WAG: Towards 2014

The dust settled on National Clubs in Geelong, but despite being the tail end of the year, our journey to 2014's big gymnastics events is only just beginning.


Australia's junior and senior national squads are currently in Canberra, for their final training camp of the year.  The budding IDP gymnasts following in their footsteps enjoyed a clinic at the VWHPC in November, videos from which can be seen here.


I will be adding news nuggets from the latest camp as they come to hand...

* The national squads have been updated since National Clubs. See them here.

* It emerged on Twitter today that John Geddert, coach to US Olympic and World gold medallist Jordyn Wieber, spent some time in the gym with the squads. He had also taken time on the weekend to run seminars and training sessions with representatives from Gymnastics NSW. Cheers, John!

Photo via John Geddert on Facebook

* International Gymnast magazine caught up with Olympian Lauren Mitchell to discuss her progress and prospects for 2014.

* Gymnastics Australia have started adding videos from camp! 

*... And provided us with a skills report!

* Lauren Mitchell had a chat to ABC Grandstand about injury recovery, her Christmas holiday plans and goals for 2014. Happy travels to the USA, Lauren! 

 

Everybody Bounce Now

Bouncin's what Aussies do best!

Off the back of a fantastic bronze medal effort by the men's team (up from 5th, just what we like to see!), Australia's trampoline gymnasts booked themselves finals berths for further medal chances at the World Championships in Bulgaria.

Photo by Ben Kelly

Two members of that blushing bronze team, Blake Gaudry and Ty Swadling, finished among the top 24 to make the individual men's semi-final, but landed outside the top 6 for further contention (20th and 16th respectively).

Olympian Gaudry and Will Morris will team up for the men's synchro final.

Get some insight directly from the event via Blake's Twitter and Facebook.

Our double mini team are there flying the flag, too. Unfortunately no individuals made finals. but the men's team finished a commendable 8th after qualifications. Full results can be found here, and detailed commentary from GA is here, while a few videos are below courtesy of the FIG.

Christine Hall

Matt Weal 

Pre-championships video interviews with Blake and Jarrod Spear can be seen here.

Australia's World Age Group delegation will get their competition underway this week.

Baton Brigade

Keep your eyes peeled on the news bulletins tonight, it was a grand day out for WA gymmers!

WAIS gymnastics Olympians Lauren Mitchell, Olivia Vivian and Allana Slater were at the Commonwealth Games Queen's Baton handover in Perth today.

Liv and Allana put up some smashing photos at their twitter accounts.

World champion Lauren received the royal treatment, getting to travel in a helicopter alongside swimmer-slash-amateur chef-slash-undeniable uberbabe Eamon Sullivan to show the baton off at other locations. (It must have been a bit nicer than dirt and a hard hat at least...)

There was some coverage on Channel 10 just now, they all looked very proud. So watch out for more photos and footage tonight!

Vic's the Pick

Rejoice, Melbunnies!

It has been officially announced that the 2014 National Gymnastics Championships will return to Melbourne and take place at Hisense Arena.

Hope to see you there!

Worlds 2013: Proshy Be Proud

You can't win 'em all the time.

Prashanth Sellathurai unfortunately couldn't repeat his wonderful pommel performance from qualifications in the individual final overnight. Speedy pirouette work saw him get a little overwhelmed with momentum and take a tumble from the horse. He was relegated to 8th place. But 8th in the world is certainly nothing to sniff at, and he'll surely find himself in medal contention again soon. There was a lot of good word on social media about the composition and neatness of his routine, and genuine dismay expressed once his fall occurred.

You can watch a full clip of the pommel horse final, courtesy of Chinese television, at the link below. Prashanth appears 7 minutes in.

Worlds 2013: MAG Qualification Roundup

A mixed bag of results out of the men's preliminary round last night.

All-rounder Naoya Tsukahara is sitting in 26th place, the second reserve position, now all subdivisions have been completed. He could move up into the final should two other competitors withdraw in unlucky circumstances.

Luke Wiwatowski had a bumpy night on his three apparatus, with a fall on parallel bars (12.6) and one on floor (12.666) redeemed nicely with a high bar routine (incl. Kolman, Kovacs, double layout full for 14.000) that International Gymnast called "amazing".


