Tweet The excitement in the Gymnastics Ireland London 2012 Prepares Series delegation is tangible, gymnast Kieran Behan, coach Simon Gale and Performance and Technical Manager Sally Filmer sit in the stands scoping out the competition just a few hours ahead of when Kieran will take to the arena. He seems calm,cool and collected. He is taking everything around him in and looks every bit of the professional gymnast. Sally tells me how Ireland’s only gymnast in the Test Event has been doing since finding out he was eligible to compete …

Tweet We just got word that Kieran Behan from Ireland is currently sitting in first place on floor at the Ostrava World Cup Challenger in the Czech Republic in qualification. Kieran, sponsored by athletic clothing company Stoi Athletic Wear, has performed excellently at his two previous challenger cups, winning medals on floor at both competitions. This will be the second event that Stoi will sponsor Kieran at. At the Osijek Challenger Cup back in November the company kitted the Irish male gymnasts out with gear for the event. Sponsorship is a …

Tweet Two weeks ago Full Twist brought you the very exciting news of Irish Gymnastics new rebranding as Gymnastics Ireland. Fllowing on from the very successful brand launch, Gymnastics Ireland has had more to celebrate. The Irish male gymnasts are going from strength to strength as this press release explains:

Irish Male gymnasts go from strength to strength
 
Anthony O’Donnell makes history as he claims Ireland’s First Northern European medal
 
Uppsala, Sweden, 13th November:  The Irish team travelled back to Ireland today after the 2011 Northern European Championships in Uppsala, Sweden with Anthony …

Tweet Geoff Rellis is another Irish gymnast who has made the move to the UK for better training facilities, others include top male gymnasts Luke Carson, Chris O’Connor and Kieran Behan. In August 2010, three time All Ireland Champion Rellis was training at Tolworth Gymnastics Club in the lead up to the 2010 World Championships in Rotterdam when a huge halt was put on his rising career.   While training on vault, something went drastically wrong with his technique during his handspring double front, when he hear a crack on landing and was suffering shooting pains down …

Tweet Louis Smith is in Ireland today doing some media and press for the new Gymnastics Ireland brand launch. At 6.30pm tonight he will be on the air on Today FM with Anton Savage on “The Last Word” discussing London 2012, Gymnastics Ireland, Men’s Gymnastics and living in constant pain.
You should be able to listen live online here.

Tweet Today Irish Gymnastics revealed it’s new identity as Gymnastics Ireland,the governing body for gymnastics in Ireland, a 32 county organisation spanning 8 administrative regions.

 The new look website is fantastic, full of great content, up to date and features which are especially important in this day and age – social media links. Louis Smith was on hand in Dublin to assist with the launch. The new brand has been a long time coming for Gymnastics Ireland but Full Twist is delighted that it has all finally come together, just upset that we …

Tweet Irish Gymnastics is due to launch it’s new brand and identity next week in Dublin. From what I hear there’ll be some great surprises in store.  This is part of the fantastic work that new Marketing and Events Manager Kathryn Catney has been planning since she took up her role in August. Full Twist hopes to make the launch next week.

Tweet The first day of the Men’s Qualifications kicked off today. The Irish Men Luke Carson, Kieran Behan and Rohan Sebastian competed in the 4th subdivision alongside Greece, Germany, Uzbekistan and Hungary.
Kieran finished in 53rd place with a score of 80.290 while Luke finished in 54th place with 80.165. Rohan finished in 61st place with 78.915. See all of today’s results here.
Individual Results breakdown:

Rk
Name
NOC
Total
Floor
PH
Rings
Vault
PB
HB

53
BEHAN Kieran
IRL

80.290

14.500
11.633
13.133
14.900
13.033
13.091

54
CARSON Luke
IRL

80.165

13.200
12.933
13.066
14.733
13.700
12.533

61
SEBASTIAN R.
IRL

78.915

13.033
12.766
14.000
14.300
13.316
11.500

A huge amount of live coverage was given to the guys so let’s see what was said:
International Gymnast Magazine on Facebook:
High Bar:

Sebastian IRL high …

Tweet Full Twist is continuing to cover and highlight Irish Gymnastics at the 2011 World Championships.  WAG girls Sophie McCoo and Charlotte McKenna competed in subdivision 3 today with Turkey, Austria, Poland, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Vietnam, Puerto Rico and the very exciting Australia. Sophie was competing on just beam whilst Charlotte competed on all four apparatus.

Whilst most social media attention online was drawn to the Australians and 2010 World Floor Champion Lauren Mitchell, some coverage was given to the Irish ladies. Blythe Lawrence of the Gymnastics Examiner (GE) …

Tweet Simon Gale from Tolworth Gymnastics Club contacted Full Twist with Ireland’s first new move the “Behan” which is to be submitted to the FIG for evaluation in the Code of Points.
What would you rate it is? The FIG think it should be rated as a “B”, the same as a straight back somersault. What do you think of Kieran Behan’s move? Leave a comment below.
Thanks for sharing Simon.

Tweet The men took to the podium for training today. Rick from Gymnastics Coaching and Blythe from the Gymnastics Examiner (GE) stayed watching the MAG training and provided great coverage. I would say that Ricks was the best coverage of the day, the most enjoyable. The live tweets were perfect, rather than clogging up my Facebook stream As always the GE live blog was excellent. Rick said that the MAG training is less terrifying than the WAG training:
Compared with the women’s podium training the previous two days, the …

Tweet Irish MAG gymnasts Rohan Sebastian, Kieran Behan and Luke Carson began Podium Training today. Rick from Gymnastics Coaching has been keeping a close eye on the boys for us where the guys plans were to go through their routines cleanly and quickly. He chatted to briefly to Luke and Kieran before the session. They were up on floor first, Behan receiving only minor deductions and one out of bounds, overall Rick called it a “very clean”. Blythe from the Gymnastics Examiner describes it as
7:48 p.m.: Ireland’s Kieran Behan does a nice …

Tweet The delegation from Ireland has arrived in Tokyo and have begun to work hard. The girls Charlotte McKenna and Sophie McCoo  began training today with their coaches Alison McMullan and Sun Jei.  This will be Sophie’s first worlds whilst McKenna will return to Worlds after last competing in Tokyo in 2010.

Image via Abbey Gymnastics Centre on Facebook
The MAG team of three have also commenced training. Luke Carson hopes to improve on last years Worlds performance where he placed 95th in the AA qualifications competition in Rotterdam, he also ranked …

Tweet It has been an anxious wait for Salto National Gymnastics Centre in Lisburn, Northern Ireland but today they could finally announce that the centre will host the 2012 Training Camp for the Chinese Olympic Team.  After a visit by Chinese coaches Xiong Jingbin and Jin Weiguo  in mid July, Salto have managed to secure the MAG and WAG Chinese Olympic Teams for a 2012 holding camp in July prior to the London 2012 Games. The Chinese delegation of 30 people will base themselves in Lisburn for 10 days next summer.

A press …

Tweet  This weekly round up aims to give a synopsis of the week in news. If you haven’t already subscribed to Full Twist by adding the URL to your Google Reader or by entering your email address in the subscribe button on the website, then you may be missing out on some of the exciting gymnastics news.  You can also follow Full Twist on  Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the news.

World Championships Update
Two of the big guns were announced this week for the World Championships in Tokyo.  Great Britain and the USA announced their WAG Teams who will compete in 2 …