Jade will compete again... in less than one month!

So, it looks like Jade gave up giving up competing at the Nationals. Yesterday, Jade's coach Ricardo Pereira confirmed that Jade will take part in the Brazilian National Championships. She will not try to beat last year's All-Around champion Ana Claudia Silva, though, since she is only competing at the Balance Beam and Uneven Bars. Guess her floor routine will not be ready yet for the competition, but it is great news to see Jade coming back to competitions after nearly one year away from them. The National Championships will be held August 21-23 in Porto Alegre.

Men's Artistic team training in Rio de Janeiro

A few days ago I posted here about the Women's permanent team in Artistic Gymnastics. I was so puzzled by the possibility of Jade or Daiane (or both) not making it to the team that I forgot to mention that there is also a "permanent team" for Men's Artistic Gymnastics. The selection system works not unlike the Women's team: CBG chooses a handful of gymnasts around the country and make them part of the team. The boys train at their hometowns' clubs with their own coaches. Twice a year they are required to stay together in order to go through a physical evaluation by CBG (Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation). The team is composed by athletes Diego Hypólito, Victor Rosa, Mosiah Rodrigues, Arthur Zanetti, Sérgio Eras, Francisco Barreto, Sergio Sasaki, Petrix Barbosa, Caio Costa, Vitor Camargo and Danilo Nogueira. According to CGB the athletes are staying together from July 27 to July 31 in Rio de Janeiro for training and evaluation.

Brazil's head coach not too happy about the current situation

Ten years ago, Artistic Gymnastics was not a very well known sport in Brazil. The country's best athlete so far, Luísa Parente, had retired in 1995 and future stars Daniele Hypólito and Daiane dos Santos were still too inexperienced to show strong routines. Then, in 2001, Oleg Ostapenko and Irina Ilyaschenko came from Ukraine to Brazil in order to train the Women's national team. Things suddenly changed. Daniele Hypólito won a silver medal at the 2001 World Championships on floor, Daiane dos Santos became the World Champion on the same apparatus in 2003 and Jade Barbosa came close to being the All-Around champion at the 2007 World Championships, but still managed to earn a bronze medal.

Now Oleg Ostapenko is back to Ukraine and Irina Ilyaschenko is the new head coach of the Women's national team. And according to this article, she is not too thrilled about that. Irina's main concern is that the "permanent team" is not together as a team the whole year. From 2001 to 2008 all the girls trained and lived together at the city of Curitiba. This means that the girls had to move away from their home towns, all alone, in order to live with a dozen other girls they had never seen before. Of course this was a big problem for some of the girls: they missed their families, friends and hometown.

So, this year CBG decided to let the girls go back to their hometowns and train with the coach they choose, at the clubs they want to be. While not all the clubs have the best equipments and not all the coaches are as experienced as Irina, it seems like all the girls are happy with this situation. Except Irina. She says she wants the girls together again and does not feel confident enough to keep training the national team if they are not always close to her. The girls, on the other hand, say that being in different towns, in different clubs, help the sport because younger gymnasts have the opportunity to talk to them and train together with them. Also, other coaches get to help them in training and teach a new trick or two.

Still, Irina is threatening leaving her position as the head coach. I just hope that this does not become one of those huge problems. There have been already enough scandals concerning gymnastics in Brazil, so we do not need a new one.

Marcela Lopez wins gold at the World Games 2009

Great news! Aerobic gymnast Marcela Lopez won Brazil's first medal in gymnastics at the World Games. Marcela is the new champion of the competition in the Women's Individual event. Congratulations, Ma! In a sad news, it looks like the Brazilian Trio did not manage to compete. Probably one of the girls got injured or something... I just hope it is nothing serious.

As a side note, thank you very much for the comments! I am really happy to see people coming here and posting comments about the blog!

Picture borrowed from http://www.flickr.com/photos/fig-gymnastics/2442486987/. All rights reserved.

Two new gymnasts make it to the "permanent team"... only one spot left

In recent Olympic cycles, the Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation (CBG) decided to adopt a selection process where they test a handful of girls around the country and make some of them part of the "permanent team", that is, a small, restrict group of gymnasts who are going to represent Brazil in official competitions. In theory, the "permanent team" is composed by the best gymnasts of the country.

After the Beijing olympics, CBG decided to dismiss the old team in order to create a new one from scratch. In January this year they started to recruit new girls for the team. Until last week the girls recruited were Ethiene Franco, Bruna Leal, Khiuani Dias, Anna Carolina Cardoso, Janaina Silva, Ana Claudia Silva, Priscila Cobello, Nadhine Ourives and Daniele Hypolito. According to this article, this week CBG has added two more new gymnasts to the team: Harumi de Freitas and Leticia Costa. Since the team is restricted to 12 athletes, there is only one spot left. As you can see, there is no sign of olympians Daiane dos Santos, Jade Barbosa and Laís Souza. That probably means that only one of them will make it to the team.

Laís Souza is rumoured to retire soon thanks to ongoing problems with injuries, and I feel sorry for her because she is one of my favorite gymnasts. But I am seriously shocked by the fact that either Jade or Daiane would probably be left out. Either CBG has gone completely crazy or they are planning to remove one of the selected gymnasts from the team. Daniele Hypólito has been extremely criticized after a disastrous performance at the recent Universiade 2009. Is she also planning to retire? Or is CBG forcing her out of the team? We will find out soon.

Uneven Bars and uneven results for Brazilian girls

Historically in Women's Artistic Gymnastics the worst apparatus for Brazilian girls has been the Uneven Bars. When it comes to World Championships, Brazilian gymnasts managed to at least get a place in the finals for the All-Around, Team, Vault, Balance Beam and Floor events, but never for the Uneven Bars. The only major title on bars for a Brazilian gymnast so far was taken by Luísa Parente, who won the gold medal on the apparatus at the 1991 Pan-American Games.

