gymn Digest                 Fri,  8 Jul 94       Volume 2 : Issue 145

Today's Topics:
                            Gymn Poll #3?
                               Lysenko
                              Pam Titus
                   PLEASE READ - KAZAKHSTAN ANTHEM
                       Russian sports newspaper
               Sokol Gymnastics Returns After 46 Years
                Trivia Questions - #17 Original Moves
                      USOF '94: general AA notes
                      USOF '94: men's AA results
                USOF '94: men's team and AA (complete)
                       Worlds qualifier results
                    Yurchenko 1/2 cum Hristikeiva
                      Yurchenko 1/2 front vault

This is a digest of the gymn@athena.mit.edu mailing list. 

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Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 20:13:49 -0500 (CDT)
From: <***@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: Gymn Poll #3?

I've gotten only 15 responses so far to Gymn Poll #3.  I'd like more.
If you have an opinion on TV coverage or compulsories, email me and I
will send you another copy of the poll.

Rachele

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Date: Thu, 7 Jul 94 17:39:04 EDT
From: <***@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Lysenko

I'm just adding my voice to those who believe Tatiana Lysenko has retired. When
I was in Brisbane I heard from someone (who had presumably talked to Tatiana)
that the only reason she even competed there was because she had never been to
Australia before and wanted to see it! Sadly, she did not have a good
performance there, so if she had had thoughts of retiring before, Brisbane
probably sealed her decision. She's one of my very favorite gymnasts, so I'll
really miss her. But maybe she'll reappear. I thought Kalinina had retired,
since she'd disappeared for so long, But now she's back. So we can always hope.

Beth

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 18:43:06 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Pam Titus

Proof of what a standout gymnast Pam Titus was: After Alabama won nationals
in 1991 in Tuscaloosa, Tide coach Sarah Patterson was on a local radio show
called "Tide Talk."  Keep in mind that this show  only reaches as far as
Birmingham, so it can be assumed that most callers are decidedly biased in
favor of UA. Also, most of the callers seem only to be concerned with the
football team and are not gymnastics-educated. AND, this was about two weeks
AFTER Nationals. Nevertheless, of the maybe six calls Patterson took, three
were about FLORIDA'S Pam Titus, the first to  the effect of "Why in the world
didn't
she win? " Patterson explained about how her routine was not scored out of a
ten, and the next caller said, "Well, she should of won anyway, 'cause she
was the most impressive." THe discussion went on, but I don't think
Patterson could have convinced anyone not familiar with gymnastics that Pam
should not have won.  WHat a great gymnast.    

Amanda

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 23:50:13 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: PLEASE READ - KAZAKHSTAN ANTHEM

I know this is crazy, but I figured it's worth a shot.  We're having the
Puerto Rico Cup tomorrow and Saturday, and the delegation from Kazakhstan
forgot their anthem at home.  We're trying to find one here, but I doubt
we'll be able to dig one up, and tomorrow we're going to try Washington and
that sort of thing, but if anyone out there happens to have it, I'd be plenty
happy to pay what it costs to copy it and FedEx it here (well, at least if
it's coming from the States.  I think international may be too much $).  I
know it won't make it by tomorrow, but Saturday is event finals, and we may
need it a lot more then.  If you can do this, please call me at (809)
789-5980 or tomorrow morning at (809) 759-8000 ext. 3670 or 3505 (we're on
Eastern Daylight Time here).

Thanks!

Adriana

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Date: Thu, 7 Jul 94 17:52:27 EDT
From: <***@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Russian sports newspaper

     For any wealthy Russian-reading people out there, I thought I'd pass on
the info that you can get a subsription to "Sovetsky Sport" from a place called
Eastview Publications in Minnesota. The e-mail address is
eastview@skypoint.com, and the cost is a mere... $199. The paper is
theoretically a daily, but no Russian paper publishes 7 days a week, so you
probably end up with 5 issues a week on average. My office subscribed for
several years, and the paper has pretty decent gymnastics coverage, with
interviews and photos (b/w) of current and former stars. We stopped subscribing
this year, but I decided to splurge today and get a personal subscription. Back
issues to January are available, Eastview told me, so coverage of Brisbane can
still be obtained (and Europeans and domestic Russian meets, etc.) I'm sure the
paper will have good coverage of Goodwill Games! It mainly deals with Russian
sports, but will sometimes mention Ukraine and Belarus. I think it's pretty
funny that the paper still calls itself "Soviet Sports" when the Soviet Union
hasn't existed for 2 1/2 years! Either the editors haven't noticed or they're
suffering from a severe lack of creativity... When my papers start
arriving, I'll post any interesting news on the ex-Sovs.

