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: