“Madison mini-camps beckon for summer in gymnastics, dance, sports” plus 3 more

Madison mini-camps beckon for summer in gymnastics, dance, sports
Ipswich’s Jaeger prepares for National Gymnastics Senior Invitational in Florida
Sports today is business driven
Jefferson City gymnastics coach will be honored

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Madison mini-camps beckon for summer in gymnastics, dance, sports

Posted: 21 May 2010 10:49 PM PDT

Ipswich’s Jaeger prepares for National Gymnastics Senior Invitational in Florida

Posted: 21 May 2010 01:37 PM PDT

Call it "Liana's Last Stand" … or should we say "Liana's Last Tumble"?

Ipswich High senior Liana Jaeger will travel with roughly 15 other senior gymnasts from around Massachusetts to Fort Myers, Fla., on Friday and Saturday for the National High School Gymnastics Senior Invitational.

It may be her final gymnastics competition of a long and successful career.

"I compete at Iron Rail and, in April, the club gymnastics season ended," said Jaeger, the top gymnast for the Gloucester-Ipswich co-op team last winter. "This is my last practice today before the National meet and then I think I'm done with gymnastics.

"I'm going to American University in Washington, D.C., and they have a club team, but I've been doing this for 15 years. Part of me is just ready for something different," she added. "It's a definite moving on [time] for me."

With that in mind, she's certainly looking for some career best performances at the meet in Fort Myers.

"I'm really excited," said Jaeger. "I didn't know anything about this meet in my freshman year, but at the state individual championships, they announced this team for all the best seniors to go and represent Massachusetts. Since then, it has always been my goal to make this team and be there with the other best senior gymnasts from around the state."

The individual gymnasts chosen for the team travel to the meet and compete as a team on Friday, and there is an individual portion of the invitational on Saturday for the best finishers in their events on Friday.

Jaeger will compete in the floor exercises, balance beam and uneven bars events for Team Massachusetts on Friday. The judges take the top four scores from each event and the team with the best scores on all the apparatus wins the Invitational Championship.

Massachusetts won the meet in 2007. Jaeger said that she heard Texas and Connecticut challenged Massachusetts last year, so there are definitely some bragging rights on the line this year.

Not all states send a team, as not all states have high school gymnastics as a sport. Jaeger said she expects to see about 15 different teams from around the country.

Massachusetts team officials keep track of athletes throughout the season and especially at the state meets. Jaeger knows she'll be traveling with Manchester's Chandler Kennedy, with whom she competes for Iron Rail in Gloucester, and Hamilton-Wenham's DeAnna Vecchariello.

A large group of the gymnasts will fly down together on the same flight on Thursday morning. Later that day, they will practice on the equipment that will be used for the meet. On Friday, it's showtime.

"It will be just like a regular big meet [at the state level]. You just go in, do your event and the top four scores will be added up," Jaeger said.

She's certainly ready to go in and take to every event like it is her last, because it just may be. Jaeger is looking forward to the prospect of discovering what else life has to offer, especially in the nation's capital.

"For the past four years, it's been four hours of gymnastics four or five days a week, including travel time," said Jaeger. "With that time freed, I can fill that. Maybe I'll play volleyball and Ultimate Frisbee, two other sports I've always loved."

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Sports today is business driven

Posted: 21 May 2010 06:03 PM PDT

Sports today is business driven

IT is no longer about building a sports culture in the country, but about strengthening the bond with it collectively.

And that, these days, comes at an alarmingly escalating cost if you're just a regular member of the public wanting to continue enjoying the things Malaysians used to enjoy for free.

Unless you are able to be in the queue and gain bookings for one of just three badminton courts at the Bangsar Sports Complex, charged at RM8 per hour, you end up paying between RM15 and RM25 per hour at any of the sprouting new private badminton centres in the Klang Valley.

It isn't just badminton courts that are in demand, so are courts for futsal and to a certain extent tennis and squash courts, which still may rank as accessible popular sports.

Golf, once ranked as an elitist sport, is accessible at member-based clubs or one of the public courses where anybody can pay green fees to play a round or two. Lessons for your children come as a cost added to the already hefty sum you've got to cough up for equipment.

Don't forget the different league you have to be in to afford a go-kart to enter the karting scene, which can be done at a start-up cost of no more than RM15,000 for all equipment, which allows you or your lucky child to enter the cost-effective Yamaha SL Cup series.

And expect to run up a bill of at least RM25,000 to get you through the season of racing enthusiastically. This truly isn't for the faint-hearted, neither is it for a mere enthusiast. It is for those with money to burn.

Then, to either get yourself fit or remain in satisfactory health, there are the myriad of private gyms that offer membership at more than RM100 per month.

The hundreds of popular futsal centres rent out courts at between RM35 per hour (off-peak) hours, during the day, and as high as RM70 per hour (peak), hours, usually weekend nights.

To gain from quality coaching, parents eager to see their children learn the ropes the proper way are now willing to pay for coaching in sports like badminton, football, rhythmic gymnastics, tennis, squash and bowling.

Traditionally, this privatised coaching industry had almost totally been the domain of martial arts like taekwondo, karate or silat, as well as tennis and squash, where training venues had to be specialised and were not available in most schools.

But the costs incurred for parents of budding exponents in these sports have remained within a bearable region of between RM25 and RM40 per month.

In what seems now the fast-growing "badminton city" of Subang Jaya, where a number of private badminton centres now offer enthusiasts over 200 courts for rental at various venues, it seems almost every parent is willing to pay to find another Lee Chong Wei or Wong Mew Choo.

Public schools are now contracting out badminton coaching at private venues where parents pay between RM25 and RM60 per month for proper coaching.

Should parents decide they want more than that, any of the academies run by former professionals in the area offer rates of RM100 per month, the same as most private football academies.

Parents would have never imagined paying to play football while they were growing up, but they willingly do so these days.

What's interesting is, this segment of the industry has also resulted in the growth of many little competitions for children, which could be something worth looking into for talent scouts, if these scouts actually do exist in the first place.

The only free activity, it seems, is getting yourself a bicycle and riding on open roads. But a proper bicycle too, would set you back at least the price of a motorcycle.

Cycling is just about the only sport that remains voluntarily an enthusiast developed sport at its real grassroots level, with some State or regional development programmes for these segments to provide for. Costs remain mainly for equipment.

It is no longer a free kick-about on the public padang and no more hitting the shuttlecock over the fence. We are surely well into the era of the sports industry, whether we realise it or not.

But while grown-ups and parents alike continue to splurge on their own sports activities, we should also be wondering whether at the other end, we're actually investing in the future of Malaysian sport.

Because surely, powered by the business sense and will, driven by the increasing demand and dreams of sporting success, this sports industry is here to stay.

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Jefferson City gymnastics coach will be honored

Posted: 21 May 2010 05:31 AM PDT

JEFFERSON CITY, MO -- A late former Jefferson City gymnast and gymnastics coach who went on to become a USA gymnastics coach will be honored Friday at at the Knowles YMCA in Jefferson City.

Cameron Weider was killed last summer at the age of 20 in an automobile accident caused by a driver under the influence of drugs.

A banner will be unveiled noting the impact Weider as an inspiration, particularly to young people.

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Gymnastics Sports

Friday, May 21, 2010