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14 DECEMBER - U.S. OLYMPIC COMMITTEE HONOURS CHELLSIE MEMMEL AND USA WOMEN’S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS TEAM. The U.S. Olympic Committee today named gymnast Chellsie Memmel as a joint November Athlete of the Month. The USOC Team of the Month honour was awarded to the U.S. Women’s World Gymnastics Team following their superb performance at the World Championships in Melbourne last month. |
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14 DECEMBER - OUTSTANDING RESULTS FOR BRITISH MEN’S JUNIORS AS THEY WIN MULTIPLE MEDALS ON THE INTERNATIONAL STAGE. The British Men’s Artistic Team have achieved excellent results in the first 5 of a series of Junior European and Age Group Squad International Events winning multiple medals on the International stage. It is an incredible achievement for our Junior Team after swinging cuts from the Sports Councils earlier this year, forced Men’s Gymnastics to reduce it’s program., and at one stage had to shut down British Men’s and Junior’s training. The MTC developed a new plan which involved targeting our British Juniors with 60% of the funds which the MTC and BG can provide. Despite the cut backs, the GB Juniors produced unprecedented results , and great credit must go to the investment in World Class Start, and the support given by Neil Burton, Gheorghe Predescu and Andrew Popov to the Clubs, and the immense dedication of the personal coaches who have worked so hard to earn these results.
A fantastic result and a historic result for the British Boys, with lots of new faces making their debuts at this level, the technical strength and performance of the GB Team won a well deserved Team Gold Medal for the first time in the Event’s history.
Another excellent achievement in difficult circumstances after GB were unable to include one of our Judges but Team Gold and three Individual Gold Medals for Reiss Beckford, including the All Around Title, to cap a superb performance from the GB Team. Another superb performance included a joint Gold Medal for 12 year old Sam Oldham in the Under 14 Event, despite competing against gymnasts 2 years older than him. Daniel Purvis also won a joint Gold, and a Silver for the British Team against a very strong field including the Japanese Team who have dominated the medal’s podium in the past. The age group rankings of each team member are added together to give the team result, lowest score wins, which was a very testing format emphasising the scale of the GB Results. The younger boys groups were awash with talent with some tremendous performances in the older age group competitors. Team Results Congratulations to our fabulous juniors and their Coaches on some fantastic results! |
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12 DECEMBER - BRITISH GYMNASTICS ANNOUNCE LAUNCH OF TALENTED ATHLETE SCHOLARSHIP SCHEME! Some exciting news today as BG released details of new funding from the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS). The programme is aimed at supporting talented gymnasts enabling them to combine their sporting aspirations with academic study at school, college or University. The Scheme is open to those aged between 18 and 25 years, who are following a recognised course. TASS will provide up to £3000 in support services as part of the Association’s Service Agreement with TASS, with two thirds of the award allocated to coaching costs with the final third being allotted to medical and lifestyle support. Gymnastics Online’s View After all the recent setbacks with funding, the launch of the TASS Scheme to support our elite gymnasts comes as a welcome relief. It provides financial support to compliment studies for gymnasts to enable them to pursue long term qualifications at 3 top class dedicated facilities, with excellent coaching and support services on site. Whilst more investment still needs to be made on a wider scale to enable our gymnasts to compete on a level playing field against the best in the World, it will be very interesting to see the success of this program as the Scheme develops. Congratulations to British Gymnastics, Loughborough, Leeds Metropolitan and Durham on this great initiative |
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11 DECEMBER - GYMNASTICS ONLINE LAUNCH EXCLUSIVE POLLS FOR YOUR FAVOURITE GYMNASTS, CLUBS, ACROBATS & TUMBLERS OF 2005! We are proud to announce the successful launch of our exclusive Polls tonight on Gymnastics Online where you can voote for your favourite Artistic Gymnasts, Clubs, Sports Acrobats and Tumblers of 2005! We have also included ctegories for your favourite International Gymnasts plus your All Time favourites in Men and Women’s Artistic, so will it be Nastia Liukin, Catalina Ponor, Cheng Fie or one of our other great choices who gets your vote? Or Nadia, Svetlana, Lilia or Carly in your All Time Favourites Vote! And in the British Women’s Artistic poll, will it be Beth, Rhian, Becky, Abi or Laura or one of the other 5 fantastic GB gymnasts you can vote for! And we have not forgotten our fabulous Sports Acrobats and Tumblers as Spelthorne, Wakefield, King Edmunds, Deerness Valley and many others are nominated for your favourite Acrobatics Club of 2005! You can also vote for your favourite Mixed Pairs, Women’s Pairs and Groups, plus Men’s Pairs and Groups plus our World Class Tumblers! Polls close midnight on New Year’s Eve! Go to our home page now and vote every day for your favourites! |
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8 DECEMBER - 3 GB TUMBLERS INCLUDING DOUBLE WORLD AGE GROUP’S CHAMPION SAMANTHA PALMER MOVE TO LYNX 18 year old Samantha Palmer has joined Lynx in its new Sports Acrobatics Tumbling Squad. Samantha came 3rd in the recent 2005 World Tumbling Championships, and gained the only medal for Great Britain at the World Championships. Samantha has been trained by International Performance Coach Vladimir Podobin from Milton Keynes since she was 5. She will also be trained by Chris Adams who is also an International Performance Coach at Lynx. Sam won the 2001 and 2003 World Age Group Championships, and was the European Junior Champion in 2002. She will also train at the Lilleshall National Sports Centre most Wednesdays. Sam hopes to compete in the World Cup 2005 / 06 series which includes Meets in China, Russia, America and France, before the World Cup Finals head to Birmingham next year. She has made a good recovery from a torn ACL injury at the British Championships in 2004 which kept her out of competition for 18 months. She competed against the