With the year drawing to a close today, you might be feeling nostalgic thinking about the 2010 Gymnastics year. Komova2012 has the Womens Team Final uploaded to YouTube and split into 11 parts. Enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

I’m really loving this video that AT & T have out up on their website. It follows the USA Men’s and Women’s Teams to Rotterdam and back. Nicely put together and not too long to lose interest. Watch the video here

As previously posted, Daniel Keatings was part of the commentary team for the BBC’s coverage of the World Gymnastics Championships in October. I really think he did a great job.  He seems like a really genuine guy and very nice. In his latest blog post on the Opus Energy Challenge website, Daniel discusses what he calls “The Most Successful Team GB Ever”.

Daniel really had a busy time in Rotterdam, as well as offering support to his Team mates he was part of the delegation who were presenting their bid to host the 2015 Gymnastics World Championships to the FIG and also provided commentary for the BBC. Given that it must have been very hard for him since he couldn’t compete due to injury, he says some really kind words about his team mates in his blog post;

Saturday

An absolutely amazing day for British Gymnastics. It started with the Men’s Floor competition. The outstanding Daniel Purvis, who was having the competition of his life, secured his first ever world medal by taking bronze on floor – I am so proud of him.

Imogen Cairns finished 8th in the Women’s Vault final, an amazing achievement as she has had a difficult time with injury since Beijing.

Next up, Louis Smith claimed silver in the Pommel Horse final narrowly missing the gold; an awesome performance, especially after his disappointment last year. This left everyone in the commentary box asking the dreaded question – could we really get the full set; gold, silver and bronze?

You bet we could! Beth Tweddle, the Queen of British Gymnastics, had only gone and won the A-bars gold for the second time! Beth is now a Triple World Champion; just how many people can say that?

Read more from Dan’s blog here.

No word on when Dan might compete again though. He returned to training in August and trained in Lilleshall in September with the Worlds Team.

A interview with the current Men’s World Champion Kohei Uchimura from 2009 – I like it. Watch the videos below, or Part 1 and Part 2 on YouTube and Click through to here for the translation.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Via The Gym Press on Facebook

Shannon Miller was recently interviewed by Gym Power about her thoughts on the World Championships in Rotterdam. I did see during the World Championships that Miller was busy endorsing new social network GymnastSpotlight.com. I had been meaning to take a look at it but the Worlds were just far too exciting, coincidentally the website is working for me at the moment.

On World Champion Aliya Mustafina:

What in an incredible talent. Mustafina reminds me a lot of myself (although i believe she is much more talented). She doesn’t take anything for granted and is very focused on her goals.

I think she is far better and has more personality, but I feel like Mustafina’s all-around capabilities are akin to my career. She excels under pressure and doesn’t seem fazed by anything going on around her. She wants to win and is willing to work hard to get there.

Click through here to read the full interview where Shannon reviews both the Men’s and Women’s gymnastics at the World Championships this year.

Another wonderful FIG edit. This one is of the First Day of the Apparatus Finals.

Watch below or on YouTube

A great new article from BBC Sport’s Ollie Williams. At the weekend he posted this picture of the Chinese Women’s Coach “being grilled” by the media as to why the Chinese Women wouldn’t be bringing home any gold medals from Worlds, the first time this has happened since 2002. It’s easy to say, duh, Huang and Kexin fell from the bars in the Individual Apparatus Finals and almost handed Beth Tweddle the World title.

Ollie discusses how gymnastics in China is perceived, age falsification, China’s response on being beaten at the Beijing Olympic Games, the Chinese Gymnastics Program and the British Coaches attitude to the Chinese way of coaching.

Gymnastics in China is a nationwide industry and one in which the majority of Chinese children will at some stage participate, spending six months being taught basic stretches and movements to ascertain if their bodies are suited to the sport.

If chosen to progress, budding gymnasts move into what Low calls a “relentless” programme, packed with targets which they must hit at regular intervals. As a result, Low has seen girls aged 11 and 12 perform world-class routines. From there, the centralised system sweeps the country’s finest prospects into a single, national centre in Beijing, where they will live and train.

Read the full article here – it’s excellent

As Rick posted yesterday, the British Press are CRAZY for the members of the Great British Worlds Team at the moment. Every time I sign into my Google reader there’s numerous posts about the gymnasts who represented Great Britain at the World Championships, mostly about medal winners Louis Smith, Beth Tweddle and Dan Purvis.

If you’ve missed some of the stories and interviews since the gymnasts won their medals, here’s some below.

Dan Purvis:

Delighted Dan Purvis stunned by World Gymnastics medal

Louis Smith:

Silver Smith targets gold at London 2012

Louis Smith plans to usurp rival Krisztian Berki

Beth Tweddle:

Beth Tweddle shrugs off age concerns for London 2012

World Gymnastics 2010: Beth Tweddle regains bars title

No rest for Liverpool’s Beth Tweddle in pursuit of 2012 glory

Beth Tweddle ready to push the boundaries back for young aspiring sportswomen

Tweddle: I would swap world title for Olympic medal at London 2012

Beth Tweddle amazes herself with third gold medal

General:

World Gymnastics Championships was a wonderful antidote to the Wayne Rooney saga

Sssh! British gymnasts keep their 2012 secrets

I really really love what the USA Media Team have done for this years World Championships, interviewing all of the gymnasts after competition. I hope it catches on and the likes of British Gymnastics take it up too! They’ve uploaded one or two new interviews since Worlds finished.

