SquadLink September 2018 THIS MONTH COMPETITION UPDATE The L3-6 compeon season is in full swing now with the Regional Championships upon us. We’ve had staff jet set to the USA on an invaluable professional development experience, the Level 7-10s did MLC proud at the Team Victorian Championships, the Naonal Club Championships in sunny Queensland is only a couple of weeks away and….Spring has kind of sprung—woohoo! Team Victorian Championships The Level 7-10 gymnasts competed at the Victorian Team Champion- ships at the end of August coming away with some wonderful results: Level 7—Silver Level 8—Silver Level 9—Gold Level 10—Gold
Transcript
SquadLink
September 2018
THIS MONTH
COMPETITION UPDATE
The L3-6 competition season is in full swing now with the Regional Championships upon us. We’ve had
staff jet set to the USA on an invaluable professional development experience, the Level 7-10s did MLC
proud at the Team Victorian Championships, the National Club Championships in sunny Queensland is
only a couple of weeks away and….Spring has kind of sprung—woohoo!
Team Victorian Championships
The Level 7-10 gymnasts competed at the Victorian Team Champion-
ships at the end of August coming away with some wonderful results:
Level 7—Silver
Level 8—Silver
Level 9—Gold
Level 10—Gold
COMPETITION UPDATE cont.
September 2018
PARENT VIEWING
Please note that the next Parent Viewing will be on Friday 19th October from 3.30-8.00pm and Saturday
20th October 8.00am-5.00pm. For those who are new to MLC Gymnastics, we open the folding doors be-
tween the Sports Hall and the Gym so you can watch your daughter train.
Please be aware of the following:
Viewing training during the term is discouraged, so please use this opportunity to watch your daughter.
Your other children must be supervised at all times. Balls are strictly prohibited in the sports hall during the viewing session. There is no food or drink permitted in the Sports Hall. Please ensure that all family members stay away from the entrance to the gym for the safety of
gymnasts. Flash photography is not permitted during training.
National Club Championships
Congratulations to the following gymnasts who have been selected to represent MLC Gymnastics at the
National Club Championships in Queensland at the beginning of October:
Level 5 Lulu Spinks Imogen Grant Liliana Dal Sasso Abigall Huang Harriet Spiden Annabel Feeney Level 6 Alannah Turner Keira Geary Krystal Trinh Hanna Graham Amelia Nakos Lara Sjoblom
Level 7 Amber Ward Emma Ross Daphne Lo Jessica Goh Phoebe Sneath Amy Barnett Level 8 Naomi Lee Tess Hayes Abbey Thein Nicola Lim Joon Annabelle Wingrove Sama Ahmed
Level 9/10 Giulia Archer Lauren Pengelly Lisa Nadine Tan Harriet Wingrove
Keep up to date with the fun by following us on Instagram!: mlc_gymnastics
September 2018
Congratulations to Bridget Facey who has been successful in entering the Police Force! She
starts at the end of September but will continue coaching her Gymstar athletes. Well done
Bridget!
STAFF NEWS
THE MINDFUL ATHLETE
Congratulations to Kayleigh Yap who
came 2nd in the individual mogul
event and 1st in the team mogul
event at the Victorian School Snow
Sports Championships. From here,
Kayleigh then qualified for the Na-
tional School Snow Sports Champion-
ships and placed 11th! Amazing work
Kayleigh!
Congratulations to Amber Ward
who raced at the Victorian School
Snow Sport Championships in the
following events: Slalom, SkierX,
Snow board and 2 types of cross
country. This is an amazing mix of
events which we have been told
very few people do, so well done
Amber!
GYMNAST NEWS
The Shooting Stars and Star Flyers athletes, coaches and parents were lucky enough to be involved in a session presented by 2 psychologists from The Mind Room as part of our Wellness Program. This session was a practical exploration of the science of mindful attention and how it impacts athletic training and performance. From all reports, Michael Inglis and Jo Mitchell were wonderful presenters and have hopefully given the attendees some strategies they can use in the gym and in life in general!
