GYMN-L Digest - 13 Oct 1995 to 14 Oct 1995 - Special issue

There are 9 messages totalling 610 lines in this issue.

Topics in this special issue:

  1. Worlds Report #2
  2. workout times
  3. Tatiana Gutsu
  4. 10-13 responses
  5. jurrassic park gymnast
  6. story from Russian team comps
  7. purchasing a tramp
  8. Gymnastic Magazines
  9. ADMIN: Gymn Survey Results

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Date:    Fri, 13 Oct 1995 22:59:47 -0400
From:    ***@FREENET.SCRI.FSU.EDU
Subject: Worlds Report #2

China,Japan,Romania,Germany,Ukraine,Usa
This report will be less detailed than the previous one
because I could only identify the US gymnasts and a handfull
of the others.
------------------------------------------------------------
*China*

*Pommels*

-no one swings higher above the horse or is more extended
than the Chinese.Beautiful work.

*Vault*

-the actual vaults were difficult but their landings
sucked(with the exception of Li Xiashuang.)

*PB*

-double backs(one was piked) and double fronts in between
the bars was compulsory for everyone

*High Bar*

-swung the hell out of pipe

*Floor*

-once again had trouble with landings
-Xiaoshuang threw a double twisting double layout.


*Notes*
-definitely the deserving winners
-just like the Chinese women they had terrific form and
technique


*Japan*

*Notes*

-only saw a few of their routines,but noticed they were
getting overscored out the wazoo.

*Romania*


*PB*

-gymnast did a press to english handstand on one bar to a
healy twirl(handstand on one bar to healy)


*High Bar*

-Wowsers.This team threw just about every release in just
about every concievable combination.Best high bar team
there.
-neat combo by gymnast-tkachev,tkachev,tkachev,thomas hop to
one arm reverse hect

*Rings*

-Burinca-strength,strength,and more strength

I was really impressed by this team.They should have been
ahead of Japan.They probably would have if they had the
services of veteran Marius Gherman.


*Ukraine*

*High Bar*

-Sharipov-piked gaylord,highest tkachevs on the
planet,closed with a triple back

*Floor*

-Sharipov-fell back on double full punch front dismount
-Korobchinsky-ruptured his achilles on the take off for his
closing double layout.It was a nasty looking crash and he
injured his other foot on the landing.He lay motionless for
a few seconds,checked out his foot,then was carried off to
the hospital.

*Pommel Horse*

-With Korby out,they had to use their replacement(who said
that he HATES pommel horse)He was a little shakey,but he
stayed on.

*Vault*

-Misutin-1 1\2 handspring front(stuck)j
-Sharipov-low tucked omelianchik vault

*Notes*

Misutin couldn't do AA because he skipped a few events.He
wasn't injured coming into the meet,but during compulsory
vault warmups he had a freak accident and injured his
foot.They've also lost Korby,so that will hurt them in
Atlanta next year.


*Germany*

*High Bar*
-Wecker-two lightning fast kovacs,tkachev,and laid out full
out(no more triple back)

*Floor Ex*

-unidentified-layout full in,three bounder front layouts,and
double layout dismount
-belenky-double layout(small hop),front layout front layout
front full,double full punch front dismount

*Pommel Horse*
-wecker-fell off on a back moore

*rings*
-Belenky-straight body planche pressout,two malteses,and a
layout full in.Strength moves were great.

*Vault*
-definitely their weakest event.Falls and easy(well for this
round anyway)vaults cost them precious points.


*United States*

*Rings*

-Kip Simons-strength moves were performed well

*Vault*

-Simons-threw a double twisting layout tsuk
-Lynch-put his hands down on a layout cuervo

*PBars*

-Stein-fell through the bars after a stutz to one bar
-Lynch-swung probably the nicest p-bar set of the
competition.Two giant diamidovs and STUCK his double front
dismount.His routine was underscored compared to the other
ones I saw.

*High Bar*

-Baigu-peeled off after a kovacs,but showed gorgeous form
and line.one arm geinger and tripple dismount.

*FX*

-double back punch front 1 1\4 from Kip Simons and Josh
Stein
-Jair did a unique second pass of front full,layout
front,front full
-roethlisberger-double double mount,OPEN full in dismount