It’s great to see Rebecca Bross smiling in the interview below.

Bridget Sloan

Check out the USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel for more videos.

After the conclusion of the World Championships on Sunday, we posted about the fact that both Aliya Mustafina and Tatiana Nabieva’s Vaults in the Vault Event Finals were devalued and also both girls incurred a 0.1 penalty. Gymnastics Coaching kindly linked to our post and this began a discussion in the comments on his website.

The numerous comments concluded that the vaults were downgraded as they were in a piked position as opposed to gaining full marks for proper layout position:

Jason:

In terms of the devalue of the 2 russians 2nd vault there is a piked version of this vault in the elite code of points #5.23 for a 5.7 start value. If you watch both vaults you can see that it is a pike position more then 50% of the vault.

Stephanie:

The vaults were piked down. In order to get full credit they should stay in a layout position. Also, Nabieva’s 2.5, didn’t make it all the way around, thus it was devalued to a DTY. In order to get credit for a 2.5, the whole body (feet to chest) must be facing forward, and she’s not.

You can review this for yourself in the video of the 2 girls vaults here.

Secondly, the comments explained that the girls received a 0.1 penalty for landing close to the corridor markings. You can see in the below  from the Code of Points and Ricks Screen shots why this was applied.

or from the revised May edition of the WAG CoP Helpdesk…

Nabieva’s second vault

Mustafina’s landing on her second vault

Rick also poses the question – should Alicia Sacramone also be penalised?

Thanks to all for your time and effort explaining to those who were confused.

Japan’s Rie Tanaka and Germany’s Philipp Boy were both presented with the Longines Prize for Elegance last weekend at the World Championships. Watch Tanaka’s routines below, she’s beautiful to look at. Who would you have chosen to receive the prize? Porgras? Mustafina?

Beam

Floor

Bars

Vault

Read more FIG Rotterdam 2010 site and Longines

Since there’s been so many videos coming up online of the World Championships, it makes sense to combine them in the one post. It’s fantastic that people are taking the time out to do this. I won’t even list what user has what video up because some of them have gone to a huge amount of effort to put so many videos up. Thanks to all for your effort and kindness for doing so.

YouTube User m1a2r3i4n5e

YouTube User ItsNastiaFan

YouTube User Dutchfan33

YouTube User DrMtzLizama

USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel

FIG YouTube Channel

Gym Media YouTube Channel

The Split Leap also has links to videos in a very clever way, make sure to check them out.

Event Finals

Qualifications

Team Finals

All Around Finals

If you have any more links to great videos post them in the comments below and I’ll update the list.

Lauren’s gold winning routine. Watch below or here on YouTube.

Gimnastas.net asks on Twitter:

“this” being the revised May edition of the WAG Helpdesk (a PDF document to help clarify & give examples of different rules in the FIG WAG Code of Points). The Helpdesk on page 36 of 61 states:

Gimnastas says that the Code of Points also states that in order to get the value for a twisting element you have to complete the rotations and that there are piked saltos with over 180º turn listed in the COP. Gimnastas feels that they shouldn’t have published that on the Helpdesk as it is confusing.

Watch both girls vaults here or below.

Would any judge out there care to explain to those who are still confused? There was some confusion yesterday as to why both girls vaults were downgraded.

The competition came to a close today with the Womens Beam and Floor Event finals taking place as well as the Mens Vault, High Bar and Parallel Bars event finals.The results are below, click through to see the full results summary:

Ana Porgras – Women’s Beam World Champion

Lauren Mitchell – Women’s Floor World Champion

Zhe Feng – Men’s Parallel Bars World Champion

Thomas Bouhail – Men’s Vault World Champion

Chenglong Zhang – Men’s High Bar World Champion

The Women’s floor final was tough. Olympic Floor Champion Sandra Izabasa stepped out of bounds twice, she was visibly distraught. Ksenia Afanasyeva too didn’t have a good day on floor. Aliya Mustafina finished the World Championships with 5 medals, the most of any gymnast at Worlds since Andrea Raducan in 2001. Her floor failed to wow me as much today, I’m not sure why. Tieing for second place with Mustafina was Diana Maria Chelaru with a beautiful routine. Vanessa Ferrari really impressed me as did Alexandra Raisman’s powerful tumbling. Lauren Mitchell took the gold with only a few landing deductions, beautiful choreography. Beam videos are already up online.

Thankfully today BBC 2 had live coverage from the competition, which was brilliant! Daniel Keatings is really good at commentary. The Men’s High Bar competition was just amazing, really really enjoyed it. Zhang deserved the gold medal but I really wish Zonderland had got it. The Dutch crowd roared throughout his routine and on his dismount.

At the end of the competition, the medals standings are as follows:

Interesting pieces from the last day of competition:

Marta Karolyi “We cannot have the FIG thinking that only ballerinas can be gymnasts“

Universal Sports to refund for World Championships live feed glitch

Ollie Williams tweeted a picture of the Chinese Head Gymnastics Coach saying that he was “getting grilled” by reporters as to why the Chinese women didn’t win any gold medals.