Gymmin' Miel!

"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."

• Touted as one of the highlights of the Gymnastics Calendar thanks to its format. 
• Compete in teams of 1 MAG, 1 WAG represent their countries.
• This year saw 10 teams participate. (Showed clips of the opening ceremony)
• After the first two rounds, 2 teams are eliminated with the top eight going onto the Semi Final and from there 4 teams advance to the Final
• Showed Ji-Hye Sung's (KOR) vault, Ukrainian Mariya Livchikova's Bars dismount and Yang Hak Seon on Still Rings
• Also showed Marcel Nguyen's 15.700 vault
• And also half of Giulia Steingruber's Floor Routine and Elisabeth Seitz's Beam routine
• Plus we got to see Andrey Likhovitskiy's FULL Pommel Horse routine
• Final round: Saw Marachkouskaya's second vault which unfortunately she sat down but nice to see her smiling. 
• Yay we got to see Seitz's full Bars routine and Fabian Hambuechen's full Horizontal Bar routine
• And they showed both of Giulia's vaults
• And then most of Kim Bui's Bars routine and Nguyen's Parallel Bars efforts.

“You are here like in a Metro station, in and out,” said Mihai Brestyan, who with his wife, Silvia, founded Brestyan’s American Gymnastics a dozen years ago and is trying to figure out ways to keep everything under one roof, especially now that they’ve started a boys program.
Ever since star pupil Aly Raisman came back from the Olympics seven weeks ago with a couple of gold medals, Brestyan’s has been jammed with everyone from toddlers to transfers, the numbers doubling to nearly 700. “The problem we have is to find very quick more coaches to keep the standard,” said Brestyan. “Because you expect the gym to grow but not to grow so fast. You need to have good instructors to make sure that everyone is doing their job.”
The Brestyans have 15 tutors now, supervising everything from the Mom and Me program to the elite level, which produced both Raisman and predecessor Alicia Sacramone, who won a team silver medal in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Sacramone’s comeback from a torn Achilles’ tendon fell short of Olympus last summer. Raisman is with her gilded London teammates on the 40-city Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions.

Raisman may continue, take a sabbatical of a year or more, or retire and go to college. Talia Chiarelli, the other elite gymnast at Brestyan’s, who moved from Ontario in 2006 when father Peter became the Bruins general manager, will join Michigan’s varsity team next year. 

But amid claims of bullying about her weight she quit the sport and fell into a pattern of binge eating.
She said: "I wanted to go in the opposite direction and almost rebel in a way.
"It had been a sad and horrible time of my life when I should have been allowed to enjoy my success and be happy."
Amber wants her art to help other young girls "embrace curves and all-round beauty".Night terrorsAt the height of her gymnastics success Amber was 5'7", had a healthy BMI (body mass index) of 20 and was a size eight.
Despite this she claims she was continually bombarded with derogatory comments which led to frequent night terrors and sleepwalking.

"She went from a happy kid to one who was regularly bawling her eyes out," said her mother Cherry.
Amber said: "At the age of 11 to 13 being told you're fat is not exactly a confidence boost. Everything but.
"So that really triggered something in my head and it was a real horrible thing at the time, but I'm glad I've been able to move past that and [art] has definitely helped me." 

Johnston retired from competing at 22, and now coaches in the sport.
"When I am coaching, I encourage them with whatever ability they have," she said.
"They don't have to be the best to get something out of what they are doing. It's about training hard and always setting goals, and working towards those goals."
She is also working on several other projects with new opportunities opening up after performing as part of a dance group on Australia's Got Talent last year.

• Great Britain will field a men's team at the Olympics for the first time since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and they showed a number of routines from January's Test Event, including Louis Smith's Pommel Horse routine. Max Whitlock was highlighted as one to watch along with the mainstays Smith, Purvis, Thomas. 
• Mexican Daniel Corral Barron on Parallel Bars and Chilean Enrique Tomas Gonzalez Sepulveda on Floor Exercise put Latin America on top of these events respectively. Glad that we got to see their full routines from the Test Event on these events.
• Highlighted Iordan Iotchev of Bulgaria.
• Vanessa Ferrari and the Italians were shown and mentioned. 
• And hurray they recognised Vasiliki Millousi of Greece and Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland. Plus they showed 90% of Millousi's Beam routine so I personally am happy :) and the final tumbling pass of Steingruber's Floor routine. 
• Brazilian ladies also rated a mention with Adrian Geovana Nunes Gomes shown on Beam as the last lady to go.And of course they showed their ecstatic reactions. Absolutely lovely.
• 200 yr tradition of Gymnastics in Germany. Today strong work efforts. An interview with Jens Milbradt on the success of the German Men and Women. Group athletes born in the late 1980's had lead the charge in particularly noted was Fabian Hambuechen - according to Jens, Fabian initiated the Boom. Also noted Phillip Boy, Marcel Nguyen and Matthias Fahrig - and that's just their strength. 
• Interview with Brian Gladow, who is the same age as Hambuechen but been less fortunate due to a number of interviews. Attributes success German gymnasts to the coaches. Ambitious athletes that encourage one another. Phillip and Marcel formed good relationship with Hambuechen and according to Gladow these two want to emulate the success that Hambuechen has found. This motivation is used to make Nguyen and Boy reach the same level as Fabian - and according to Gladow perhaps these two guys are better than Fabian at the moment. 
• Viktor Weber says that gymnastics in Germany became popular thanks to Fabian. Became a natural leader within the team. Phillip Sorrer agrees with Weber but says that now it is popular because of Phillip Boy. 
• Need to concentrate in the new generations. 
• Shawn Johnson - I'm not sure when this was recorded but according to this episode Liang Chow has said that Shawn is still afraid of twisting on landing.
• Dong Dong (Men's Chinese Trampoline Star) won the London Test Event title over compatriot Lu Chunlong who was the 2011 World Champion. 
• Canadian Jason Burnett and Diego Ganchino of Portugal's performances at the Test Event were also shown. 
• Portugal also received a berth in Women's Trampoline thanks to starlet Ana Rente 
• Rhythmic Gymnastics - Anna Alyabyeva of Kazakhstan's Ribbon routine was a highlight as to was Russian Daria Kondakova's Ball routine both from the London Test Event.
• Swiss Cup 2011. Top class field. Got to see a bit of everyone. 
• Kim Bui, Hak Seon Yang (VAULT). Mykola Kuksenkov, Jessica Diacci shown.
• Flavius Koczi (full floor routine from the final) and most of Ana Porgras' Beam routine were shown.
• Hambuechen's full Horizontal Bar routine shown
• Home team hadn't won since 1984 - Until this year when Claudio Cappelli and Steingruber took it out.
• Acro World Championships - Brazil, Colombia and Tadjikistan taking part in Acrobatic Worlds for the first time.