January 8, 2009

Rumor Has It...

Some interesting (but unverified) gossip taken from various message boards:

--- 2005 world champion Chellsie Memmel supposedly just had ankle surgery (again). Memmel reportedly told fans on her public Facebook profile that she had undergone surgery on the broken ankle that kept her from competing in the all-around in Beijing. She hopes to recover and resume training soon. We hope so for her.

--- It is rumored that 2007 American Worlds team member Ivana Hong, who recently left Al Fong's club amidst a bit of a media frenzy, started training at WOGA today. Hong is believed to be a member of Valeri Liukin's training group, alongside Nastia.

Photobucket
Ivana Hong (photo: Al Bello/Getty Images)

--- Finally, in the ongoing Belgian soap opera, it is rumored that only three gymnasts are currently training at the national training center in Ghent under former French head coach Yves Kieffer: 2008 Olympian Gaelle Mys and two talented juniors, Julie and Stephanie Croket (Julie made the vault final at the 2008 Junior Europeans). That means there are currently more coaches than gymnasts at the center, which is frankly bizarre. The remaining members of the national team are rumored to be training, under fired former national team coaches Rene Poutsma and Sofie Naert, in the town of Wevelgem. Does that sound like an explosive situation or what? We'll be interested to see how the Flemish Gymnastics Federation, Gymfed, responds to this latest turn of events.

2 comments:

  1. If only all gymnasts were able to get such individual attention all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wouldn't that be great? If the coaches were nice and caring perfectionists, that is.

    ReplyDelete