Beth

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 19:22:20 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Sokol Gymnastics Returns After 46 Years

Excerpts from a long article (actually 2 long articles) that Ifound
interesting...but then again I've been reading old "IG"s for the last 6
months and the slets were always heavily covered.I cut most of the cultural
and nationalism that the Czech's think play into the Sokol comcept as well.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994           
SECTION: NEWS                                          
SOURCE: By Steve Mills, Tribune Staff Writer.

                    SOKOL'S TIES RUN DEEP IN CHICAGO AREA

   Four generations of Rus Zitny's family have made the gymnastics and
calisthenics, as well as the culture, of the Czech Sokol movement a big part
of their lives.
   Zitny's grandfather helped start a chapter of the American Sokol
Organization, the movement's Berwyn-based U.S. arm, in the 1940s, and his
father led the group in the 1980s. Zitny and his brother grew up in the
organization, and Zitny has passed on his involvement to his two children.
   "It's been a way of life for all of us," said Zitny, a 38-year-old
marketing and sales director for a wireless data software company in
Westmont, on Wednesday.
   So it was that his parents traveled to Prague for the first mass
gathering, or Slet, of the group in nearly a half-century. His father, Roy
Zitny, of Westmont, has been busy the last year teaching the drills-which are
set to music and performed in colorful uniforms-to more than 200 Chicago-area
people who made the journey.
   Nationwide, Sokol membership is about 7,000.
   "Many of our members are quite old, but they really wanted to go," said
June Pros of Berwyn, the group's financial secretary. "The freedom now means
so much. It's a very emotional trip for some of them."
   Sokol members in the Chicago area participate in local Slets every year.
Their involvement in the movement, though, runs deeper, with the Sokol a knot
holding the Czech community together.

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994                           
SOURCE: By David Rocks, Special to the Tribune.
DATELINE: PRAGUE, Czech Republic

  CZECH SOKOLS, ONCE BANNED BY COMMUNISTS, HAIL THEIR REBIRTH

   Majka Chroustova acknowledges that by the time some people reach age 70,
they might feel a little too old to march into the world's largest stadium
with thousands of others and do gymnastics.
   "The only way I wouldn't have come today is if I were dead," said
Chroustova, one of some 22,000 participants this week in the first mass
meeting of the Sokol athletic club in 46 years.
   The Sokol club-a Czech nationalist athletic and gymnastic organization-was
banned by Czechoslovakia's Communists after they seized power in 1948. Since
communism fell here nearly five years ago, the Sokol ideal has again
flourished-often with the help of foreign Sokol groups formed by Czech
emigres and exiles.
   Sokol ("falcon" in Czech) was formed in 1862 to raise the consciousness of
Czechs as a nation at a time when their lands were still part of the Hapsburg
Empire. Sokol's founders believed the nation couldn't survive without a
physically, mentally and morally fit population-and the way to achieve this
was through sports, especially gymnastics and calisthenics.
   By 1938, the group's last mass meeting before World War II, Sokol had
swelled to more than a million members in Czechoslovakia and thousands more
abroad.
   When Germany occupied the country, the Nazis banned the movement because
of its ties to Czech nationalism. Sokol was revived in 1945, only to be
outlawed again in 1948 by the Communists
    While Sokol has long been a training ground for many top gymnasts and
other athletes, the emphasis at the mass meetings is on participation rather
than competition.
      Sokols ranging in age from pre-school to retirement have taken to the
field to march in rows and columns, form squares, circles, diamonds and
triangles, and do mass calisthenics and gymnastics for thousands of
spectators.
   The elderly were evident en masse at this week's events, but many young
people seem to prefer MTV to mass calisthenics, ripped jeans to the elaborate
Sokol costumes, and beer-drinking to group gymnastics.
   "Sokol has to find a new mission. We have to fulfill the needs of today's
youth," said Stanislav Doutlik, who heads the Czech Sokol organization. "We
can't just dictate that we have to do this sort or that sort of calisthenics.
We have to give them things that interest them."
   To that end, the group has added new disciplines such as rock dancing,
karate and judo to its traditional menu of gymnastics and calisthenics.
  

Posted by Susan

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 23:21:38 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Trivia Questions - #17 Original Moves

First, I'd like to thank Sherwin, Marcus, Susan, and  Karen for the great
questions here!

1.  Who was the first lady to perform in competition the triple back dismount
from uneven bars?  In what meet did this happen?

