Ahead of Its Time

This 1967 NCAA ring routine by Don Hatch is surprisingly good by today's standards in terms of strength.

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To show just how far ahead of its time this level of strength was, here is the great Akinori Nakayama's ring routine from the 1972 Olympics.

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Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Amazing how far gymnastics has evolved! Kudos to Don Hatch, that was impressive, even by today's standards.

Definitely impressive and, as one yt commenter pointed out, he doesn't use a false grip for the cross.

Does anybody know when false grips became popular?

Here is a small followup link that details the Univ of Iowa (Don Hatch's team) winning the NCAAs for the first time a few years later. The file also contains a few nice ring strength photos.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Amazing!

I enjoy watching gymnastics from days gone by. Great clips.

Just curious, when did the false grip start to become more widely used?

Doesn't look like any of these gymnasts use it.

Very impressive, I like the L-sit-cross, especially.

By the way, the second video shows Shigeru Kasamatsu, not Nakayama. It's a flash error like the (german) annotator says.

Adi said:

... By the way, the second video shows Shigeru Kasamatsu, not Nakayama. It's a flash error like the (german) annotator says ...

Thank you for the correction.

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Shigeru Kasamatsu (one of my all time favorite gymnasts). He was very cordial and still in great shape.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Does someone knows why maltese is named like that?

It seems a mystery to me (here in italy we call it only swallow)