In excellent news, our final representative Prashanth Sellathurai held off all comers to cement his place in Saturday's pommel horse final with a 15.416 for 6th place. And he can breathe a small sigh of relief that one of his big rivals, 2012 Olympic champion Kriztian Berki, took a tumble to wipe himself out of contention.


Our last man standing is our littlest, but from little things come big things!

Breaking News: A Retirement

Very best wishes for all that lies ahead for Victoria's Georgia Wheeler who, it was announced today, will retire from competitive artistic gymnastics.

In addition to strong showings nationally, Georgia proudly represented Australia at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Pacific Rim Championships and World Championships. Georgia was one of several rising stars to emerge from the MLC elite program.

A statement can be read via Gymnastics Australia here.

Image courtesy Nadia Boyce 2010

Worlds 2013: Good Luck Team Australia

All the best to Luke, Naoya and Prashanth whose Antwerp adventure takes shape from this Friday, with MAG podium training kicking off.

I'll be updating what I can as it comes in (to here and to Twitter), but to follow qualifications and get content live from the arena your best resources are:

The All Around
Antwerp 2013 Official Website 
The Gymnastics Examiner
Twitter: FIG
Twitter: The All-Around
Twitter: Gymnastike
Twitter: The Couch Gymnast
Twitter: Luke Wiwatowski
Luke's Blog

Apparently USA Gymnastics will be providing live streaming video of the all-around and apparatus finals. I hope this won't be geoblocked to Aussies! Find out more here. 

Maryland We Go Along

In surprising and incredibly exciting news, it's just been revealed that WA pocket rocket Nikki Chung is off to compete at the University of Maryland! Better add the Terps to your viewing roster!

"We're very excited to welcome Nikola to the Gym Terp family,” head coach Brett Nelligan said. “The team and staff have been eagerly awaiting her arrival all summer. She is a well-rounded gymnast excelling on vault and beam, and her bar routine is among the most difficult in the world. Nikola’s experience competing on the world stage will serve her well in the collegiate arena."

Chung has been training all summer and has been cleared to compete.  Chung and the Terps will conduct a preseason bootcamp beginning Sunday, Sept. 8.

Here is Nikki in action in 2012:

Cool Customers in Kiev

Danielle Prince and Jaelle Cohen finished a commendable 57th and 73rd respectively in all-around at the recent World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships in Kiev. A few of their routines from the qualification round can be viewed below.

Jaelle ribbon
Danielle ribbon
Jaelle clubs
Danielle clubs

Best wishes to both on their journey towards the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Coach's Corner

During her time at the International Gymnastics Camp, our women's artistic national coach Peggy Liddick sat down for a chat with Suri Serano.

She has some interesting insights on the cultural differences between Australian and US environments that she has experienced as a coach, as well as Olympics past and future.

Back In Time To Anaheim

This week marks 10 years since an Australian gymnastics team (or individual) first medalled at a world championship.

Our purple-clad women's lineup pulled off the unthinkable in the team final (technical infractions to an opposing team notwithstanding) and snatched a third place podium finish with 110.335 in front of a parochial California crowd. The Aussie flag was finally out of the box and raised to the rafters. It was sweet redemption after a shaky showing in the qualification round.

Belinda Archer, Jacqui Dunn, Danielle Kelly, Stephanie Moorhouse, Monette Russo, and Allana Slater (honourable mention to an injured Lisa Skinner) completed the four rotations commendably, finishing on beam to book a bronze medal spot while the crowd roared for their home country heroes on floor. Russo would go on to finish right behind Slater in the all-around final's top 13 placegetters, and compete alongside the world's best in the balance beam apparatus final. Two standout routines that cemented the team bronze can be viewed below, Russo's floor and Slater's beam. Solid, solid, solid!

Male artistic gymnast Philippe Rizzo came tantalisingly close to a history-making medal of his own, relegated to fourth in the men's high bar final by an agonising .037!. As we all fondly remember, he would go on to best that in 2006 with the gold he richly deserved. Slater wrote on Facebook today that, "[I] Can still remember the magical moment the score board flashed Australia 3rd!!! And the immediate tears that flowed by everyone on the floor!!!" (and later) "It was sooo loud but it didn't matter because we had trained with every sound effect going at training camp! Peggy prepared us very well for the crowd and the day! Peggy believed in us and we went out there and performed like we knew we could!" Take a bow, ladies.