*Pommels*

-Blaine fell off pommels
-Baigu swung his way to finals

*Notes*

The US was the biggest suprise in compulsories by placing
3rd!!!!The HIT!Only one miss(Jair on pommels) out of 36
routines.That's probably the best competition that the US
has EVER had.
Unfortunately,by the time optionals rolled around it was
quite obvious that they were out of their league compared to
the other 5 teams in the last session(along with Russia and
Belarus)In terms of difficulty,execution,form and consitency
they lagged behind.
John MacReady shows TREMENDOUS promise.He has every thing
else and will really shine when he throws in some more
difficulty.Jair had some unique and difficult skills,but was
a little weak on rings and vault.Baigu's body line and toe
point were tops,but he fell all over the place.Almost blew
vault again when he only got one hand on the preflight of
his yurchenko.Pommel horse was his best event.Blain and Kip
are animals on the strength events,but aren't very
graceful.Blain couldn't point his toes to save his life.Kip
had an injury(back?) but it didn't seem to hinder his
performance.Nothing flashy about these two,although they
look a little "clunky" due to their size.John Roethlisberger
was the highest US finisher after the team
portion(8th.Yeah,I know it could happen) thanks to the
screwy judging during compulsories.I must say that I'm not a
big fan of his gymnastics.Cheap and cheesey skills.World
class on floor(He should have made floor finals.But
RINGS!?!?!?)but his other events are pretty blah.He was
consistent though,and that's why he did so well.Overall
everyone did well(*EXCEPTIONALLY* well in compusories.)It
was also refreshing to have the UCLA All Star whining squad
absent from this meet. :-)


Until next time,

Billy

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 01:34:54 -0400
From:    ***@AOL.COM
Subject: workout times

Our club is doing a survey of workout hours and prices for different levels
of competitive gymnastics- if you could provide hours and/or prices- it would
be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Leesa

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 02:31:38 -0500
From:    ***@EXPERT.CC.PURDUE.EDU
Subject: Re: Tatiana Gutsu

>From what I last saw on news in the very beginning of 1995, she is training
in my state....INDIANA.  The news coverage interviewed her and her American
coach.  They train in Greenwood, IN I believe.  Of course she says she is
hoping for the 96 Olympics.  That was what she said a long time ago.  I am
not sure what she is up to, but in the interview she appeared very grown-up,
physically that is.  I didn't recognize her.

Sincerely, Aaron

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 03:08:40 -0500
From:    ***@EXPERT.CC.PURDUE.EDU
Subject: 10-13 responses

FRONT TUMBLING: I can see how it sometimes looks "watered-down".  I
 particularlylike passes that combine front and back tumbling.  I think it is
 most
impressive to have a forward twisting element with more than just a full twist.
i.e. 1.5 or 2.

MO HUILAN: I prefer Mo's tumbling passes from last year's World Team Champ.
I feel ti fits her "look" and personality better.  I do feel she appears
stronger this year, but the routine (I am refering to floor) doesn't seem
to be carried off as well as the 1994 one.  I really enjoy her and I have
very high expectations of her in the future.

SHANNON MILLER: Bravo to Miss Shannon!  I was very proud of her.  I thought
she was very strong and brave.  Competing with an injury to help her team
is true class.  I feel sorry for her not getting any individual medals, but
at least we know she is a true gymnast pride and true!

DAWES, CHOW, BORDEN: Just imagine if they weren't injured....hmmm Silver maybe,
hmmm possibley Gold??????????

HIGH SCHOOL GYMNASTICS: Anyone interested in Indiana High School Girls'
Gymnastics?  I would be glad to update those interested.  Indiana has a very
deep field of talented gymnasts.  The current state champs have a girl who
use to be a national competitor.  She is the current AA, beam, and floor champ.
She is a great gymnast, as well are many others.  The high school season starts
the first of Jan.  Practices start the first of Nov.  Let me know, it would
be my pleasure!

That should be it for now.  I am looking forward to the AA competition on Sun.

Gymnastically Yours,

Aaron

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 11:08:00 +0000
From:    ***@BROOKES.AC.UK
Subject: jurrassic park gymnast

I am curious to know who the  gymnast who did some of the stunts in jurrassic
park is.I read in a magazine when the film first came out that it was an
olympic gymnast but have never found out who.Any ideas?
thanks,Anouska

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 08:58:25 -0400
From:    ***@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU
Subject: story from Russian team comps

     Here's a rather amusing story Abie Grossfeld told me about. During team
compulsories, when Russia was self-destructing, Abie was sitting with Yury
Titov's wife. She kept making comments like "oh, this is just terrible," "what
a catastrophe," "I can't believe this is happening," "what a nightmare" and so
on, to which Abie kept agreeing. This went on for a while, and then Mrs. Titov
remarked "this is just going to ruin the legal system all over the world." Abie
gave her a very perplexed look, wondering what on earth the Russian men's poor
performance could have to do with the international legal system, and Mrs.
Titov said "I just can't believe they acquitted OJ!" So much for her concern
about the Russian team! :)

Beth

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 09:30:05 -0600
From:    ***@RMII.COM
Subject: purchasing a tramp

I know we have a couple equipment suppliers on the list, so I thought
I would forward this request.  Please reply to him directly at
mattk@scripps.edu (Matt).

| Could you get me some information or send me in the right direction for
| information on purchasing a trampoline?  I am looking for a rectangular
| 7 by 14 foot size.  If nothing else you may know where I could look.

