Monday, January 30, 2012

Australia WAG Teams Update!

This weekend saw the trial not just for the Pacific Rim 2012 team, but the juniors and seniors heading to Gymnix in Canada as well.


GA have updated the following assignments, congratulations to all our gymnastics representatives:


Pacific Rim team: (Everett, USA)
Senior: Lauren Mitchell
Emily Little
Georgia Simpson
Reserve: Georgia-Rose Brown

Junior: Alexandra Eade
Madelaine Leydin
Jazminne Casis
Reserve: Georgia Godwin


Gymnix team: (Montreal, CAN)


Senior: Lauren Mitchell

Emily Little

Georgia Simpson

Georgia-Rose Brown

Georgia Wheeler

Nickola Chung

Ashleigh Brennan
Mary-Anne Monckton
Larrissa Miller

Junior: Alexandra Eade
Madelaine Leydin
Jazminne Casis



American World Cup: (All Around competition)

Georgia Simpson




The VWHPC has photos of their gymnasts up at Facebook.

You can also read about the WA girls (lovely pic!) in a new article here.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Aussie NCAA Head-To-Head

Aah, it's good to be home, and even better to be home to gym news!

In an interesting match-up over the weekend, collegiate Aussies Mel Jones and Olivia Vivian (Oregon State) took on conference rivals Stanford, where one of their stalwarts is fellow Beijing 2008 squadder Shona Morgan.

Competing in front of a home crowd, OSU came out on top, with Olivia scoring an awesome 9.925 on bars. More great reviews are flooding in for Mel's floor (I still haven't seen video of it?) while Shona competing without major error on beam and floor. I do so love her choreo!

(ETA: If you would like to watch an archived stream of the meet, go here.)

Thursday, January 26, 2012

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!

I'll be in Sydney over the weekend.

Have an ace one.

:D

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Dude! Dude.

BREAKING NEWS

Superstar newbie Georgia Simpson will compete at the 2012 American Cup!


The lineup has been announced by USA Gymnastics. It will be held at Madison Square Garden on March 3rd.

In other happy news, our national women's coach Peggy Liddick will tomorrow officially become an Australian citizen. She appeared on Adam Spencer's breakfast radio show in Sydney earlier this morning to talk about it. Happy Australia Day, boss!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

And Then There Were Two

It can't be easy battling with your best mate for the one chance at realising a dream.

Read more about Josh Jefferis' experiences on the road to London here.


Monday, January 23, 2012

Got To Dance

Check out this nice news feature on national team choreographer (AND TOTES MY SECOND BEST FRIEND BECAUSE WE'VE MET IN PERSON AND EVERYTHING LOLZ) Stacey Umeh, training young gymnasts at the Central Coast Gymnastics Academy. She has some lovely things to say about Lauren Mitchell.


Sunday, January 22, 2012

Sam Offord Update

The Herald Sun online is running a short piece on Sam Offord, detailing his injury sustained at the Waveney club friendly.

We wish him the best for a speedy recovery.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Camp As

The Victorian Women's High Performance Centre is putting up photos from camp at their Facebook page! Hurrah!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Collegiate Aussies Back in the Game

NCAA Gymnastics has kicked off for 2012, and Aussies were right there in the lineup.

At Oregon State, Olivia Vivian and Mel Jones (the latter now competing all-around for the first time at the school) helped the Beavers to victory over Oklahoma. Check out Olivia's new floor below. After an Iron Man routine in her second year, and a cheeky hat-tip to Burlesque last year... should we call this one Three Musketeers?




Meanwhile, over at Stanford, Victorian expat Shona Morgan also saw victory with her team, scoring a 9.725 on both bars and beam to help the Cardinals best three rival schools. She also scored a 9.500 on floor. (image courtesy Stanford Women's Gymnastics at Facebook)




In the hallowed halls of George Washington University, Monique Blount's team managed a commendable second overall at their season opener, despite being homeground hosts of the competition.


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Happy Birthday To...

Olympian and Commonwealth Games medallist Ashleigh Brennan, who turns 21 today!

Since her first big national team assignment in 2006, Ash has grown into an elegant and reliable team leader, who will no doubt be gunning for a place on the Aussie team in London.




The VHPC put up some lovely photos of the squad celebrating in Canberra. Hope you had a great day, Ash!



Tuesday, January 17, 2012

London Prepares Wrap-Up

A hearty congratulations to our athletes that qualified to the Olympics in London.

You can read a small article about where Emily and Georgia trained here, while there are also some new pieces on Josh and Tom after their competition. A curious photo of Blake Gaudry is here at ABC's "Day in Pictures" gallery.

Hope you're all having a great week.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

London Prepares 2012

It's upon us!

Gymnastics Australia have put up a new page for ongoing updates and photos from national coach from Peggy Liddick. Emily Little now tumbles a piked full-in!

"Emily and Georgia went through their programs normally without anything unusual.... Both girls conducted themselves like professionals and were ready for the podium."

The FIG have photos up on Facebook here and will reportedly be doing a livestream of the competition through their Youtube channel here.


*** Gymnastics Australia advises that Australian MAG competitor Sam Offord has had to withdraw due to an injury sustained during the friendly at Waveney. He will be replaced by Josh Jefferis.***


As at 7:30am Wednesday, Georgia's bars and beam are up here. Em and Georgia start on bars in session 2 tomorrow (late tonight our time)

You can follow the women's proceedings live here at the Gymnastics Examiner or here at The All Around. Unfortunately I can't stay up to follow proceedings but according to Blythe, the Aussies are in their green, gold and white national leo (hooray).


ETA Thursday...

Australia has officially qualified one MAG spot to London; the selectors can choose between Josh OR Tom to compete at the Games.


The Gymnastics Examiner and All-Around links above should take you to quickhits of the women's session. By all accounts the Aussies did a great job, notably newbie Simpson.

Check out her STUNNING floor below, as well as Em's vault.






See Emily's beam here
See Emily's bars here
See Georgia's beam here

Image below courtesy of the FIG



The Australian has a piece on Josh here.

"It's a tough situation but everyone has been great about it, Sam's been a legend," Jefferis, who knows the heartache of Olympic disappointment, said.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

We're Red-y

FIG have put up a photo of the London Test Event arena... lovely!


(click for larger)


And an official FIG microsite has been launched today.

Blythe over at The Gymnastics Examiner had a couple of observations about the Aussie men in podium training, which you can check out here.

She also has live updates from the women's podium training session here.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Happy Olympic Year!

*balloons and party horns*

Hullo again, friends! 'Tis 2012, and what a year it is shaping up to be!

The big BIG event to kick off the year is the London Olympic Test Event at the 02 Arena.

Fulltwist has a comprehensive post featuring the competition details here. Best of luck to our Aussie gymnasts in all disciplines attending the event!




Update: Follow the event's proceedings at Twitter with the hashtag #FIGTest12