Victor: Victoria

Hello.

I am updating this at stupid o'clock.

Unfortunately I'm not able to attend the Victorian State Championships over at JETS this weekend.

Thankfully, some of you are! The Couch Gymnast has a report up, and a few of you have noted in that comments that results are up at Gymdata.

My biggest thanks is reserved for special ops agent Ange for getting video.

Congratulations to the senior and junior AA champions, Ash Brennan and Kiara Munteanu! Full results will be up here.

GV has linked to video of Zoe Lorenzin's cool Baitova warmup here!

Forever Chung

The West Australian has a small feature on Nikki Chung today, which reveals she has a World Cup assignment this week and that Olivia Vivian has indeed returned to the WAIS fold.

Update: Nikki will indeed travel alongside Larrissa Miller this weekend to compete at the Osijek Grand Prix Challenger Cup on bars, beam and floor. Good luck, ladies!

The Satellite also has a quick feature, including video from the Kyle Shewfelt Invitational, on male Olympic contender Josh Jefferis.

"I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch," he said.

If you can disregard all the background crashing, check out this new video interview with WAIS wondergirl Lauren Mitchell (filmed in the AIS gym). She talks about her London expectations and funding for the national program.

Pop'd, Locked and Loaded

London sneaks ever closer!

Get a sneak peek of Lauren Mitchell working with Adriana Pop at camp in Canberra in this news footage.

Jonesin' for a Win

Australia is yet to have a gymnast score coveted silverware at an NCAA National Championship but we must absolutely applaud Melanie Jones for her efforts over the weekend.

Now in her third year at Oregon State University, Mel made it to the floor final (her first ever apparatus final at a collegiate nationals) in front of a parochial Georgia crowd. She displayed a stunning routine which you can watch below, scoring a 9.925 for equal 4th place. The amazing thing is, verdict among fans and spectators was that not only was it a great routine, it deserved first place! It's not every day you have an overseas audience clamouring for one of your own. Buuuuuuuut you can't fight the system, and she got a nifty trophy out of it anyway (not to mention the acclaim of the crowd).


Onya, Jonesy!

"Mel did a fabulous job, I'm really proud of her," head coach Tanya Chaplin said. "She's done a wonderful job for us this season and put in a lot of hard work and it is great to see that pay dividends today."

Hot Squad

Well then indeed!

Welcome back Dasha Joura and Chloe Sims!

GA has a brief camp report available here

Thanks to my Sunshine Staters who kept me updated about state championships throughout the night as I was out, I really appreciated it. And the videographers, you guys rock.

The Couch Gymnast has a wrap up + video links here. Nice work, Larrissa!

You can see Dasha's floor here.

In other squad news, expect to see more of Lauren Mitchell very soon:

Mitchell broke her preparations for London's July Games on Wednesday to film her role in a Fox Sports promotion for the network's Olympics coverage.

"It's going to be really different to anything I've done before and it's really exciting," she said. "There's a bunch of Olympic athletes and they kind of morphed us all into one sequence, so it'll go from a diver, into me doing something, into a taekwondo person doing something else."

Your Favourite TV Family

Loathe though I am to promote reality tv shows, this week sees a gymnastics connection make it to the screen!

Acclaimed Victorian singer Peta Jeffress, sister to Olympian Georgia Bonora, will appear in an episode of 'The Voice' tomorrow night (Tues) on Channel 9. I have had the pleasure and privilege of seeing Peta perform in person, she is just a delight. We wish her the best in her pursuit of musical fame!


Check out Peta's performance archived at The Voice website here.

Well Then!

Let's all process this news calmly and rationally.

The Queensland State Championships are on next weekend, Sunday the 22nd April at 5:30pm. They are being held in the Arena at the Sleeman Sports Complex, Chandler, Brisbane. Come along and show some support for Olympic hopefuls Joshua Jefferis, Chloe Sims, Larissa Miller, Dasha Joura and myself in our last competition in Queensland ahead of next months Australian Championships and Olympic Trials.

- From the official Tom Pichler Facebook page.

Update Tues:

The whole town's a-buzzing!

Luke Wiwatowski has added some extra fuel to the fire...

I had a chat with Dasha some time ago and she has been training and was looking to compete a couple (Floor and Vault from my last correspondence) of apparatus during the Queensland State Championships. I look forward to seeing whether Dasha can make an impact and from what I saw her do she should have a mean vault.

This brings up another point altogether. My responsibilities during this time of Olympic selection prevent me from disclosing any information I know about selections. The Australian Olympic Committee has the monopoly on selection announcements so I walk a fine line sometimes with what I disclose in public. As such any speculations I make about selection publicly are just that, speculation.

And as to whether Dasha is fit enough for selection, well we will just have to wait and see.

This is all exciting and fun, but in the comments section can we please veer away from really personal remarks? Thanks.

2012 Zibo Cup

4:10pm Saturday AEST Follow along live here (yes, we have annoying pop-up ads again, look for x's to close them or toggle full screen mode).

Best of luck to Lauren and Larrissa in the women's competition.

I just tuned in after the footy to see Larrissa in purple and black Tokyo prelims leo hit a great bars for 14.425!

... she's through to the bars final in 4th!

Update: Lauren is through to the beam final in 4th and is 1st through to floor final!

View view of Larrissa's bars (partial) here. Video of a screen showing Lauren's floor is here.

Update Sunday: What a happy easter for team Oz! Who likes medals? We do!

UB: Miller 6.2/14.6 for bronze
BB: Mitchell 14.6 for bronze
FX: Mitchell 14.4 for gold!

See Larrissa's finals routine in the video below.



Lauren's finals floor is here and her beam here.

Who's That Girl

Ash Brennan features in the latest Who magazine edition, as part of a "Most Beautiful Olympians" feature. As if we should really be surprised!

Monday Miscellany

Photographs from the SEQ Senior Regionals and Hayley Nothling Challenge will soon be available thanks to the dutiful work of Paul Merret and the Adrenaline Photographics team. Check out this absolutely stunning teaser:




I also came across some videos of rising star Jazmine Cassis... diggin' that piked full-in!





And finally, many thanks to the Canadian gymmers who have put up videos of our guys from the recent Kyle Shewfelt invitational.

Georgia Simpson Update

Hi all.

Received an update on Georgia in the last couple of hours. Many thanks to her family for taking the time to let us all know.

Thanks for asking about Georgia, she is doing ok.has had her stitches removed, all 17! ( A little more than a few butterfly bandaids.) On the road to recovery . Support staff at WAIS have rallied around her giving amazing support.She has started back doing some physio exercises,upperbody work,flex and stretches. Thanks to Martine and Nikolai for being very caring and supportive coaches.

Upgrades Up North

In news just to hand...

Have been linked to some videos from the 2012 Hayley Nothling Challenge in Queensland.


Larrissa Miller has put some new tumbles into her floor routine so don't go throwing her under any buses straight away based on the performance below.





Below is footage of Tamika Jones (floor) and Georgia Godwin (beam).