Fiona Tomietto walked 35km from Yarra Bend Park in Fairfield, all the (long) way to St Kilda to raise money for Mitochondrial Disease! Fi took part in the event on Sunday 26th August but you can still donate to her page. The Mito Foundation have nearly reached their goal of $590,000! Well done Fi!!
During August, Meagan and I felt very privileged to represent MLC in the USA at the USAG Congress and USA Gymnastics Championships. After a particularly unpleasant 34 hour journey over to Boston, we were relieved to be able to en-joy a night of horizontal sleep and the thought of a sleep in, then brunch the following morning. Disappointingly, USA does not do brunch very well, so the first of too many Starbucks visits transpired, as did the longing for a good Mel-bourne coffee!
A one hour train ride awaited to Providence, Rhode Island, the location for USAG Congress. A well-attended event with close to 5000 USAG members, the conference covered all aspects of gymnastics, in-cluding technical information for each Gymsport, business information, sports science, psychology, judg-ing, and anything else in between! The days were long, and full, but with presenters that are the bees knees in gymnastics circles, our enthusiasm definitely did not wane. Our friend Jess from Waverley Gym-nastics Centre was also at Congress, so between the three of us, we attended as many lectures as possible and have pooled our resources together for our coaches and administration teams to make use of. We are looking forward to sharing it with them!
In conjunction with Congress, there was also a Trade Show for equipment suppliers, leotard suppliers, medal and trophy suppliers, class management programs and many more! Meagan and I visited many a leotard supplier, and wanted to bring back tubs of $10 leotards GK, Alpha Factor, and Ozone… but we had no room in our suitcases!! Wish I’d known about those…we could have started a Pro Shop, like all the clubs have in the USA!
At the conclusion of Congress, we travelled by train to Manhattan, New York! While Manhattan is not ex-actly a gymnastics mecca (gyms don’t really fit in apartments!!), there are some very strong clubs with both amazing coaches and athletes.
Our first stop was NYC Elite – the Upper West side facility, one of three locat-ed along the Hudson River, was not exactly your typical layout! Across three levels, this gym was the only one of their facilities that a) didn’t have a pillar in the middle of floor, or b) did not require the gymnast to tumble either uphill, or downhill! They worked like clockwork all the same, and the skill level and work ethic of these young gymnasts was incredible! Like most clubs, they run recreational gymnastics as well as “team gymnastics” to cover the costs of the competitive program. Their one hour class rate is approximately AUD$70!! Their annual rental bill is close to AUD$1M.
Next stop was Chelsea Piers, a huge facility with soccer, basketball, golf, rock climbing, ice skating, ice hockey, and of course gymnastics! The different sports are run across a number of piers on the Hudson River, and is a privately owned business. Due to the sheer number of participants on a daily basis, their class price was about AUD$50 per hour. Almost a bargain! As it was summer holidays, the entire facility was full of chil-dren involved in summer camps. In amongst the organised chaos, we witnessed a few small groups of team gymnasts up to Level 8. I’d loath the job of organising the rota-tion schedule there!!
September 2018
USA REPORT by ANNA FRANCIS
Our last visit was a 90 minute subway and Uber ride away to Morganville, New Jersey. The home of the current flavour of the month, Riley McCusker. Unfortunately, due to the USA Championships running the next weekend, the elite group had already left to train in Boston. Even still, there was a group of about 35 Level 6-10 athletes and about 20 Level 4’s. This large group was carefully selected from their recreational program and their training program is intense, but also perfectionistic. There are very high expectations for shape and form but their skill development is also excellent. It’s often a discussion point for us about what becomes more important – the execution, or the skill itself. Their training program sure does demonstrated that you can have both, but these kids were very tough! You could see that even some of the 6/7 years olds are used to really pushing their bodies to the limits!
