Trudi Kollar

From fives years old until I was fourteen, I went to a gym called Pozsar's Gymnastics owned by Geza Pozsar.  I was coached by Trudi Kollar (Getrude Emilia Eberle) the entire time I was there.  Trudi was an Olympic gymnast in 1980.  I love Trudi so much.  She was my favorite coach.  Then Pozsars closed and I had to moved to another gym.  I chose to move to Byers Gymnastics in Elk Grove. 

While I was at Pozsar's though, I remember in 2008 that KCRA came to Pozsar's to get an interview from Trudi. While Trudi was in Romania training for the Olympics she was coached by the Karolyi's.  One of her teammates was Nadia Comaneci.  She was abused by the Karolyi's while training for gymnastics. 

                                               Emelia Eberle on vault at the WC EF in 1978

                                             Emelia Eberle on bars in the 1980 Olympics

                                             Emelia Eberle on beam in the 1980 Olympics

                                             Emelia Eberle on floor in the 1980 Olympics

 

The Evolution of The Floor Exercise

Both men and women compete on floor. Men have a routine based on tumbling and strength while women have theirs based on tumbling and dance.  Men's routines last up to 70 seconds and womens have to be 90 seconds.  The men don't do their routines to music but the women do.  The floor is 39ft by 39ft.  It is a sprung floor to provide gymnasts with bounce for their hard tumbling passes and has a layer of cushion so the impact isn't as hard.

In the 1970's, floor was all about dancing with not that hard of tumbling passes.  Nowadays it's about being graceful, but most powerful.  Gymnasts now do much harder tumbling passes such as a triple twist instead of a double twist.
 

                                                  Nadia Comaneci at the 1976 Olympics

                                                Shawn Johnson at the 2008 Olympics
   

The Evolution of Balance Beam

The length of the beam is 16 feet and its only 3.9 inches wide.  In the early days of gymnastics, beam was based more on dance than on tumbling.  Routines at the elite level were just leaps, dance poses, handstands, rolls, front walkovers, and back walkovers.  In the 1960's the most dificult skill performed by the average Oympic gymnast was just a back handspring. 

Originally, the beam surface was plain polished wood.  In earlier years, some gymnasts competed on a beam made of basketball-like material.  However, this type of beam was eventually banned due to its extreme slipperiness.  Since the 1980s, beams have been covered in leather or suede.  In addition, they are now also sprung to accommodate the stress of high-difficulty tumbling and dance skills.

In the 70's the difficulty of beam began to increase. Gymnasts started advancing their routines by adding aerial skills and advanced tumbling combinations.  Today, balance beam routines still consist of a mixture of acrobatic skills, dance elements, leaps and poses, but with much greater difficulty.