A Little Love for Liz

Perth WAG coach and Voice of All That is Worldly And Good, Liz Chetkovich, gets a small mention in the publication All Piss and Wind which is probably best described as an almanac of sports commentary in Australia, currently available in most good bookshops. Former co-commentator Sandy Roberts, whom we most recently remember taking the mike at the 2005 World Championships, commends her for her informative style, not to mention her efforts in a sport that is relatively unrecognised in this country.

So there ya go. Some kudos where it's due!

Parades A-Plenty

A few photos have surfaced of our Olympic gymnasts at Welcome Home parades in their home states. I'll bet they had a wonderful time.

Conflict of Interest Much?

Hm... this could yield some interesting results.

Great Britain's Kayleigh Cooke has joined the ranks of the WAIS, alongside Dasha Joura and Lauren Mitchell, as her family has left Britain for a big move to the West. But for the moment, she's stuck playing the waiting game...

Thanks to special agent Riss for the article heads-up:

WAIS has gained the services of another high calibre gymnast, with international Kayleigh Cooke migrating to Australia from Britain.

The 17 year old is waiting to hear how long it will take her to become eligible to represent Australia after travelling to Beijing as Olympic reserve of the British womens artistic team.

Cooke has competed for Britain in World Cup and European competition but has never represented her birth country at the Olympics and world championships, which would have held back her chances of representing Australia.

The Cooke family were granted Australian residence late last year but Kayleigh and her father remained in England to enable her to pursue her Olympic dream.

She spent some time with her mother in Perth in December, during which time she trained alongside Dasha Joura, Lauren Mitchell and Olivia Vivian at WAIS.

But with her Olympic campaign now out of the way the family have been reunited and she is ready to settle into a new routine training alongside her new WAIS teammates.

WAIS head of gymnastics Liz Chetkovich said Cooke ould be a great addition to the program.

"We beat Britain at the Olympics with our sixth place in the team competition, but they beat us at the last World Championships," Chetkovich said.

"Cooke's skills are on par with Joura on the floor and she is Australia's best on that apparatus, and is as strong as Mitchell with her vaulting."

Chetkovich said there was some chance Cooke might be available to represent Australia at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and the 2012 London Olympics, but that would depend on international eligibility rules and meeting citizenship criteria.

Australia's Olympic team of six included three West Australians- Joura, who was born in Russia, Mitchell and Vivian, an uneven bars specialist.

2010 Commonwealth Games will probably be really tough emotion-wise (not to mention Worlds next year, if she manages to get the ok to represent Australia, IN her former home country and competing AGAINST her former home country! And let's not forget the 2012 Olympics!) but I'm sure she has received a very enthusiastic welcome up in Perth regardless. Dasha, at the very least, can help her adjust to new surrounds because she knows what it's like!

Give it Up For Dangerous Dave

Just want to give a little shout-out to an old mate of mine. A fellow who, truly, can be considered a one-man team.


David Morris, originally of Park Orchards here in Melbourne, is currently the only male in the Olympic aerial skiing program (and the first in about 10 years). He has several medals to his name (including one from a recent World up) and he is aiming for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games after a career in gymnastics, both competing and coaching at the Nunawading Gymnastics and Sports Club. Dave spearheaded the men's team that, on a lot of occasions, could be seen as playing second-fiddle to the growing women's team. But you can't say he didn't stand out on his own in spite of that. He was renowned for his twists and flips, and was never far from the tumbling mat, vault runway or double-mini-tramp. He was never afraid and never backed down from a challenge. I can recall myself yelling "Nooo!" on more than one occasion, as he did a Make-'Em-Laugh-sequence-of-Singin-in-the-Rain-style run and flip up a wall, or attempted a flip with a ridiculous number of twists over a stack of spotting boxes.

Away from the acrobatics, I know Dave to be a lovely person. He is always positive, joking and genuine. Dave has a very encouraging family as well, all nice people, and I'm sure they'll be cheering for him like crazy if (nay, WHEN) his big chance comes in two years' time. Dave is living proof that you can achieve the very best if you work hard, and that gymnastics is a fantastic foundation for any sport. It doesn't all end for you if you choose to walk away from the mat.

So get behind the one-man aerial skiing team and give a cheer for 'Dangerous Dave'!

It's Not a One-Woman Team But...

Some people requested Dasha's routines from The-You-Know-What-Competition-in-You-Know-Where.

So here is "Part 1" with most of the walking-around-packing-her-bag-waiting-for-score stuff cut out because it constituted the bulk of the coverage and is pretty dull to sit through!