Aussies to Antwerp

Official word out of the Victorian Men's High Performance Centre is that one member of our 3-strong men's artistic world championship team will be...

Luke Wiwatowski!

Congratulations and best wishes, Luke!

This year Luke Wiwatowski's love of gymnastics will send him to Antwerp, Belgium as a member of the Australian Men’s Team to 2013 World Championships.

Luke fell in love with this sport at a young age, and in turn, it has shown him the world while representing Australia as a gymnast.

Participating in 2013 at the Doha World Cup and following a great result at the 2013 Australian National Championships where he received 2nd AA, 1st on Floor, 1st on HBar and 2nd on PBars he was named to the 3 man team travelling to Switzerland for a training camp and on to Antwerp, Belgium where he will compete for Australia at this year’s World Championships.

In 2012 Luke moved to Melbourne to train at the Victorian Men’s High Performance Centre. “The Victorian Men’s HPC provided me a great opportunity to train in a healthy environment and also gives me a healthy balance between life and gymnastics.”

“The HPC gymnastics program is a large program which caters to gymnasts at all levels. It is a great place to train and develop good friendships with others who are dedicated to the sport.”

We all wish Luke the best and safe journey at Worlds this September!

I will update on the other members of our delegation as I get news.

Update Fri:

Gymnastics Australia confirms today that the other team members will be

Prashanth Sellathurai
Naoya Tsukahara

Congratulations to all three, who will do us proud in Belgium!

2013 Nationals - Videos

Gotta love the fans that deliver!

Check out this youtube channel showing artistic routines, MG and WG!

Here is one with an extensive list of junior and senior WG routines.

Gymnastics Australia have also put up some videos from the different gymsports.

News As It Breaks

DEVELOPING STORY...

In tonight's blue ribbon artistic all-around final for women...

Leydin (Snr) and Eade (Jnr) take top honours as competition comes to a close.

Leydin 51.225 
King Koi 50.875 
Godwin 49.975 
4 Munteanu
5 Brown

Eade 53.875 
Fusha 48.975 
Neate 48.850

(Thanks for the updates Tracy!)

And in the men's senior and Under 18 team event, Queensland takes top honours over Victoria!

Quotes from Liddick and Sachs via the AOC here.

All The Featured Ladies (All The Featured Ladies)

The artistic portion of Nationals 2013 is nigh!

The Australian Olympic Committee has posted a brief update with absentee Lauren Mitchell. Nationals will be our first real indication of whether or not the "keeping the national team at home to up difficulty and consistency" approach will be one that works in our favour.

And we must wish a very Happy 21st Birthday to Queensland superstar Larrissa Miller today!

I'm psyched!

Nationals 2013 - Coverage

Back home from out of town, back into the swing of things.

Thanks for your patience.

Here are some blue-ribbon sites to follow nationals action as it unfolds this week:

Results page
Gymnastics Australia Facebook
Gymnastics Australia twitter
Gymnastics Australia Youtube - some Tumbling videos from the championships are already up
The Couch Gymnast (I believe Brigid was unable to be in attendance this year, but has been putting up some great profile features on individual competitors)
Tracey B's twitter

Gymnasts on twitter (I'm happy to regularly add to this list)
**opinions expressed are wholly those of the individual and not of AGB
Luke Wiwatowski
Olivia Vivian
Blake Gaudry - Re-crowned the national men's senior champion this weekend!


And I'll update anything useful or exciting right here!

Media Morsels

I'm just flinging up the gold flecks as I find them on my daily digs. Mind your shoes.

Gymnastics NSW have some great videos up at their youtube channel. These include montages of their recently-crowned state champions, and footage of their state gymsport teams training for Nationals.

Not to be outdone, Gymnastics Victoria have put up hi-res video of highlights from their recent state championships. Here is part one. And here, they get to have a bit of a giggle in between training. GVTV is pretty smashing, can't wait to see more!

There are two videos I've uncovered (beam, floor) from the recent WAIS Russia tour.

And, to finish, off, I do love a good montage. Here is one for rhythmic Olympian Janine Murray.

Back Yourself A Winner

Gymnastics Australia have a wonderful opportunity for those wanting to stamp their name on the sport of gymnastics.

By taking part in their campaign at Sportaroo with athlete or event sponsorship, you can get up close and personal with the nation's best gymnasts at the upcoming National Championships.

Help awesome athletes be that bit more awesome by knowing you're behind them all the way.