2.  Who was the first person to compete one arm giant swings?  At what meet
did this happen?

3.  Who was the first woman to perform a double front off UB?

4.  In what meet did Natalia Yurchenko first compete her namesake vault?

5.  Name the first person to compete a double twisting Yurchenko?  At what
meet?

6.  What is the (Marcia) Frederick?

7.  What move on UB is listed in the Code as a 'Fabrichnova' ?

8.  Who was the first person to connect release moves?  What moves?

9.  What new move did Tatiana Groshkova introduce at the 1990 Europeans?

10.  What two new women's BB moves were introduced by members of medal
winning teams at the 1991 World Championships?

I'll post answers in a day or two!

Mara

PS  Btw, after all the hemming and hawing, the kitty's name is the hardly
gymnastic Jonathan

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Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:47:46 -0500 (CDT)
From: <***@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: USOF '94: general AA notes

CBS will be televising the USOF at 4pm EST on Saturday.

More men's stuff:

Bo Haun didn't know he'd won the gold until his name was called at the
medal ceremony.  "It was pretty strange because I know that Bill Roth,
Steve McCain and Mihai Bagiu are better gymnasts than me. But I went
in trying to hit six events, and I hit six."

Roth: "I can't swing when my hands are like this [putting his hands
around his neck]. I think I let it (the crowd) get to me.  That's the
reason right there."

Women's:

Larissa Fontaine has withdrawn from the competition (I don't know
why.)

Listed favorites are Doni Thompson, Summer Reid, and Kellee Davis.

Dominique Moceanu withdrew; Andree Pickens of Cypress will now compete
(thanks to Kaitie Dyson for that info).

Notes on Kellee Davis from an AP story on her (like the one on Mihai):

She turns 16 later this month.

A typical Davis day: wake up at 6:15, be at school by 7:40, done at
2:40, at the gym from 3:30 to 9:30, at home by 10 to eat, do homework,
sleep, and get up the next morning again.

"I just keep pushing myself to keep on doing it... I think that I've
been in it so long, and I want to get a college scholarship."

Davis became a gymnast through a YMCA program in New York that combined
gymnastics with swimming.  She concentrated on gymnastics at age 9, and then soon moved to a private gym for more intense training.

Her mother, Dianna, just moved to Florida (Davis had been living with
coaches Toni and Tim Rand).  Her father, Wendell, will be leaving his
job in NYC to join the family in FL.

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Date: Thu, 7 Jul 1994 23:35:57 -0500 (CDT)
From: <***@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: USOF '94: men's AA results

US Olympic Festival
St. Louis, MO
Men's AA

1. Bo Haun (Univ of Minnesota) 56.75  [9.65 on HB]
2. Bill Roth (Temple) 56.70
3. Steve McCain (UCLA) 56.675
|
8. Mihai Bagiu (Gold Cup)

Notes from the AP story:

Haun: "One of the things I wanted to try and do is be consistent. I
try to do the best I can, but I think I can do six (events) in a row."

McCain had the lead going into the last rotation but had a poor rings
(8.7).

Roth said he knew Haun had hit high bar by the crowd's cheers in the
middle of his PH routine, and that's when he fell off the horse.  He
scored an 8.8.  Roth won 5 golds in the 1990 Festival, but sat out
1991 and 1992 with surgeries -- two on his "ruptured patellar tendon"
and ACL and a third surgery on a torn tendon in his left shoulder.
Roth said: "I've come to realize that every meet I walk in and out of
and come through ... is like icing on the cake."

Bagiu fell on vault and parallel bars to fall to ninth after leading
the competition after the first three rounds.  He then got a 9.8 on
high bar (?!) to move up to 8th.

Rachele

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Date: Fri, 8 Jul 1994 08:30:42 -0500 (CDT)
From: <***@owlnet.rice.edu>
Subject: USOF '94: men's team and AA (complete)

>From the ever trusty AP wire:

US Olympic Festival, St. Louis, MO

Team

1, South (Jeff Lutz, Fort Worth, Texas; Rob Kieffer, Austin, Texas;
Jay Thornton, Austin, Texas; Dan Ryssman, Reno, Nev.; Sanjuan Jones,
Tallahassee, Fla.; Jamie Natalie, Hockessin, Del.), 276.225.

2, East (Bill Roth, Mohegan Lake, N.Y.; Garry Denk, Iowa City, Iowa;
Spencer Slaton, Atlanta; Tim Dalrymple, Tracy, Calif.; Craig Nesbitt,
Springfield, Mo.; Lindsey Fang, Allentown, Pa.), 274.925.

