BIOGRAPHY OF A WORLD CLASS GYMNASTICS COACH

Liang Chow

Liang Chow born January 1, 1968, Beijing is a former Chinese gymnast and the personal coach of the 2008 Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and 2012 Olympic gold medalist, Gabby Douglas.

[edit]Growing up in Beijing, Chow was tapped by a district club at the age of 5 to train in gymnastics. He was on China's national gymnastics team for more than a decade, winning numerous national and international medals. However, he never competed in an Olympics; in 1988 he was too young to make the Chinese team, and before 1992 he suffered a back injury and retired from competition.He moved to the United States in 1991 on the suggestion of his aunt, who was working on her Ph.D. at the University of Iowa. He accepted an English scholarship and a position as an assistant coach for the University of Iowa's men's gymnastics program. Afterwards he accepted a coaching job for the women's program. Out of his work with female gymnasts, Chow decided to open his own gym to train gymnasts at a younger age, when they would be more flexible and open to learning new skills. He and his wife moved to West Des Moines, Iowa and opened Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute on August 23, 1998. He expanded his operation to an 11 acres (4.5 ha), two-gym facility by 2003.

Chow was the personal coach of Shawn Johnson since 1998. He began working with Gabby Douglas in 2010. He is known for his fatherly affection toward his proteges.^[2]

[edit]

NIGERIA CAN WIN 10 OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALS IN SWIMMING

                                                          Michael Phelps
Reading this profile made me realise that there is a lot of opportunity for swimmer in the olympics. Do you know that there are 34 gold medals available to be won in swimming alone at the olympic games. This does not include diving and synchronised swimming. Nigeria has  only 2 gold medals since it started participating at the olympic games in 1960.

If we invest all the money we spend in the olympic games on swimming alone, in sixteen years, I am certain we would have swimming champions in Nigeria because we naturally have the energy all we need  now is training and hiring of world class coaches.

Winning medals at the olympics is about having world class coaches. For instance Iran won 4 gold medals at the olympics 3 from Wrestling. China won all the gold medals in Ping Pong (Table Tennis). Jamaica won 4 Gold medals all in the Sprint events. USA won 16 gold medals of the available 34 in swimming. All these feats were achieved because these countries had the best coaches who scouted for the right athletes in their given sporting event.

By the way swimming is not only for the white skinned folks. We used to think Gymnastics was for the white skinned folks until 16 year old Gabby Douglas made history by being the first black gold medalist for the USA at the london olympics.

Its all about focus and determination.


PROFILE OF AN AFRICAN SWIMMER FROM KENYA 

Jason Dunford

thirdMenu

• Overview
• Events and results

Country
Kenya
Birth date and place		Age
28/11/1986 - Nairobi (KEN)		25
Height	Weight	Gender
182 cm / 6'0"	74 kg / 163 lbs	M
Sport
Swimming Swimming Men's 100m Butterfly

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Print

Rank	Event	Year	Location	Result
Olympic Games
5	100m Butterfly	2008	Beijing, CHN	51.47
Heats	100m Freestyle	2008	Beijing, CHN	49.06
World Championships
4	100m Butterfly	2011	Shanghai, CHN	51.59
6	50m Butterfly	2009	Rome, ITA	23.04
6	100m Butterfly	2009	Rome, ITA	51.07
7	50m Butterfly	2011	Shanghai, CHN	23.60
Heats	100m Freestyle	2009	Rome, ITA	49.16
World Championships Short Course
7	100m Butterfly	2010	Dubai, UAE	50.79

Hobbies

"Back in Kenya I love to spend time by the ocean surfing and fishing. I also have a passion for wildlife and ecology in which Kenya is so rich. I enjoy reading on various subjects as diverse as evolutionary biology, the world food economy and African history, as well as a good novel now and then [Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy being the most recent]." (Swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010)

Occupation

Athlete

Education

Earth Sciences, Human Physiology - Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Language(s) spoken

Swahili

Club name

Stanford University / ADN Swim Project, United States

Coach

Andrea Di Nino [club], Fahkry Mansoor [national] (Swimnews.com, 05 Oct 2011;Sportsnewsarena.com, 02 Aug 2011)

Other sports

His younger brother David is also a Kenyan international swimmer. (FINA Aquatics World Magazine, 15 Aug 2010)

Additional information

Start of sporting career
He began swimming competitively at the age of five at Kenton College primary school in Nairobi. (FINA Aquatics World Magazine, 15 Aug 2010)

Reason for taking up this sport
His father introduced him and his brothers to water sports off the coast of Mombasa. (FINA Aquatics World Magazine, 15 Aug 2010)

Ambitions
Winning a medal at the Olympic Games in 2012. "Given that I will be 25 when the Olympics come around in London, I suppose it could be my best and last chance to win a medal." He also wants to open a swimming academy in Kenya. "I have held swimming clinics back home, in Italy and the US, but opening an academy [in Kenya] would be my ultimate dream." (gulfnews.com, 13 Oct 2011; swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010; en.beijing2008.cn, 20 Jul 2007)


Training
"I do five sessions of land work per week, three in the gym using weights, swim balls and medicine balls and two extra core workouts. Running, ergo rowing and cycling have also been a part of my training regime as well. In the off season I try to surf as much as possible and also play some golf and tennis. As a percentage of my overall work, ‘fly constitutes about 30-40 percent." (swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010)

Most memorable sporting achievement
Winning gold medals at the 2006 African Championships in Senegal. "It was my greatest joy standing on the podium as the national anthem was being played," he said. "The feeling cannot be expressed in words and I am just happy to have put Kenya's name on the swimming map."