Here is "Part 2", containing her beam routine (don't watch if you're easily heart-broken, depressed or inclined to hug people in need, even if they're total strangers) and Yum Cha interview with one of the Daddo brothers that isn't the one that hosted the pirate show... Sleepy? Dopey? I 'unno, those things are as rampant as Weasley children...

Take a Ride in the LeoTARDIS

Inspired by The Couch Gymnast's entertaining last entry, I felt compelled (read, 'short of anything more worthwhile to do') to knock up a fashion-timeline entry of my own.

Australia has had its fair share of good, bad, and particularly ugly leotards that we have celebrated and spurned as our gymnastics program has flourished at home and overseas. Here are just a few memorable (and some rather forgettable) pieces from the Team Australia wardrobe.

1988: Trudi Nurse sports a leotard that (thankfully) we didn't see a great deal of in the future. It's the kind of leotard my mum would compliment with the same remark she made the time I dyed my hair a vibrant red some years ago. "Er...it's a bit bright!"

1992: Nuthin' says style like a coloured animal on yer bodice, Julie-Anne Monico...

1996: ...Just ask Ruth Moniz.


1995: The usually divine Zeena makes a slight fashion faux pas.


1998: Trudy and the team won the Commonwealth Games title in a vibrant pink
'genie smoke' leotard. And so the reign of pink began.


1999: You'd be annoyed, too, if you had to wear pink lycra all the time.

1999: A slight deviation from the pink - purple!


2001: One of my favourites, a simple blue number for the Worlds team.


2002: Not everyone could pull off black the way Miss Slater could.


2002: Another pink-clad Commonwealth Games team (but, to their credit, they did have a green leo for the final!)


2003: Monette made the Worlds beam final in a design that could best be described as 'Barbie Campervan'.

2004: By this point, we didn't know if it was P-Liddy or the girls enforcing the excessive amounts of pink and purple. Purple also featured (with black) in the All-Around final leotard on Allana and Steph Moorhouse. For the team final, once again, the girls cracked out some green.

2005: Where the interesting combination of pink-on-purple/dark blue debuted...


2006: ...And unfortunately warranted a reappearance.


2006: The Melbourne Commonwealth Games came and went with strains of green-and-gold patriotism and, of course, more pink and purple.

2007-present. Unique newer additions to the Australian wardrobe have included red with diamantes, purple-ribbon-on-white, black-ribbon-on-white and blue-waves-on-white. But the green-and-gold CWG leotard proved quite popular with the crowds and with gymfans, so it was adapted (and adopted!) for members of the national squad. We have since seen green and gold at national competitions, World Cup competitons and, most recently, the Beijing Olympics.

Gym News Nuggets

So what's the 'haps' with the Olympic team, you may ask? Well:

- It's already been said that the Victorian girls were at the athlete 'welcome home' parade earlier today.
- Over the weekend, Shona and Georgia presented medals at the Waverley Invitational and, along with Emma Dennis, they have a month of cross-training to look forward to with various clubmates.
- Dasha and Lauren also did some medal presenting of their own, at the International Levels Challenge up in Perth. They also cheered on fellow WA competitors who participated in the Australian levels teams.
- And, as we've established, Olivia is starting her training with Oregon's NCAA gymnastics team.

I can bet the girls are grateful for any time they can get that isn't spent in a competition leo or a trackie. Best of luck to all of them as one competition season winds down and another starts up.


I also came across some interesting shots of the Beijing team that you may not have seen before...

The first lot (badly re-sized and edited by me in Paint, sorry) are from when the team was first named in Canberra. Olivia and Ash look lovely and sunny, sadly the others look a bit bored, or like they're attempting wistful glances (with not much success). I love these girls but hate that they get asked to adopt poncey poses!


And the following are from Beijing...


(thank heavens that was just a vault drill!)

Enh.

No athlete parade for me. I'm as sick as a dog.

:(

The last thing I want is to infect anybody, especially our athletes, so it's best I keep at a distance from...well, everyone really. Timing: it's a foul mistress. I remember was sick at the 2005 Australia vs China event as well so I never got to get near the front of the crowd after the event and take photos of the gymnasts with their fans. *sigh*

Whoever does manage to attend today and fend off a million screaming children to get near the front, do please give a big extra wave to our gym girlies fom yours truly. I welcome any photos or reports from the event.

ETA: Channel 7 broadcasted the event, I caught some as I came home from the doctor's office. I spotted Ashleigh and Shona standing with the other athletes in Fed Square; if Georgia was there next to them, she would have been just out of frame.