3, North (Steve McCain, Houston; John MacReady, San Diego, Larry
Johns, Tulsa, Okla.; Josh Birckelbaw, Elk Grove, Calif.; Guard Young,
Oklahoma City; Scott Finkelstein, Allentown, Pa.), 271.525.

4, West (Mihai Bagiu, Albuquerque; Bo Huan, Springfield, Mo.; Mike
Dutka, Fairless Hills, Pa.; Kendall Schiese, Sandy, Utah; Jason Furr,
Woodbridge, Va.; Carey Reddick, Paragould, Ark.), 270.500.

All-Around

1, Bob Haun (West), Springfield, Mo., 56.750
2, Bill Roth (East), Mohegan Lake, N.Y., 56.700
3, Steve McCain (North), Houston, 56.675
4, Jeff Lutz (South), Fort Worth, Texas, 56.375
5, Jay Thornton (South), Augusta, Ga., 56.050
6, Garry Denk (East), Iowa City, Iowa, 56.025
7, Rob Kieffer (South), Austin, Texas, 55.850
8, Mihai Bigau (West), Albuquerque, 55.300
9, Larry Johns (North), Tulsa, Okla., 55.050
10, Spencer Slaton (East), Atlanta, 54.450
11, Sanjuan Jones (South), Tallahassee, Fla., 54.450
12, Mike Dutka (West), Fairless Hills, Pa., 53.850
13, Lindsey Fang (East), Allentown, Pa., 53.800
14, Josh Birckelbaw (North), Elk Grove, Calif., 53.700
?. Dan Ryssman (South), Reno, Nev., 52.550
17, Scott Finkelstein (North),llentown, Pa., 52.200
18, John MacReady (North), San Diego, 52.150
19, Kendall Schiesse (West), Snady, Utah, 51.900
20, Jamie Natalie (South), Hockessin, Del., 51.850
21, Gaurd Young (North), Oklahoma City, 51.550
22, Carey Reedick (West), Paragould, Ark., 51.100
23, Craig Nesbitt (East), Springfield, Mo., 50.850
24, Jason Furr (West), Woodbridge, Va., 49.600

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 23:51:10 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Worlds qualifier results

Results from the Worlds qualifier:

1.  Cuba  533.90
2.  Canada  514.80
3.  Puerto Rico  505.15
4.  Argentina  500.60
5.  Mexico  489.95

The difference between teams was much greater in the compulsory scores -- a
30-point spread from first to fifth as opposed to a 14-point spread in
optionals. At 270.05, Cuba just barely managed a 9.0 average in compulsories.

1.  Eric Lopez  CUB  108.75 (only one to average 9.0+)
2.  Sinayski Nunez  CUB  107.15 (defected yesterday)
3.  Luis Enrique Nunez  CUB  105.600
4.  Lazaro Lamela  CUB  105.40
5.  Damian Merino  CUB  104.30 (includes a 6.0 HB disaster)
6.  Richard Ikeda  CAN  103.55
7.  Jason Papp  CAN  103.20
8.  Eduardo Haro  MEX  102.85
9.  Victor Colon  PUR  102.45
10.  Darren Bersuk  CAN  102.00
11.  Isidro Ibarrondo  ARG  101.65
12.  Pedro Tort  PUR  100.90
13.  Jason Hardabura  CAN  100.85
14.  Marcelo Palacio ARG  100.60
15.  Diego Lizardi  PUR  100.05

I guess that's plenty for general consumption.  Of course there's more; if
anyone is interested in further detail, email me.

Adriana

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Date: Fri, 08 Jul 94 02:03:51 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Yurchenko 1/2 cum Hristikeiva

It is a Hristikeiva a la Snejana and I think that the '92 Olympics was the
meet that named it after her though I didn't see her vault so who knows.

Susan

BTW, isn't Snejana Hristikieva the coolest name?????

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Date: Thu, 07 Jul 94 23:21:27 EDT
From: ***@aol.com
Subject: Yurchenko 1/2 front vault

An interesting tidbit from a '94 Euros tape I'm now watching (thank you
*very* much - you know who you are).  The Eurosport commentator says the
newly common Yurchenko 1/2-front vault is called a "Hristakieva' in the Code
(I assume after Snejana).  Can anyone confirm this?  It would be nice if it
was called this, so we can all stop saying 'Yurchenko 1/2 front' ad
nauseum...

Mara

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End of gymn Digest
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