Emma Enchanted

The Couch Gymnast has posted a great catch-up with Emma Nedov off the back of her recent trip to the  Dityatin Cup in Russia.

[...] I feel that even though I have achieved a lot as a junior, I would like to achieve more as a senior. I did have thoughts of quitting when times got tough, but it’s getting through those tough times that makes you a better person and gymnast.

Best wishes to Emma as she prepares for the national championships!

Auction Action

Helping others is great, helping those in our gymfamilies even more so.

Here is an important story out of the Waverley Gymnastics Centre community.

On September 28th 2011, when Amelia was 5 years old, she had an accident where was badly burnt. She suffered third degree burns to 40% of her body. Amelia spent over four months in the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. During this time she underwent more than 20 operations for skin grafting. Whilst in Intensive Care Amelia’s trachea was severely damaged and she had to have a tracheostomy tube inserted into her throat. She still has this today. This means that Amelia has no voice and communicates by making sounds with her mouth. Amelia’s Australian doctors have now referred her to an expert in Switzerland however this surgery will cost $90,000 as well as a further $30,000 in associated costs for this 6 week operation (flights, accommodation and the ongoing follow up medical treatment). 

Amelia’s mum Janie is a coach at Waverley Gymnastics Centre.  To raise money for Amelia, WGC in partnership with Gymnastics Australia and Gymnastics Victoria have created a once-in-a-lifetime eBay auction packed full of unique gymnastics items that could be yours to own! One day of bidding remains on several of the items which are Pretty Darn Cool If You Ask Me!

And they include...

(wait for it.....)
 

1 hour private gymnastics lesson with national women's coach Peggy Liddick!

A personalised floor routine, choreographed by Stacey Umeh!

The scarf worn on the medal dais by Commonwealth Games gold medallist Georgia Bonora!

Signed gymnastics memorabilia from the likes of world champions Lauren Mitchell, Vanessa Ferrari, Chellsie Memmel and Nastia Liukin!


See the item list here, though if that doesn't work just try ebay.com.au and search for Item #221230801427. Click "see more items" to get through to the full list.

Waverley have advised that you can also make a donation per the details below -

Amelia's parents have set up a special bank account for anyone wanting to make a contribution. The details are:

Account name: Amelia Mathilde Ahlstroem
BSB: 063-236
Account number: 1031 3043
For overseas the swift code is: CTBAAU2S

Or at the donation page that can be found here.

Not in Parkville for the AA tonight after all. Apologies.

Quick hits available at the sources listed in my previous post.

Vids from Saturday night going up slowly at youtube.com/user/ausgymblog, there will be a 2013 Victorian Championships playlist.

GV have updated that the women's victors were as follows:

Level 10 Team Champion: MLC
Women's IDP 10 Champion: Emily Whitehead
Junior: Eliza Freeman
Senior: Georgia-Rose Brown

Quick Vic Pic

Last night's session of the Victorian State Gymnastics Championships definitely came with ups and downs.

I spotted world championship team members Mary-anne Monckton and Josh Jefferis in the stands, supporting their squadmates alongside big cheering sections (the biggest were undoubtedly from MLC and Waverley).

I unfortunately didn't watch enough of the men, but it was great to know some names from the last few years - locals and visitors - were back again for another season (including Bacon, Cook, Pocklington and Wadsworth). I did catch one sky-high kovacs on high bar and and Kent Pieretse's huge piked double arabian on floor. Jefferis joked that the HPC boys "survived" pommel, glad to hear it managed not to claim some victims!

I've got to give a 'smile award' to MLC's Meagan Silvers. She had a great personality throughout the competition, I even spotted her dancing as her group rotated to beam!

The vaunted Victorian High Performance Centre girls came unstuck a number of times last night. No gymnast in their lineup hit four for four, but I am sure this will come in time. Current senior AA leader Georgia Rose Brown was ethereal as always, getting through beam competently save for some wobbles and a fall to her back on a double tuck dismount (her pirouettes in Y-scale are jaw-droppingly beautiful) and suffered a fall on bars after hitting a gorgeous shap to geinger. Alex Eade fell multiple times on beam (significantly on the flic-two foot layout series), having done so on bars in the previous rotation, but rocked floor like a veteran with her gigantic double layout opener. Maddie Leydin and Kiara Munteanu also had a mixed night, with the former flubbing bars but dominating beam, and the latter sitting down what was looking to be a powerful double arabian on floor but hitting her exciting Memmel salto on beam.

