Tweet
BBC Sport have posted this article regarding the Chinese age scandal from 2000 Olympic Games where China were stripped of their women’s team bronze  as Dong Fangxiao was found to be 14 years old – two years too young to compete in the Games.
The Chinese officials have promised to enforce rigorous checks and processes to verify their gymnasts ages. These processes such as  x-ray bone analyses have already come into action for the upcoming Youth Olympics in Singapore where the delegation have gone through stringent checks.
Two age scandals …

Tweet Over the last few years, the interest in gymnastics seems to have increased. There are many possible reasons for this, obviously Spelbound winning Britains Got Talent has caused a surge in interest in gymnastics among children in the UK and Ireland. I think another major factor that has added to this interest is the new level of competition involved in the sport at Olympic level. For many years it was the Romanians, USA and Russia etc dominating the sport but as we have seen in the last few months, …

Tweet
This day 2 years, will mark the beginning of the London 2012 Olympics. I’m keeping an eye today on the BBC website which has some live commentary throughout the day of todays events. At 2.15pm BBC One will be broadcasting a special show to mark the occasion. Follow the live commentary here.

Tweet Tomorrow will mark the day when it will be exactly 2 years until the London 2012 Olympic Games begin. Tim Jones  Performance Director speaks to the Guardian about how British Gymnastics has developed over the past year and what it must do next to meet the Olympic medal target.

In the next two years we will … continue building on the successes of the first years of this cycle and ensuring our results are progressive towards London, work towards keeping our gymnasts injury-free and illness-free, qualifying for as many places …

Tweet Today FIG began to draw the lots for the Artistic World Championships 2010. Many thanks to The Couch Gymnast who have posted the WAG qualifying round.

Subdivision 1 -ITA, CHN, ARG, MX1
Subdivision 2 -JPN, NZL, SLO, UKR
Subdivision 3 -POL, ROU, BRA, ISR
Subdivision 4 -ISL, IND, SIN, BLR
Subdivision 5 -AUS, DEN, MX3, GRE
Subdivision 6 -RUS, SWE, FRA, GBR
Subdivision 7 -HUN, USA, RSA, PRK
Subdivision 8 -CAN, COL, AUT, CZE
Subdivision 9 -ESP, POR, BEL, ECU
Subdivision 10 -SUI, KOR, TUR, MX4
Subdivision 11 -MEX, GER
Subdivision 12 -UZB, NED, MX2, FIN

Tweet Shawn Johnson’s stalker is sent to mental hospital
Trampolining gets a mention in todays Irish Times newspaper (good that gymnastics gets some sort of mention in the main stream news!)
Top FIG coaches visit Trinidad and Tobago for a 8 day Level 1 Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics courses

Tweet
Wuhooo!! Great to hear this news this evening!

Paul Hamm is on the comeback, hoping to make another run at the Olympics.
The 2004 Olympic all-around gymnastics champion tells The Associated Press he has quit his job in the financial industry and is heading back to the gym to start training full-time, in hopes of making the U.S. team for the London Games in 2012.

Thanks to USA Gymnastics and Inside Gymnastics for posting the news on Facebook
** UPDATE** More on the comeback by Paul Hamm himself!

Tweet
As gymnasts – we love getting new leotards. Often, as kids you don’t realise that the more sparkly and extravagant the leotards, the more Mums and Dads have to live in fear of washing them incorrectly!
Dance Mania has posted these great tips on how to look after your leotard. There’s great tips on how to wash your leotard, and how to dry it. Read more on Dance Mania

Tweet Spelbound the Britain’s Got Talent winners competed in the World Acrobatic Gymnastics Championships and really cleaned up!
Douglas Fordyce and Edward Upcott clinched the Gold in the Mens Pairs.  Adam Buckingham, Alex Uttley, Jonathan Stranks and Adam McAssey also did exceptionally well to claim the gold in the Mens Four’s. Congratulations Guys!!
Read more on BBC Sport and More Than The Games

Tweet According to gossip website Hollywood Life, Nastia has “exclusively revealed” that she hasn’t yet made a decision on whether she will return to gymnastics. You can see the short article here.

According to the article Nastia wants to move on to bigger and better things since achieving such a big goal at a young age. She’d like to become more involved in TV and go to college to study something in that line. Of course, there was a plug for her new clothing line too. I never take these …

Tweet These pictures were taken in a gymnastics school in St Petersburg, Russia. View the full set of photos here on English Russia. I think they’re beautiful. I’ve posted some of my favourite ones.

Tweet Today I read this post this by Sho Nakamori, while he was training on bars and dismounting, his grip snapped and left his hand to go loose. It’s never happened to me but it’s a scary thought – especially when Sho only had them 2 days. I completely agree with him that this is unacceptable, how dangerous! Why do you think this is so? Have the companies who make hand grips not kept up with todays current moves and haven’t been developing new durable grips, strong enough to support …

Tweet Irish girls Leigh Lehane & Roisin O’Shea from Ballincollig Gym Club have finished 5th in the Acro World Age Group in the 11 – 16 girls pairs finals in Wroclaw, Poland. Well done!!
Shannon Miller speaks out to help with funding for the University of Missouri Extension office.
Shawn Johnson and Mario kick off Wii Games Summer 2010

Now, for something completely different! This video has been doing the rounds in emails / Facebook today of an Irish band called The Brilliant Things who were the first band to do a …

Tweet Chelsey Kipping, 13, flipped her way to an apparent world record of 32 back hand springs this week
2000 USA Olympic Team to receive bronze medals in August

7 weeks Post Op update from GB’s Daniel Keatings
Dominique Dawes answers questions on Obama’s Fitness Council

Tweet 13 Members of the Gymstars Gymnastic Club, Wexford have made it to the final four  in TV3’s The Morning Show, “Get your Glee on” competition.  The group have had to put together a singing, Dancing and Gymnastic routine. The winning act will perform at the Childline Concert in the 02 arena in Dublin this coming December.
Voting is easy – simply go onto the website and vote for GYMSTARS. Voting finishes at midnight GMT on 12th July. Voting is free an there’s no limit to how …