Those crazy Canadians

Lots of crying and rending of the clothes has gone on about the points system that Gymnastics Canada used to determine its Olympians.  I just found a video of Carol Angela Orchard, Elise Hopfner-Hibbs’ coach, talking about the Canadian Nationals.  CAO says something nuts in this video.  She says Elise was asked to specialize on two events and not train all events but then in order to get to Day 2 of the Championships you had to compete the All Around.  What’s that about?  Why would you ask an athlete to specialize but then keep her out of EF at Championships if she doesn’t do AA?    

Check out the other videos.  Nansy does her interveiws in French and English.  

 

Bitter Olympics for Nansy?

I seriously have to wonder how Nansy Damianova is dealing with the Kristina Vaculik situation.  And how is she dealing with the Elise Hopfner-Hibbs situation?  I can’t imagine it would be too much fun to qualify for the Olympics but then all anybody can talk about is how KV deserves your spot and EHH’s coach should go instead of yours.  Wow.  

Considering 6-3-3, Gymnastics Canada probably wanted to get more specialists coming up the pipeline.  Maybe it’ll work out that way eventually, but in the meantime they have to deal with a lot of belly aching.  People are complaing that this point system allowed some gymnasts to start gaining points while other gymnasts were too young.  Some gymnasts were able to get easy points in in easy meets while other gymnasts had a tough time getting points in hard meets.  Some events were easier to get points on.  

Perhaps if Vaculik hadn’t wiped the mat with Damianova so embarrassingly at the Canadian Championships people wouldn’t be so mad about the selection outcome.  Damianovo only managed to tie Vaculik for first on vault.  Then she only got fourth place on floor.  Meanwhile KV managed another first and two more second places.  

I haven’t seen anything so far from Damianova or her coach.  What would they say?  I don’t think people would want to hear anything from them that doesn’t involve them stepping aside to let Vaculik compete.  Of course, Australia’s Craig Stevens qualified for the Olympics in another race.  He was also paid some $60k for an exclusive deal to cover his announcement.  

Perhaps irate gym fans should put up or shut up.  Hey, people have been known to raise lotsa dough in a short time to get an athlete’s family to the games.  Nothing says they can’t raise dough to get an athlete to consider staying home.  

Yin Yang vs black and white

Does Shawn’s Day 2 leo look like she was going for a Yin Yang thing to you?  To me, it just looks like a black and white leo.  If she was going for Yin Yang, she could’ve done a better job, if you ask me.  

Mac and Al

Mackenzie Caquatto  and Alaina Johnson would be really surprised if they wound up in Beijing.  Mackenzie has achieved her goal of making the national team.  Alaina made the national team and achieved her goal of not finishing last.  

Mackenzie is coached by Don and Patrice McPherson who own Aerial Gymnastics club.  

The McPhersons are coaching Caquatto not to get too excited about the Trials or the invitation to the national training center near Houston that will follow the Trials if she does well enough. 

Johnson wanted to quit elite after competing in two national championships and finishing last in both due to injury.  Her coach, Martin Parsley, talked her out of it.  

“We are realistic and know that we belong to the strongest gymnastics team in the world,” Parsley said. “Of the 12 teams qualified for the Olympics, you know that if you lived in nine of them, you’d be on their Olympic team. 

“Alaina doesn’t have any international experience and the top nine have international experience … and four of them are world champions on something. 

“We are going to do exactly what we did at the last meet and then go home and watch the Olympics on T.V. like everyone else.” 

“Loyal athlete signers”

This month’s IG editorial by Paul Ziert is about how USAG president Steve Penny has made some major errors recently.  Error number one was about how Steve organized the USAG post-olympic tour but failed to sign Shawn Johnson, Paul Hamm, and Morgan Hamm.  They signed with a rival tour run by Mike Burg.  He also doesn’t have Nastia who hasn’t signed with anyone.  Since he doesn’t have the biggest stars, this nullifies his contracts.  

Ziert writes:

Hence, Burg will now do his tour in the 30 cities reserved by USAG with the athletes that USAG claims it created with no financial gain to the federation other than a possible sanction fee, which isn’t even required.  and most of the loyal athlete signers will get much less or possibly nothing from tour money.

I have two issues with this.  First, just because USAG claims they created the athletes doesn’t mean they actually did.  The athletes, their families, and their coaches are the ones who did all of the work to get to the top with no help from USAG.  I will never understand why people think they owe USAG something for their success.  USAG didn’t get Shawn’s parents to take her to Chow’s instead of staying with the coach who thought she had brute strength but no talent.  USAG didn’t get Paul and Morgan’s dad to harrass Stacy Maloney into training them to greatness.  USAG certainly did not pick up the tab when it came to 6+ years of training expenses before these athltes were even on USAG’s radar.  USAG doesn’t do a damned thing to help these athletes when it matters most, yet they “created” them.  That is total crap!  