Tango floor routines were the order of the day, with Eliza Freeman (Waverley) and Christine Bonfadini (Dolphin) particular standouts in terms of presentation.

The NZ visitors had some of the coolest skills of the night on beam -  tiny Christchurchian Charlotte Sullivan powered through a piked back whip. Millie Williamson twisted a nifty back dive into split handstand. And finally, the delightful Mackenzie Slee. She performed a Mitchellesque wolf pirouette into immediate stand and full pirouette. She hit it in warmup but messed come performance time, cleverly covering an accidental heel drop that left her sitting on the beam with a flourish of seated choreography!

There was a lot going on at once last night, and my apologies to those following my livetweets that I had to duck out one rotation early.

For more photos and more detailed results from last night, and for the rest of the competition rounds to come, check out Gymnastics Victoria's Facebook page that is regularly updating live or the official championships results page.


I did film a few routines and will get them onto youtube ASAP! 

Twitches of East Vic

Friendly reminder I'll be live tweeting as much as I can about tomorrow evening's artistic session at the Victorian State Gymnastics Championships.

I am unsure how much I'll be filming, as alongside my video camera I'm bringing along a friend who has never watched live gymnastics before, so I may be preoccupied!

Feel free to tweet, email or post any media you find relating to the event.

Following along at twitter.com/ozgymblog, and you don't have to have a twitter account in order to read the updates (just keep refreshing the page)

Great States

We haven't reached the end of the road to Nationals 2013 just yet - it's time for the on-ramps!

Below is some information about state championship qualifiers, competed and yet to be competed. I am happy to take contributions and corrections to the list as I strive to get it as accurate as I can.

**********************************

New South Wales: Competed, May 16-19.

Full results by discipline here.


Queensland: Competed,

Artistic results here.

I can't seem to load acro or rhythmic .pdfs on my laptop, but search GymQLD's 2013 results listings for results per discipline.


South Australia: Competed, May and June

Men's Artistic results here.
Women's Artistic results here.
TRP here.
Rhythmic TBC? State team trial and two-apparatus comp results here.


Victoria: To Be Competed this weekend and the ensuing week! :)

(Yours truly will be at the Saturday and Monday evening sessions)


Tasmania: Competed, May 18-19

Full results by discipline here.


Western Australia: To Be Competed, June 20-23

State team listing (WAG National Levels, RG, TRP & ACR)
State team listing (MAG and WAG elite)
State team listing (Acro)
State team listing (Rhythmic)
State team listing (TRP)
 
  
Northern Territory: To Be Competed, September 7-8


Australian Capital Territory:

Men's artistic results here
Women's artistic results here
Trampoline/acro TBC?

Cooney's Cool Runnings

You might recall reading recently about former WAIS gymnast Ashley Cooney's literal crash-landing into the winter sport of luge.

ABC News profiled Ashley and her new Olympic journey this week. All the best to Ash as she hurtles towards Sochi!

High Times

GIGANTIC shout-out to special ops agent Ange for attending and reporting on this weekend's Victorian High Performance Centre Invitational.

If you're a member of the WWGym.com forum, you can read her full report in the "Down Under" subforum. A brief selection of her observations on juniors and seniors are below.

Videos are going up here. Please help her ID the gymnasts if you can, she would really appreciate it. Cheers, Ange.

"George Rose Brown looked strong and consistent. She has added a Yurchenko 1.5 (got it round in comp but low and sat down, but looks beautiful with her height). On bars I am pretty sure that the shap is new... Beam looks more confident than Vics and Nationals last year, when I remember that she had been limited with injury. The double tuck dismount is back in..."


"Kiara Munteanu did a DTY (better in warm-ups than comp) plus a front tuck 1/2 on vault with good power and dynamics. I think she had five [bars] release moves including a Tkatchev-Gienger combo! ... A very balanced all-arounder!"


"Alex Eade... has that real "it" factor when she performs. On vault she is currently doing a Yurchenko 1/2-on front layout off (stuck in competition) and a DTY... Bars is a work in progress -- the new skill seems to be the toe-on Shap (I think maybe with a half)... looking forward to seeing where this routine is by Vics... She then went on and did a great beam, excellent series, good connections. Floor -- double layout, 2.5 twist (sat down), 1.5 twist to double tuck or pike (can't remember) and landed very short... This is one tough young lady. 