"Breaking the Olympic record in Beijing. Though I only held it for seven minutes, it caused a huge reaction in Kenya and surprised a lot of people."
(swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010; Swim News, 26 Mar 2007)

Superstitions / Rituals
"Rituals are no longer really part of my world because I've realised that superstition counts for nothing other to distract me from the task at hand. I do breathing exercises to help me focus and reach a state of flow before my races. Also, on occasion staring at a singular point for a period of time can help me focus and better ‘get in the zone'." (swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010)

Awards
He was named Overall Mens Swimmer of the Year at the 2011 All-Africa Games. (standardmedia.co.ke, 09 Nov 2011)

He was the first Kenyan to swim in an Olympic final in 2008 and was placed fifth. (swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010)

He won the 2007 Safaricom Kenyan Sportsman of the Year Award. (sportykenya.com, 08 Nov 2010)

He was voted Kenya's Sportsman of the Year in 2007. (nation.co.ke, 04 Aug 2008)

He made history in the 100m butterfly at the 2006 African Championships in Senegal by winning Kenya's first major international swimming gold medal. (nation.co.ke, 04 Aug 2008)

General
ADN PROJECT
He represents the ADN (Andrea Di Nino) Swim Project which trains in Italy. "My national team and management are very supportive of me no matter where I decide to train. They realise it would be difficult to get the level of training I now require if I were to be based in Kenya. I have so far learned much being at ADN. Being a small group I get more individualised attention than is feasible on a collegiate swim team. I am also getting the chance to race in Europe." (swimnews.swimfacts.com, 14 Oct 2010)

FROM KENYA TO THE UK TO THE US
He was born in Kenya and first represented the country at the age of eight. He then moved to the United Kingdom to attend the Marlborough College in Wiltshire and captained the south west of England schools team in 2004. He moved to the United States to swim for Stanford University in the 2005/06 season. (gostanford.cstv.com, 10 Dec 2007; Swim News, 26 Mar 2007)

FAMILY
His father Martin Dunford is the chairman of the Tamarind Group which owns the Carnivore restaurant chain in Kenya. He is also the vice-chairman of the Kenya Swimming Federation and is a patron of the Nairobi Amateur Swimming Association [NASA]. His mother Geraldine Dunford is the granddaughter of Abraham Block, who founded Block Hotels. She is the company's marketing executive. Jason has an older brother who graduated from the London School of Economics and was captain of the rugby team. His younger brother David is a swimmer and represents Kenya.
(china.org.cn, 21 Jan 2012; sportykenya.com, 08 Nov 2010)

Previous Olympics

Beijing 2008

Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

Quote

“The evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon — i.e. a massive diamond orbiting a neutron star every two hours in an orbit so tight it would fit inside our own Sun,” said Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Lying 4,000 light years away, or around an eighth of the way toward the center of the Milky Way from the Earth, the planet is probably the remnant of a once-massive star that has lost its outer layers to the so-called pulsar star it orbits.

Pulsars are tiny, dead neutron stars that are only around 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) in diameter and spin hundreds of times a second, emitting beams of radiation.

In the case of pulsar J1719-1438, the beams regularly sweep the Earth and have been monitored by telescopes in Australia, Britain and Hawaii, allowing astronomers to detect modulations due to the gravitational pull of its unseen companion planet.

The measurements suggest the planet, which orbits its star every two hours and 10 minutes, has slightly more mass than Jupiter but is 20 times as dense, Bailes and colleagues reported in the journal Science on Thursday.

In addition to carbon, the new planet is also likely to contain oxygen, which may be more prevalent at the surface and is probably increasingly rare toward the carbon-rich center.

Its high density suggests the lighter elements of hydrogen and helium, which are the main constituents of gas giants like Jupiter, are not present.

Just what this weird diamond world is actually like close up, however, is a mystery.

Nigerian Politicians Are Very Insane, They Kill Dreams – Richard Branson

The rich international businessman, Richard Branson, has lambasted the crop of leaders we have in Nigeria for their high level greed which, according to him, is killing big brands wishing to do business with the government of the country, for the growth of Nigeria’s economy.

Below is the revelations by Mr. Branson on his experience in Nigeria…

The chairman of Virgin Atlantic said: “…we have virgin’s ill-fated footsteps by setting up a new airline in Africa in conjunction with Nigerian government…the details of the doomed attempts to crack the Nigerian market in the 2000s is better imagined…we put …together a very good airline-the first airline in West Africa that was ever IOSA/IATA operational safety audit accredited but unfortunately it got tied down to the politics of the country…we led the airlines for 11 years…

“We fought daily battle against government agents who wanted to daily make fortune from us, politicians who saw the government 49% as a meal to seek for all kinds of favour…watchdogs (regulatory body) that didn’t know what to do and persistently asking for bribes at any point…Nigeria people are generally nice but the politicians are very insane…that may be irony because the people make up the politicians…

“But those politicians are selfish…we did make N3billion for the federal government of Nigeria during the joint venture…realising that the government didn’t bring nothing to the table/partnership except dubious debts by the previous carrier, Nigeria Airways…The joint venture should have been the biggest African carrier by now if the partnership was allowed to grow, but the politicians KILLED it…Nigeria is a country we SHALL NEVER consider to doing business again..”