Tweet Yesterday was a great day for Irish Gymnastics when Kieran Behan qualified third on floor at the 2011 World Series, Salamunov Memorial Cup (Category B) in Slovenia. Today was an even better day for the Tolworth gymnast when he won the bronze medal in the floor final, just 0.225 behind the first place. This is the best result that Irish Gymnastics have achieved in a FIG World Cup. Also representing Ireland was Anthony McDonnell. The competition also included top names such as Vasiliki Millousi, Matthias Fahrig, Eleftherios Petrounias and Zhang Hongtao also competed. …

Tweet Over the next few weeks Nations will begin to announce who will be their representatives at the 2011 World Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo. Those countries who have named their gymnasts can be seen here, in a post that will be frequently updated.A nominative list of teams was also released this week, view this here.  In the run up to the WCh, many countries will take part in warm up competitions. Here is what we have to look forward to ahead of Tokyo.
September 10th: GER V ROU V SUI Friendly, …

Tweet I came across an interesting article today about Irelands Charlotte McKenna. At the Dehli 2010 Commonwealth Games Charlotte competed for Northern Ireland, in the last few months she applied to the FIG and was granted permission to compete for the Republic of Ireland.
Charlotte,  former Huntingdon Gymnastics Club member left the club earlier in the year when her training hours were cut and is now training at Salto Gymnastics Club in Lisburn. Charlotte and five other elite female gymnasts at Huntingdon were told that their training hours had been cut …

Tweet 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. This weekly round up aims to give a synopsis of the week in news. You can also follow Full Twist on  Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the news.
Well, this was another big week for the gymnastics world. The biggest event that occurred was the 2011 CoverGirl Classic in Chicago where we saw the return of Beijing 2008 veterans Shawn Johnson …

Tweet Irish Gymnastics today named the gymnasts who will represent Ireland at the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo.
MAG
Rohan Sebastian, Kieran Behan and Luke Carson. Kieran Behan from Tolworth Gymnastics Club made himself well known on the European Circuit last year by placing 8th on floor, just missing out on qualifying for the final. Luke was injured back in March and April and couldn’t compete in the Cottbus Cup or in the European Championships, hopefully he will be ok for Worlds. Luke competed in the Commonwealth Games last year and was …

Tweet Earlier this month Full Twist announced the fantastic news that two Olympic Chinese Coaches were planning a visit to Salto National Gymnastics Centre in Northern Ireland with the view to using the venue as for their Pre-Olympic training camp next year.  Coaches Xiong Jingbin and Jin Weiguo arrived in Ireland yesterday to begin their visit to Salto and hosted a coaching masterclass for the gymnasts in the club.
 Xiong Jingbin and Jin Weiguo currently train the Chinese Olympic gymnastics team, but called into the Salto National Gymnastics Centre in Lisburn to …

Tweet Irish Gymnastics have made a big announcement today. They have finally completed their search for a Marketing and Events Manager.Kathryn Catney will take up the new position in August.
Kathryn is a fully qualified journalist graduating from Manchester based News Associates, one of the UKs busiest and most respected press agencies. While at News Associates she specialised in media law, public affairs, news writing & sub editing. Since graduating in 2008 Kathryn has written a vast array of articles on a variety of topics for local, national and international press …

Tweet Irish Special Olympians John Michael Gannon and Alan Quinlan have won medals in the Artistic Gymnastics event in the Special Olympics World Games in Athens today! Special Olympics Ireland announced the gymnasts’ brilliant news on their Twitter Page. Congratulations guys!

John Michael and Alan have won a total of 9 medals today between them, amazing! 2 Gold and 7 Silver. Keep an eye on the results page here.

Tweet This week Rick from Gymnastics Coaching was on Irish soil, hosting workshops in Renmore Gymnastics Club in Galway. He also met with Irish Gymnastics Coaching Development Officer Sally Filmer. Sally joined IG in 2007 and since then has worked on improving the coach education scheme, even lecturing and teaching at the coaching courses nationwide.
In his quick summary post of their meeting, Rick pointed out that Sally stressed to him how she is trying to improve the coaching education scheme and how IG is struggling through the current recession. As …

Tweet In February this year, we reported that Irish Gymnastics was to receive an increase in funding from the Irish Sports Council (ISC). Funding to sports has always been an issue in Ireland with GAA, IRFU and FAI (Gaelic Athletic Association, Irish Rugby Football Union and Football Association Ireland) being known as the three big sport governing bodies in the country. They receive the most funding compared to the other 65 recognised  sports governing bodies in Ireland.
According to an article in Ireland’s Sunday Business Post newspaper, funding for the ISC …

Tweet The nominative entries for the 2011 European Championships were released yesterday. The British WAG competitors  will consist of Beth Tweddle, Danusia Francis, Hannah Whelan and Jennifer Pinches. Becky Downie is still injured, I’m not sure about Imogen Cairns. I think that both Whelan and Pinches could do well. Tweddle as always will be one to watch on Floor and Uneven Bars.
Sam Oldham, Louis Smith, Kristian Thomas, Daniel Purvis, Samuel Hunter and Theo Seager will compete for the British MAG. Daniel Keatings who had hoped to make the cut, isn’t …

Tweet Irish gymnasts Kieran Behan and Luke Carson were both in the original Cottbus Cup line up, unfortunately for Carson he had to pull out of competition earlier this week due to a recent injury – best of luck with recovery Luke. Kieran Behan however traveled to Germany to compete in the Cottbus Cup.

 
Photo via Irish Gymnastics
Behan was due to compete on floor, vault and high bar but decided only to compete on floor.  A great decision by the Irish gymnast, his coach Simon Gale and Irish Judge Colm Murray, …

Tweet Yesterday Full Twist posted about Why Irish Sport Matters. €7.8 million is to be invested in high performance Irish athletes and sports in 2011. The Irish Sports Council announced the major funding package for 2011 with a total €25.6 million which will be invested into 57 National Governing Bodies of Sport, including 18 high performance sports, and 32 Local Sports Partnerships.

Irish Gymnastics has been given an increase in funding for 2011. This is particularly fantastic because IG is one of 8 out of 57 sports funded by the Irish …

Tweet Yes, Full Twist is going political…but with a good cause.
We are all currently aware of Ireland’s current financial and political trouble. At the end of this week the country is set to go to the polls for possibly the most important General Election ever in the history of the State. The candidates have been on the campaign trail strongly for the past 3 weeks while their parties lay out their manifesto’s and promote why the public should vote for them to run the country.

Obviously, it is important to fix …

Tweet City of Lisburn Salto National Gymnastics Centre are looking for a new coach. Although the job spec isn’t showing up on their website yet, Salto posted the ad on their Facebook page. The Salto girls team recently won the Irish National Team Championships, a tough competition held in Dublin in December.

Salto are looking for an Assistant Gymnastics Coach (WAG or MAG not specified). Ideally they are looking for someone with British or Irish Level 2 qualifications, they will accept applications from Level 1 coaches. The role will entail 12 …