"Saw Maddi Leydin just on bars, but wow, what amazing potential that routine has. It just keeps going and going with difficult release after difficult release.... Mistake in the middle, but who cares at this stage of the year? So great to see her put all these skills into competition."



"Mary-Anne Monckton was there and doing a great job of coaching the younger gymnasts and encouraging and supporting her senior teammates. I hope we see her back in competition soon."

Eyes on the Prize

Ten News recently caught up with decorated Aussie Lauren Mitchell, who isn't completely ruling out a run for Rio in 2016.

Despite her shoulder injury sustained in 2012,  Lauren can still juggle recuperation, coaching and study!

Skill Thrill

Could the policy of keeping the national team at home to work on skill upgrades really pay off?

We've had our first glimpse of what the women's program is capable of with a camp report out of Canberra. Check out that hit list of new skills!

It's great to see so many new faces, plus some of the old(er) favourites, donning the grips for another year.

Second Chance

Unfortunately, Luke Wiwtowski and Elliott Cook were unsuccessful in their campaigns at the Cottbus Challenge in Germany over the weekend. Neither gymnast made it through to an apparatus final.

But the fantastic news is, they get a second chance THIS week at the Doha Challenge in Qatar!

They'll be joined by none other than pommel pro Prashanth Sellathurai, who has previously medalled at the event!

Good luck, fellas!

UPDATE 10:30pm Wednesday -  I am being told a livestream of the Doha event will be starting in the next hour at this channel?

UPDATE Thursday:

Good results for the guys so far!

Luke qualified 8th to the floor final and 6th to the p-bars final, Prashanth 8th to pommel! Onwards and upwards!

UPDATE Friday: Finals results!
Floor: Wiwatowski, 13.750 (8th)
Parallel: Pending
Pommel: Sellathurai, 14.650 (7th)

Update Sunday: Videos! (Happy Easter!)

Prashanth's Pommel
Luke's Parallel Bars

Cirquin' Staunch Mel Evidence

Ok, so that pun was incredibly tenuous!

After a firecracker four years of killer bars routines, what other Aussie could take Olivia Vivian's title as "Coolest Aussie in NCAA Gymnastics"? Why, Melbourne's Melanie Jones of course!

I'd like to take a moment to shout out this dynamic young lady.

Mel is now a senior, undertaking her last year at Oregon State, meaning her time with the school's gymnastics team is coming to a close. This weekend, they take on the best in their conference at the Pac-12 Championships, thankfully held in OSU's home arena. It is one major stepping stone to qualifying for the end of season National Championships. Last year, Mel managed a commendable fourth in the national floor final, and her progress in this graduating year shows she's well on track to reach the final once more before it's time to say goodbye.

A few weeks ago, Mel finally had the chance to compete in front of her mother and aunts at OSU's tribute night for their senior gymnasts. Her routine is below and, of course, she rocked it.



You might be interested to know Mel's said she's considering a Cirque career when all is said and done. Can't wait to see what tricks she'd bust out at that audition!

MJ for AGB'S MVP 2013!

Congratulations To...

Allana Slater and fiancé Scott Penny who are getting married in Perth today!

We wish them the very best for their new life together.

Wow Factor

Put some "Holy moley!" in your day today, and check out this video of the men's national team training camp in Canberra.

There are some massive skills in development there - check the insane high bar release combos!

Aussie Style

Hope you had the chance to let loose this weekend.

Let the AYOF artistic gymnasts show you how!

Or last year's national rhythmic team!

 Do we have a light-footed rebuttal from the men...?

2013 Dreamlight International Challenge

After some great gymnastics action in Sydney, it's Perth's time to shine!

The Dreamlight Perth International Challenge takes place this weekend (25th and 27th), a tri-meet against New Zealand and South Africa featuring junior international gymnasts.

Sponsored by the acclaimed sportswear company, the event looks to be a super exciting one for spectators of all ages. There will be prizes and a photo booth to have fun with, plus a signature session with current Senior International gymnasts alongside a few of the competitors who have been taking part.

Olivia Vivian will once again play 'roving reporter' at the competition, and the great news is that live quick hits will be available courtesy of Nikky Smith (ex-National Level 10 WA) and Eloise Valli (National Level 10 WA) on the GWA Facebook page for both days of the competition.


