more difficult since the years of the Multi-Olympian. It now requires more pounding on the body and somewhat longer training schedules. Even into the mid 1990s, gy...
Last week, we talked about how the break-up of the Soviet Union affected the countries that were formerly under them. While some of the countries of the former Soviet Union have suffered since the break-up, other countries have fluoresced. From 1993-2001, Romania won the team gold medal at the World Championships as well as team gold at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. It also gave China more opportunity to medal as a team with their Olympic team gold in 2008. However, perhaps the most dramatic change in the medal game at Worlds and Oly...
Gymnastics has always been art in motion. However, in today’s world, it seems to be more about strength and power than beauty and grace. Until the late 1990s, it was expected to see incredible skills. We saw the three layout step out tumbling pass on beam as well as the full in back out dismount. On floor, we saw many more whip backs and combination tumbling. Vault over all has not changed too terribly much except for the increased difficulty of skills and the design of the apparatus itself. Uneven bars are also not too drastically diffe...
With the changing of the Code of Points in 2006, it seems that we may have lost more than just a scoring system. In the days when gymnasts could score perfect tens, gymnastics was much easier than it is today. There is no doubt that the sport does need to advance every four years. It is important for the Code of Points to be revised to make gymnasts test their limits and push the envelope of the sport. Without that push, competition would become mundane and boring. But is there a breaking point? Can the sport push its athletes too far? Truth b...
Saying that gymnastics is an ever evolving sport is an understatement. In the last ten years, we have gone from the vaulting horse to the vaulting table, from four floor passes to five and back to four, and the biggest change of all, the restructuring of the Code of Points. With everything that has changed during this era of the sport, it is easy to overlook one of the largest changes. For those who began their journey as gymnastics fans watching Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin, they have missed out on what is considered to be one of the bes...
BERLIN – Konstantin Pulzhnikov of Russia won gold on the still rings at the European Championships last week. Pulzhnkov scored a 15.850 in a close fought battle. Pulzhnikov’s teammate, Aleksandr Balandin, came in a close second winning the silver with a 15.775. Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece won the bronze with a 15.675. This concluded day 1 of the apparatus finals. Day 2 will host the remaining 3 apparatuses for the men and the 2 remaining for the women.
BERLIN – Krisztian Berki of Hungary won pommel horse at the European Championships with a score of 15.625. Considered to be the balance beam of men’s artistic gymnastics, scores where diverse due to the challenge of the apparatus and the struggle to create as much difficulty to receive a high start difficulty. Silver was won by Cyril Tommasone of France with a 15.050 and the bronze to Harutyum Merdinyan of Armenia with a 14.950.
Berlin- Flavius Koczi of Romania won gold on the floor exercise this Saturday in a close battle from Europe’s best male artistic gymnasts. Koczi scored 15.500 for his routine which was worth 6.6, the second highest difficulty score behind Denis Ablyazin of Russia with 6.7. Ablyazin placed sixth. Close behind Koczi was Alexander Shatilov of Israel with a 15.400 and Anton Golotsutskov of Russia with a 15.325. Philipp Boy of Germany, who won the men’s all around title, placed last in 8th with a score of 14.275.
Berlin - With Russian Aliya Mustafina out of the event finals with a torn ACL, Sandra Izbasa of Romania vaulted ahead of the rest to win gold on vault Saturday. Izbasa, the reigning Olympic floor exercise champion, now adds another gold medal to her resume. Izbasa posted an average of 14.675. She performed a double twisting laid out Yurchenko and a round off, half on, layout with a half. Izbasa beat out five time Olympian Oksana Chusovitina of Germany, the vault silver medalist from the Beijing Olympics, who averaged 14.537 and 2010 European va...