So, it comes as a surprise that gymnast Ethiene Franco (pictured*) is now focusing her training on the Uneven Bars (and getting good results so far). She is even training an element never attempted before by a Brazilian gymnast: a piked Gienger (check the video here). It sure is still sloppy, but at least she is showing steady improvement. I would even dare say she is a lock for the team at the next World Championships in October.

*Picture borrowed from http://globoesporte.globo.com. All rights reserved.

Marcisnei and Juliana finish seventh at the WG

After an exciting fourth place last year in the World Championships, gymnasts Juliana Antero and Marcisnei Oliveira (pictured) finished in seventh place at the World Games 2009. Winners were French pair Julien Chaninet and Aurelie Joly. In a surpring result, the Romanian pair placed out of the podium. In the Men's Individual competition no Brazilian athlete attempeted qualification. Tomorrow Marcela Lopez will compete in both Women's Individual event and in Trios. Marcela is Brazil's biggest hope for a medal at these games and I am deeply rooting for her.

Marcel Sturmer wins bronze at the World Games

It is not really gymnastics related, but I think it is worth mentioning anyway: Artistic Roller skater Marcel Sturmer won a bronze medal at the World Games 2009. Marcel is a two-time Pan-American champion and in 2007 he charmed the home crowd winning the gold medal at the Pan-American games in Rio de Janeiro. It is a pleasure to see Marcel earning one more well-deserved medal. Congratulations, Marcel.

Also, in a few hours Aerobic gymnasts Marcisnei Oliveira and Juliana Antero will compete at the World Games in the Mixed Pairs event. I hope they can be successful and bring home Brazil's first medal in gymnastics at this competition.

Thank you, Rick!

Fellow blogger Rick, responsible for the excellent blog Gymnastics Coaching, kindly posted about my blog on his own. I can not find a better way to say "thank you" to him other than also dedicating a post to Gymnastics Coaching. It was Rick's blog that actually served as the main inspiration for me to create this blog after all. I am sure Gymnastics Coaching is not only an inspiration for me, but also for other countless fans and professionals in gymnastics. Once again: thank you, Rick!

Bruno Martini at the World Games 2009

Trampolinist Bruno Martini had a great shot at a medal in Kaohsiung, but one mistake in the first routine during the finals prevented the athlete from medaling. Bruno presented two solid and difficult routines during qualifications, but failed to maintain the scores in the finals and finished the competition out of medal contention. According to his official website, Bruno was training at night so he could get used to Taipei's time zone. It must really a disappointment for him, but I am really proud that he made it this far. Congratulations, Bruno!

Jade Barbosa's new floor routine

It is good to know that Jade Barbosa is recovering from her hand injury. The athlete has been training with just one hand not to stress even more her other hand, which is hurt. Until now, there have been rumors about Jade coming back to competition in August, during the Brazilian National Championships. This article (in Portuguese) from Brazilian newspaper O Globo, however, is more specific about her plans. According to the article, Jade is training a new floor routine, but she does not intend to show this routine this year since she is not planning to compete at Nationals anymore. She plans to focus on studying more so she can go to college next year to study Administration. However, she is not retiring yet. On the contrary: she asked DJ Marlboro to create a new music for her floor routine based on Funk carioca, a regional style of music that is very popular in Brazil. Here is a video containing a random work of DJ Malboro, so you can have an idea about what to expect to listen when Jade Barbosa performs her new floor routine next year. Everything else about the routine remains a mystery... until 2010, that is.

Brazilian gymnasts fighting for first World Games medal

Not many people know about the World Games. This is a multi-sport competition where athletes around the world take part in events not contested at the Olympics. When it comes to gymnastics, the competition features Individual Rhythmic Gymnastics, Aerobic, Acrobatic, Trampoline and Tumbling. Brazil has never won a medal in any of the disciplines in Gymnastics in past competitions, but we all hope this changes this year since the two-time world champion Marcela Lopez (pictured) is competing this time. Marcela is natural from the city of São Paulo, Brazil's largest city. Besides two individual titles in World Championships (2006 and 2008), she is also a gold, silver and bronze medalist in the Trio competition (medals won in 2004, 2005 and 2006 respectively).

Besides Marcela, gymnasts Juliana Antero (Aerobics), Leonardo Lins (Aerobics), Marina Lopez (Aerobics), Bruno Martini (Trampoline) and Marcisnei Oliveira (Aerobics) are competing. Promising young Rhythmic Gymnast Eliane Sampaio has already competed, placing 19th (Rope), 20th (Hoop), 19th (Ball) and 21st (Ribbon). I wish luck to Sampaio, since she is a talented gymnast and this was her first major international competition.

You can follow the updated results here, through the World Games 2009 official website.

Welcome to Brazilian Gymnastics

Hello. My name is Thiago and I am a huge fan of Gymnastics. Artistic Gymnastics has become a huge success in Brazil thanks to incredible world class gymnasts like Daiane dos Santos and Diego Hypólito. However, outside of Brazil very few people know about Brazilian gymnasts other than these two athletes. This is the main reason why I decided to create this blog: to make people around the world aware of Brazilian gymnasts and celebrate incoming (and also past) victories of Brazilian athletes. Initially, I plan to publish only news about competitions where Brazilian gymnasts take part in, but I may talk about gymnasts from other countries as well if there is any kind of relevant news about them. I hope you all enjoy the blog and I am open to suggestions. I am also sorry if I commit any mistake, but English is not my native language (it is Portuguese, since I am Brazilian after all). Also, I am not a coach or professional in gymnastics, so bear with me if I make any mistake refering to an element or value of a routine. Thanks for coming here and welcome to Brazilian gymnastics!