Olympic training gyms unveiled.

Thanks to Full Twist for linking this. Equipment provider Gymnova has unveiled their MASSIVE olympic training gym for the olympic games. There seems to be 3 or 4 or 5 of everything all in one big space! It's a very impressive facility although I wonder how frantic it will be when filled with athletes and how easy it will be to maintain temperature etc in such a large space.

It doesn't say where exactly the facility is but it will likely be a short distance from the North Greenwich (O2) arena. At the 2009 worlds the training venue was the David Beckham Football Acedemy.

Any gymnasts out there, would this be your dream or nightmare training space?

More photos here. 

Team GB Gymnastics Announcement: Wednesday 1pm

Unfortunately I'm going to be in a seminar at 1pm tomorrow, so here is the link to the British Gymnastics page where it will be announced and also to the live video announcement.

The GB gymnastics olympics teams will be announced Wednesday at 1pm GMT.

Good luck to all the gymnasts in the mix!

Return of the Queen: Yu-Na Kim targets Sochi

Great news for figure skating fans. World and Olympic champion Yu-Na Kim has announced she is going to make a shot at another olympics. 

Kim raised the bar and smashed records in Vancouver, but her overwhelming fame in South Korea and across the world led her to take some time away from the spotlight after the games.

At a press conference in Seoul Kim had this to say, (source: Korea Real Time)


“I skipped last season and had a lot on my mind about my career, even until last week,” she said, “I had trouble finding my next goal after winning a gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics but the interest of the public and my fans in me got even bigger.”

“I wanted to get away from the pressure, even for a single day,” she confessed.

“I always thought the Vancouver Olympics would be my last destination, but I’m extending it to Sochi……I want to start anew, not as an Olympic medalist but just as yet another figure skater,

This is great news for a sport which has lacked some star power since the absence of Queen Yu-Na.

USA vs the world.

Unless you've been living under a rock, it's pretty unlikely you missed the announcement of the USA's olympic gymnastics teams yesterday.

Men's team: 
Danell Leyva, John Orozco, Jonathan Horton, Sam Makulak, Jake Dalton
Men's Alternates:
Chris Brooks, Stephen Legendre, Alex Naddour
Women's team: 
Gabrielle Douglas, Jordyn Wieber, Alexandra Raisman, Kyla Ross, McKayla Maroney
Women's alternates:
Elizabeth Price, Anna Li, Sarah Finnegan.

There were few surprises on either side, most bloggers and readers picked the ten team members back even before Visa Championships. It was pretty clear who the favourites were as long as they hit respectably.

Marta has played it smart with the ladies alternates too, picking a specialist on each of the events, able to fill a team final spot if one of the favourites goes down (Price: Vault, Li: Bars, Finnegan: Beam and floor).

The USA are the definite favourites (at least on the strength of numbers) for the women's team, all around and vault golds and also have definite medal contenders on the other events too: bring it on world!

Also definitely worth a mention in this olympic focussed post. Germany's matriarch of gymnastics, Oksana Chusovitina has been named to her SIXTH olympic team! She will compete in London 20 years after she won gold with the unified soviet team in 1992 in Barcelona. She should at least be able to make Maroney work for her vault gold!

German Men's olympic team 
Fabian Hambuchan, Philipp Boy, Marcel Nguyen, Sebastian Krimmer, Andreas, Toba. Alternate: Thomas Taranu
German Women's olympic team 
Elisabeth Seitz, Nadine Jarosch, Oksana Chusovitina, Kim Bui, Janine Berger. Alternate: Lisa Katerina Hill.

Here we go!

The USA olympic trials are well underway in San Jose, California. I'm going to leave the reporting of that to our American brethren and stick to commentry after the fact.

Also this weekend the German olympic trials take place on Saturday. Final confirmation of the olympic teams from Russia, China and Romania are still in the works. The GB team will be named on July 4th (Wednesday)

Congratulations to the ladies of the Canadian olympic gymnastics team, announced today.
Kristina Vaculik
Victoria Moors
Dominique Pegg
Brittany Rogers
Ellie Black

Alternates: Jessica Savona, Maddie Gardiner
and honorary team captain: Peng Peng Lee!

Australia names olympic gymnastics team.

The Australian women's gymnastics team for London 2012 has been announced as:

Lauren Mitchell
Georgia Bonora
Ashleigh Brennan
Larissa Miller
Emily Little

Reserve 1: Georgia Rose Brown
Reserve 2: Mary Anne Monckton

Read analysis of the team announcement over at The Couch Gymnast.

China names olympic gymnastics teams

According to this chinese new story posted on youtube (and no, I don't understand chinese, I'm trusting the translation of the host), the chinese team for london 2012 has been announced as:

MAG Zou Kai, Chen Yibing, Zhang Chenglong,Teng Haibin, Feng Zei.Alternate Guo Weiyang, Yan Mingyong

WAG Yao Jinnan, Sui Lu, Huang Qiushuang, Deng Linlin.
fifth member : one of the three He Kexin, Jiang Yuyuan, Tan Sixin


The story also reports that Huang Quishang landed an amanar vault at the final trial. China means business!

It's great to see Deng Linlin make the team for a second olympics. She won the recent chinese championships but there was still  some doubt whether she would be picked. Everyone will have their own opinions about who the 5th member will be. Leave your comments below :-)