Ithaca College

Jonas Contakos '00, associate professor of physics Bruce Thompson, and gymnastics head coach Rick Suddaby -- together with Les Carlton of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign -- published a paper, "The Physics of a Gymnastics Flight Element," which was featured on the cover of the September 2009 issue of the Physics Teacher journal.

Jonas, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at Urbana-Champaign, worked on the project as a physics student at Ithaca College. 

The article shows how rotational analysis can be used to predict the motion of a gymnast executing a piked Jager on a single bar, with the surprising result that a gymnast must use a trick prior to release to achieve the necessary angular momentum to complete the skill.