If you are still to book tickets, follow the link above. GWA have further information on their page.

AYOF: Breaking

Congratulations Michaela Whitehouse!

AYOF Rhythmic all-around gold!

There have also been more artistic videos uploaded here (incl. Australians).

Update:

Australia's women and men unfortunately finished outside of the medals in both the all-around and event finals today. Disappointing though it is, I am sure this was a big learning curve for all as we trundle along to Rio.

Shout-out to the AA champions this weekend: Tyesha Mattis and Ruoteng Xiao!

Olivia Vivian also met our trampolinists, who unfortunately also finished off the podium in both men's and women's individual finals.

2013 Australian Youth Olympic Festival

What a weekend for gymnastics! What a weekend to be a fan!

There are a number of ways to keep tabs on AYOF gymnastics if you're not in Sydney for the free fun.

Get up to speed on team lineups, venues and daily results at the official event website here.

Videos from artistic competition are going up quick-smart thanks to my old buddy ozgymnast. Check 'em out!(View the "Uploads" tab.)

Rapid-fire results and roundups from all sports can be found at twitter. You'll also find geat insight from around the grounds. The festival has had some pretty famous spectators already!


AYOF official twitter
Gymnastics Australia twitter
The Couch Gymnast twitter


If you're reading this from Sydney, keep an eye out for gymnastics expert and festival roving reporter Olivia Vivian!


Fellow 2008 Olympian Lauren Mitchell showed some wonderful sportsmanship by taking five in camp GB (see below). She is acting as athlete ambassador, and this AYOF release about her role mentions she has "no solid plans to compete this year", but to continue rehabilitating her shoulder.

Photo credit British Gymnastics Facebook

On Friday, Australia's rhythmic and artistic campaigns kicked off in style. The Aussies were triumphant in team rhythmic (Australia fielding two teams, 'Australia 2' finishing 4th), though the artistic men and women settled for a team bronze each; Fuscha-Chan-James-Norman finishing 4th in women's the standings behind medallists Eade-Mizzen-Tarvit-Freeman.

Olivia interviewed some of the competitors, and you can see video of that here.

Brigid McCarthy, dutifully blogging on the ground, wrote up the women's team event here. 

GOLD! Photo credit: Gymnastics Australia

“I thought our whole team did really well. We all pushed up and even if we dropped or anything we still made it,” Wilkie said. “I think (next time) we just have to relax and go out there and fun.”  -- Rhythmic gymnast Tara Wilkie

"Pre-comp pep talk", image courtesy Aus Olympic Committee instagram

Pretty as a picture. Photo credit Getty/Matt King/AOC

Artistic results from today can be found here, while rhythmic's over here and trampoline's here.

An interview with the men's medallists has gone up here.

Trampoline gets underway Saturday with individual and synchro competition being held. The rhythmic gymnasts are vying for individual all-around and apparatus titles, while artistic gymnasts also take the floor for another day, and for individual all-around glory.

I will update ASAP once I can locate a list of apparatus final qualifiers.

Whatever Happened To...

Queensland's Hayley Wright?

In the early part of the new millennium, super-flexy sunshine stater Hayley made a name for herself in the Australian ranks with her gorgeous press to handstand pirouette beam mount and elegant floor choreography. After representing the country commendably in a number of meets held in the USA (that also featured the likes of Monette Russo), it was a shame to see her injured and retired before really hitting the big time.

You'll be pleased to know Hayley is still at it to this day, currently working with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas as she has since 2009, with some modelling in the mix, too.

image credit: ModelMayhem.com

It's great to see that, be it some high-flying hoop and bar work or a simple onodi sequence on sand, Hayley can still wow a crowd!

Junior-ary

Happy 2013!

Two exciting events are coming up in Aussie gymnastics. See the stars of the future in action!

In Sydney, the Australian Youth Olympic Festival that launched names like Chloe Sims, Dasha Joura and even champion diver Matthew Mitcham onto the world stage, takes place on January 16. Australia has some dynamites in the lineups, which you can see here.

In WA, the Dreamlight Perth International Challenge kicks off on January 25th showcasing the best junior gymnasts from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. A great promotional video on the Aussie team by Gymnastics WA has gone up here.


Stay tuned for news, notes and results!