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 17:59:39 GMT
From:    ***@IX.NETCOM.COM
Subject: Gymnastic Magazines

Does anyone know of other gymnastic magazines about US gymnastics
besides IG and USA Gymnastics?  I really enjoy these
publications, andd would like to read more!

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Date:    Sat, 14 Oct 1995 11:03:48 -0600
From:    ***@RMII.COM
Subject: ADMIN: Gymn Survey Results

----------------------Gymn Survey-----------------------------------
73 responses (out of 530 members at the time of the survey)

The Gymn Survey, for those who were not on board at the time, was
meant to determine if the forum wanted to move to a topical type of
mail distribution.  You would be able to subscribe only to the topics
that you wanted.  Possible suggested topics were: rhythmic, coaching,
collegiate gymnastics, etc.  The downside was the potential
fragmentation of Gymn, and also the expected increase in
administrative mail.

The overwhelming answer to the survey is that while the majority of
the forum feels that forum traffic is excessive, Gymn does NOT want to
move to a topical subscription format as presented in the survey
announcement.  Many cited the increase in administration as the reason
for their vote.  (Perhaps this point is best illustrated by the fact
that two of the respondents did not follow the directions the email
their replies to gymnjunk@aol.com.)  Thanks to all Gymners who
participated!

However, a viable alternative solution was proposed by many of the
Gymners who answered the survey. Informally, we would like to
introduce a topic system to Gymn. When posting to Gymn, please begin
your subject with a keyword that describes a topic categorizing your
message.  This enables all Gymners to more quickly determine the mail
that interests them and the mail that doesn't.  Also, those Gymners
with advanced mail readers can filter out messages for topics that
don't interest them.

If our more frequent posters follow this method, and set the example,
then this alternative solution could be quite useful.

Sample keywords for topics:
RSG, WOMEN, MEN, COACHES, COL-W (collegiate women), COL-M, RESULTS,
FAN, KIDS

Keywords are not restricted to those I listed above; in fact it would
be a good idea to develop keywords for threaded discussions (eg,
"WORLDS", "MEDIA" or "THE BOOK" would be examples of possible keywords
for recent discussions).  Use more than one keyword if you think it's
appropriate.

I myself will try to start labeling these types of Gymn msgs as
"ADMIN".  When you see ADMIN, please don't say "oh this will be
boring" and then delete it without reading it.  ;)

Below are a few of the (anonymous) responses to the survey.  I think
these sentiments say more than our Gymn Guidelines ever could. Enjoy!

Rachele

=======================================================================
...As you point out, the collegiate scene is not one I follow, so I
usually delete those posts...  It would save me time and money if I
could ignore such posts.

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Yes, I would be in favour of selecting preferred topics. I am
basically only interested in facts and first hand meet descriptions at
a national & international level. I enjoy (obviously, since I
subscribe) the gymn list but would consider a topic option an
improvement.

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I really am getting frustrated with Gymn lately (and I know I'm not
the only one.) Two people I know here have unsubscribed because of the
fluff content, and one has asked to me to forward to him only the
messages with some content to them.

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I don't think the bulk of the users have the sophistication to use the
topic system.

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I have a suggestion for an intermediate way of grouping messages which
I've seen used successfully on newsgroups with high volume.  The idea
is to use the first part of the subject line to classify posts, just
as it appears you do when using the sublists.  We could make up a list
of suggested abbreviations and post them to the list once and include
them in the gymn guide.

...If a topic suddenly becomes of interest (ie. "THE BOOK"), a poster
could just make up a category, put it at the beginning of his/her
message and put a line at the beginning saying "please use a category
of "BOOK" for future messages on this topic".

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I seem to be able to wade through all the posts.  To me, the sublists
seem more trouble than they are worth.  Just MHO.

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For myself, being in a club situation, I welcome the discussion on
other disciplines, such as rythmic and sports acro., and would miss
these if a sublists are formed. With the current size of the forum I
can see no advantage. Obviously if there is an explosion in the
numbers then we may have to think again.

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I Think the idea of topic subscriptions is great.  I would like to see
topic areas set aside for business only, coaching only, fan only,
college only.

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Don't fragment the list.  It drives us crazy to have to post to
different sublists or miss a topic, etc.  There are several of us here
who read the gymnlist.  It's fine the way it is.

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Yep, I'm all for topics so I can avoid the heaps of mail I'm not
interested in.