My second issue with this is the use of the phrase “loyal athlete signers”.  I don’t appreciate the dig at Shawn, Paul, Nastia, and Morgan.  These guys have worked hard and they deserve to get the most for their talents.  It has nothing to do with being “loyal” to some organization that hasn’t done anything for them anyway.  And how does Ziert know that these other athletes are loyal as opposed to simply being too scared not to sign.  How many of these athletes worry that not signing would hurt their Olympic chances?  

Penny used some serious arm-twisting to get many of the athletes to sign binding, exclusive contracts before anyone even knew they were going to Beijing.  He succeeded with all except the four I mentioned above.

I’m glad USAG got pwned.  If they had offered fair packages to the above athletes, they would be signed.  Instead they want to lowball the athletes and pocket the money so they can pad their own salaries.  

::UPDATE::

It’s MIke Burg,  not Mark Burg.  I don’t know why I put that there.  

Ashley Priess talks to IG

She quit because of her back.  Her sister also suffered from a back injury that caused her to retire from college gymnastics.  

::UPDATE::

I read a comment on IG Forum from someone who seemed to think that Ashley quitting was “ True proof that the Olympics is not the end all do all for all elite gymnasts.”  Considering that Ashley cites an injured back as the problem, I don’t see how this is proof of that.   

We don’t see a whole lot of uninjured athletes with a good shot of going to the games just giving it up.  How many times have we seen that?  

Gymnast Access Hollywood Interviews

Sam is very cute.  I did not know Sam’s coach was from Beijing too.  She likes to listen to rap and loud music sometimes.  When I heard that, I thought it would be great if somebody made a montage of her to that funny little ditty, “White Chicks and Gang Signs“.  

Alicia Sacromone, Shawn Johnson, Paul Hamm and Morgan Hamm also have interviews on there.  It’s interesting how different Paul and Morgan’s voices are.  

 

Alaina Johnson is excited

Here’s a short news clip of Alaina Johnson.  She made the national team and qualified to trails.    

A lot of people care

Gymnasticsbabie has written a post criticizing people for wasting their energy by caring about overscoring.  The post is titled, “No one cares” which is funny.  

“…I’m tired of hearing about this every nationals, its like beating a dead horse. “

She has to hear about this every nationals - but no one cares.  

“And I understand many people disagree with me, … “

She understands many people disagree with her-but no one cares.  Sure they don’t.  

 

Ashley Priess - “SEXY Olympic gymnast”

Some enterprising cybersquatter has set up ashleypriess.com.  A few pictures of Ashley are on the site.  I wonder if permission was obtained to use them.  This person has a lot of sites set up for other female athletes too.  Including three rhythmic gymnasts, Alexandra Orlando, Vera Sessina, and Olga Kapranova.  

Ashley’s sudden retirement is a hot topic.  Somebody dropping out of the race a few weeks before the end is bound to attract curiosity.  Everybody loves a train wreck.  I was doing a search to see if there were any new articles when I stumbled upon the above domain.  And no, I didn’t find anything new.  There is only the article from Inside Gymnastics where Mary Lee Tracy claims she had no idea this was coming.  Does MLT not know her athlete very well?  I just find it hard to believe that this young lady after having already made a world team and battled back from a back injury would not have let any hints at all drop that she might not wish to continue.  

As far as quitting goes.  Ashley Priess vs. Blaine Wilson.  I found Ashley’s retirement to be shocking.  I totally respect her decision though.  I just can’t muster the same feelings for Blaine Wilson.  I still think it would’ve been better for him to retire before the meet or afterwards.  Retiring in the middle of the meet, especially when you are not doing well is just poor form.  Then to say you retired because you didn’t want to risk injury instead of being truthful.  He retired because he wasn’t doing well.  It’s obvious.  If he was so worried about risking getting hurt, he wouldn’t have come back in the first place.  

I know some people might say, “Hey you can’t read the guy’s mind!”  No I can’t.  But I have a lifetime of experience with lies and liars.  Push comes to shove, I can tell a pretty phat fib myself.  ’I quit because I didn’t accurately predict the level of competition and found myself doing poorly’ is exactly the kind of thing you would try to spin into, ‘Yeah.  It’s just not worth getting injured.’