reigning Ukranian World Champion, and former Russian World Champion in Eindhoven. Two fellow GB Internationals have also joined Lynx from Milton Keynes. Megan Green was crowned a British Tournament Champion last weekend, and won a Silver Medal in the International Age Group Games 2005 in Eindhoven in the Age 11-12 Category. And Connor Maloney who also won Gold at the British Tournament narrowly missed a place in the Finals in the 11 -12 Men’s Category in Eindhoven. Dale Green has also joined the Lynx Squad, and was a finalist in the British Tournament. Their next competition will be in March 2006. Lynx are based in Aylesbury and use a dynamic carbon fibre tumbling track into loose foam pits or resi landings. They hope to expand the Tumbling Squad in the coming weeks, and the Tumblers are now working on new elements and transitions for 2006, and have also increased their conditioning regimes. The Club also enjoyed a successful competition at the Cumbernauld Classic in Scotland at the weekend where the Women’s Artistic Team placed an impressive 4th place in a competition which included gymnasts from Hungary, Belgium, and Monaco. The Lynx Team consisted of Polly Shingler, Katrina Cella, Emily Braund and Harriet Lymer-Smith. The event also included top British Artistic Clubs and was won by the giants of Women’s Artistic in the UK, the ever impressive City of Liverpool. |
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8 December - AUSTRALIA TO REBUILD FOR COMMONWEALTH GAMES. PEGGY RIDDICK PREDICTS ANOTHER CLOSE COMPETITION BETWEEN MONETTE RUSSO AND BETH! After the hugely successful World Championships in Melbourne, the stage is now set for a terrific Commonwealth Games which will also take place in the Victorian capital. For the first time in Commonwealth Games’ history two of the top four competitors in the All Around World Championships Finals, were from Commonwealth Nations! Russo will again have the advantage of huge home support, where her face appeared on all the promotional posters in a pulsating atmosphere which Monette responded to. Riddick said "There was an absolutely huge amount of pressure on her with all that hoopla. She learned a lot and it will do a lot for her confidence. She is relishing the challenge." Russo's consistency across the four apparatus - floor, vault, beam and uneven bars - gave her the a slight edge at World’s but Beth will start as favourite to win the Uneven Bars after she claimed the bronze medal at World’s, and her newly improved Floor Routine which includes a number of difficult tumbling combinations. Liddick also confirmed that she will present a new look Australian Team at the Games where she expects to introduce several of the brilliant junior competitors, including Hollie Dykes, Alyce Arrowsmith, Chloe Sims and Russian-born Daria Joura. She commented “I am anticipating that 75 per cent of our team will be made up of juniors that no one has seen yet, so they will be untested on the competition floor". She expects the English team to have an edge in experience with the inclusion of Imogen Cairns, who finished 8th on Vault in the World Championships Apparatus Final last month, and former American gymnast Shavahn Church, who finished 20th in the all-around ranks last month. Rhian Pugh should also be fit for selection in what promises to be a strong British challenge for Gold. The men's competition will offer Australian team leader Philippe Rizzo an opportunity for redemption after a nervous performance at World’s. After winning a World Cup gold medal on the high bar leading into the competition, Rizzo was regarded as Australia best medal chance, but he fell in the qualifying round and did not make the final. However, his teammates Damian Istria (high bar) and Prashanth Sellathurai (pommel horse) did reach individual finals and Josh Jefferis equalled the best performance by an Australia man when he finished 19th in the all-around competition. They will form the strongest Australia men's Commonwealth team where the Canadians, who are reigning Commonwealth champions, are set to provide the biggest obstacle. It was also confirmed that the Melbourne Games will also see the return of rhythmic gymnastics competition after it was excluded from the program in Manchester, in 2002. |
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8 December - WCSN BROADCASTS COMPLETE ARTISTIC WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS ON THE NET AROUND THE WORLD! Fantastic news for gym fans around the World as the World Championships Sports Network ( WCSN ) extended their excellent coverage of the World Championships to Gym fans around the World today! The coverage was previously limited to the USA due to broadcasting live footage restrictions but is now available to most countries for just $9.99 for complete coverage of the 4 Day’s World Championships! Expert commentary is provided by gym legend Nadia Comaneci and Bart Conner. I purchased coverage earlier this evening and even though I am a huge fan of rival NBC Sports excellent gymnastics’ coverage, I was very impressed with the quality and depth of the event. I was slightly frustrated that it is not possible to skip directly to specific parts of the Championships, but for less than 10 bucks for terrific coverage which you can watch whenever you want to, this is a minor drawback. Don’t miss Nastia and Chellsie create US Gymnastics History including a record 9 medals for the US Team plus the best ever performance at a World Artistic Championships from the GB Team! As an extra bonus, for all you Rhythmic Fans, WCSN are including the entire coverage of the World Rhythmic Championships for a total of $14.95 if you purchase both events! Click here now! |
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7 DECEMBER - SPELTHORNE ELITE ACROBATICS CHRISTMAS DISPLAY THIS WEEKEND! Spelthorne Elite Acrobatics are holding their Annual Christmas Display on Saturday 10 December with 2 performances at 11-30 AM and 4-30pm. Spelthorne have an outstanding record as one of Great Britain’s leading Acrobatics Clubs with an incredible record of over 30 World and European Medalist’s, and we are really looking forward to being there to see amazing choreography and terrific group routines as well as individual work from members of the British Team. Funds raised will be used to help subsidise the travelling costs and training camps in 2006. We saw Spelthorne’s fabulous Display Work at the World Cup Finals in Birmingham last year which was absolutely stunning and really helped to showcase the amazing talent we have in the U.K. | ||||||||||||||||||||