Our last club visit was back in Boston at our current National Coach’s own club, Brestyan’s Gymnastics. Mihai Brestyan has coached two athletes to USA Team gold at the Olympics and is now assisting Aus-tralia in a return to the world stage. His group of Level 7-10 athletes had about 55 athletes in it and only four coaches doing the coaching. The girls knew their program and trained with an incredible intensi-ty. Often they would finish their apparatus assignment and be puffing on the side at the end! Their summer holiday training ses-sions lasted 7 hours with a lunch break in the middle and their focus at that time of the year was on skill development. Their skill level
was excellent but Mihai said their work ratio was so high at the moment that there was not so much of a focus on the execution. They were getting very fit and building skill and then the time would come where they worked on the technical aspects too, in preparation for their season!
The last few days in Boston were spent at TD Gardens watching the USAG Gymnastics Championships. We watched the Junior and Senior elite athletes (of which there were about 20 in each), and just WOW! I must say, I don’t often feel star struck (I would if I saw Pink) but being so close to Simone Biles was a bit surreal! She was looking stronger than ever and even she said she was not in her best form yet! I can’t wait to see how far she can go! Simone won the AA title and every apparatus! They say she is the Nadia Comaneci of this era, but I think Simone will (or maybe already has!!) surpass all Nadia’s accolades soon.
I’ve never really been a ‘networker’ either, but I am glad we did on this occasion as we went back to the hotel where all the judges, coaches and gymnasts were staying with some new friends. As we were enjoy-ing our pizza, Riley McCusker, Olivia Greaves, Morgan Hurd, Grace McCallum, Jordan Weiber, Nastia Liukin and some other famous USA gymnasts of the past were all within our reach! I think this was the most exciting thing I shared with the gymnasts when I came back home!! They couldn’t believe I actually talked to Riley (just one sentence though!!).
Thank you to Leslie and Debbie Bennett for supporting us with this trip – Meagan and I have returned with some very useful information and we are looking forward to sharing more of it. This opportunity helps us immensely and we hope to be able to offer return visits to other MLC staff, particularly as we work on our return to world class gymnastics, as a country!
September babies
Alisa Z 3rd
Natalie K 4th
Aria R 6th
Abigall H 8th
Grace VDB 16th
Jackie (S) 18th
Zoe M 20th
Harriet S 21st
Ava J 27th
Bridget (S) 29th
S = Staff member
GYMNAST OF THE MONTH
GYMNAST OF THE MONTH
Gymnast of the month is awarded each month (except January & December). Coaches of each squad (excluding
Pre Starlets) are asked to nominate a gymnast who they believe is a role model for others in the squad and for
younger gymnasts in the club and have also shown improvement in one or more areas over the month. From the
nominees, a Gymnast of the Month (for the competitive program) is then selected. All nominees are awarded a
certificate, and the winner a certificate & gift.
Nominees for July:
Starlets 6-9 Hours Nina Weeks
Starlets 9-12 Hours Natalie Kum
Star Flyers 14-18 Hours (Alex & Siobhan) Josephine Riotto
Star Flyers 14-18 Hours (Li) Harriet Spiden
Shooting Stars 12 Hours Rebecca Paratz
Shooting Stars 16-25 Hours Jacinta Smith & Amelia Entwisle
Shooting Stars 20-25 Hours Lisa-Nadine Tan
…...and the winner is…..
Jacinta Smith
September 2018
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!
GYMNAST OF THE MONTH cont.
September 2018
RESULTS
Eclipse Invitational
Level 3
MLC Team 2nd Vault; 1st Bars; 1st Beam; 5th Floor; 1st AA
(Alice, Sophie, Dusty, Maeve, Claire, Lucy)
Level 4 (Division 2)
Isabella Kingsley-Smith 5th Bars; 2nd Beam
Level 4 (Division 1)
MLC Green Team 2nd Vault; 2nd Bars; 4th Beam; 2nd Floor; 4th AA