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I'm on another mailing list that used to have a very high volume and
has gone to a distribution type of system to allow people to only get
messages on topics that they are interested in.  This list has just
about died because people have stopped posting since they don't have
the time to figure out how to use it and this is a list of people
involved in computer science, not just your average person with a PC
and access to the internet through a commercial service.

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Sure, Gymn may have gone over the 500 subscriber mark, but how many
have we lost?

Here is a perfect example of the kind of thing I'm referring to:

<example deleted>

I **really** don't think it's necessary for 500 people to see this, do
you?

They're not exactly doing anything "wrong" besides wasting bandwidth,
not to mention annoying a large percentage of subscribers, so I can
imagine it's tough to take any type of "action" against someone in
particular.

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I think that sublists is a great idea.  Despite the confusion or the
extra added mental efforts to make sublists an active part of the
system, I think it is a necessity.  It can only enhance our existing
Gymn digest by allowing us to post questions to areas of real
interest.  But what I'd really love to do is filter out all the mail
I'm not interested in reading.

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Yes! Yes! Yes!  It half an hour a night to read through my mail for
fear of missing anything.  Some things (like general gossip, rhythmic,
Mens) I enjoy watching (except the gossip), but don't know enough to
discuss nor have the time.  This would greatly simplify my life!

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Look at how many people can't figure out how to unsubscribe.  I really
wouldn't want all of the admin requests to Gymn... "How do I get this
topic and unsubscribe from that topic?"  It would be more work for you
and Debbie too.  I think that topics would INCREASE Gymn fluff mail,
not DECREASE it.

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When I first subscribed, Gymn was a high quality forum.  I still love
Gymn, but it has gone downhill because of the number of useless posts,
IMHO.  A lot of times, the people who are posting seem like nice
people and so I don't want to write them and say "That wasn't worth
mailing to 500 people," but at the same time I am getting frustrated!

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I don't think we should diversify into subtopics at this time.  I
don't think there will really be people who like this aspect and don't
like that aspect and so on.

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I wouldn't want to miss info posted in a section I was not subscribed
to.

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I think the sublist is great.  There are many days that I bring up my
e-mail only to be overwhelmed with mail from gym, much of which is of
no interest to me and much of which is worthless, I suspect, to most
of us.  ...  I like a lot about gym, but I must admit that there are
times that I come close to unsubscribing because there is just too
much mail.

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This response isn't really about topics, but about Gymn mail in
general (since you asked for suggestions in general).  As a proud
American, it embarasses me to see how narrow-minded this forum is.
They seem ignorant to the fact that our international subscribership
is growing (despite your frequent measures of statistics), and I am
embarassed at the level of discussion, sometimes.  I've written some
people before but I only get nasty responses back.  Obviously some of
the people have watched it only on TV -- not that this is bad, in
fact, of course we wantmore and more fans.  And I think Gymn deserves
a lot of credit for educating the "TV" fan.  But sometimes subscribers
present their TV-influenced opinions as fact, and that is embarassing
to me as an American (because they are watching American TV, and are
*so* biased towards American gymnasts). I guess there's not much you
can do.  I detest the thought of the Olympics in Atlanta next year.
Maybe I'll just unsubscribe for a few months...

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I don't think the topics is the solution to our mail problem.
Actually, I don't think we have too much mail, as Gymn is all I get.
But I guess that's a different story for those who get Gymn at work.
:) Maybe if Gymners just tried harder to post meaningful items...?  We
have an ftp site with lots of good stuff (thanks!), and lots of people
ask questions that they can get from there.

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I think the sublists would be a mixed blessing. As parents of a male
collegiate gymnast, we have a strong focus on male gymnastics and
college gymnastics.  However, we have found a lot of interesting
things in the general coverage and wouldn't want to miss that.  Plus,
we print and post some of the gymn discussions at our local gym to
encourage more people to stay informed and try out the gymn site and
join gymn-l.

...The structure of gymn serves as good focusing tool, but I don't see
how that could work here because you couldn't have a top down view.
[Topics] would narrow rather than broaden my appreciation of
gymnastics.

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I would encourage you not to fragment Gymn, as there will be a huge
number of questions that are asked over and over again becuase poeple
are not recieving all subjects.

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I can't see the point in dividing gymn up.  If people don't want to
read something all they have to do is hit the delete key.  I actually
like coming into uni some days and having 150 emails to read!!

The thing that does annoy me is the people who have a one word answer
to someone's question and post it to everyone.  In my opinion, this is
what clutters up the forum.  Meaningful posts would be my preference.

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Doesn't matter to me because I'd want them all anyway.  I would worry
about the confusion and messages asking "how do I...", especially for
those who are paying for email, but on the other hand, we could try it
(if folks want to) and discontinue it if it becomes a problem.

[end]

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End of GYMN-L Digest - 13 Oct 1995 to 14 Oct 1995 - Special issue
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