All Around the World
ISRAEL MASTERS MACCABIAHS
Israeli gymnasts won every women’s senior and
junior title, and five men’s titles, at the 18th Maccabiah Games for Jewish athletes, held July 14-
15 in Tel Aviv. Roni Rabinovitz defeated
defending champion Valeria Maksyuta for the
senior women’s all-around gold, and their Israeli
teammate Alexander Shatilov won the men’s
all-around. Shatilov was also one of the torchbearers in the Games’ opening ceremonies.
Because only Israel and the U.S. entered full
men’s teams, no men’s team competition took
place.
The most successful non-Israeli gymnast was
2008 U.S. champion David Sender, who won
three golds and two silvers. Russia’s Sofia Braman won four medals, and U.S. gymnasts
Simone Freidman, Hannah Deutsch and
David Frankl each won three. Deutsch’s brother, Jonathan, competed on the U.S. junior
baseball team at the Games.
Women’s Sr. Team: 1. ISR (Bernstein, Koren, Liak,
Maksyuta, Rabinovitz, Finkel) 205.35; 2. USA
(Deutsch, Bloom, Der, Meyer, Rosenzweig, Ruben-stein) 182.15; 3. CAN (Goldman, Berenbaun, Goldman, Shinoff) 167.55.
AA: 1. Roni Rabinovitz ISR 51.95; 2. Valeria Maksyuta ISR 51.20; 3. Tali Liak ISR 49.95; 4. Naama Bernstein ISR 49.75; 5. Danielle Goldman CAN 48.40; 6.
Hadas Koren ISR 47.45.
Women’s Jr. Team: 1. ISR (N. Cohen, S. Cohen,
Samouha, Winograd) 191.30; 2. USA (Freidman,
Gordon, Popper, Chep, Molosky, Sukert) 177.00; 3.
CAN (Barsky, Briggs-Morris, Potashner, Solmon,
Wolfe) 155.75.
Jr. AA: 1. Nofar Cohen ISR 49.20; 2. Sapir Cohen ISR
49.15; 3. Sofia Braman RUS 48.05; 4. Yuval
Samouha ISR 46.50; 5. Noam Winograd ISR 46. 45;
6. Simone Freidman USA 43.00.
Sr. Men: AA: 1. Alexander Shatilov ISR 87.45; 2.
David Sender USA 84.23; 3. Felix Aronovich ISR
81.60; 4. Noam Shaham ISR 80.65; 5. Ben Rudolph
USA 80.25; 6. Steffen Beck USA 76.50.
Jr. AA: 1. David Frankl USA 76.20; 2. Kfir Weiss ISR
73.95; 3. Josh Steves USA 73.78; 4. Brendan
Williams USA 73.70; 5. Aaron Meland USA 73.10; 6.
Joshua Unger USA 72.93.
JIANG, HOSHI TOP OF CLASS
Olympians Jiang Yuyuan (China) and Yosuke
Hoshi (Japan) won the women’s and men’s all-around titles, respectively, and led their teams to
victory at the 25th World University Games, held
July 1-12 in Belgrade, Serbia.
Jiang was the only gymnast to win three gold
medals, while Hoshi, Japan’s Takuya Nakase
and Great Britain’s Beth Tweddle each won
two gold medals.
Women’s Team: 1. CHN (Cheng, He, Jiang, Liu,
Zhou) 169.15; 2. RUS (Klyukina, Kazantseva, Alek-seyeva, Chibiskova, Zamolodchikova) 162.15; 3.
PRK (Kim, Hong, Cha, Pak , Kang) 161.45.
AA: 1. Jiang Yuyuan CHN 57.05; 2. He Ning CHN
56.60; 3. Kim Un Hyang PRK 55.80; 4. Hong Un Jong
PRK 55.00; 5. Rie Tanaka JPN 54.55; 6. Svetlana
Klyukina RUS 53.80.
Men’s Team: 1. JPN (Hoshi, Nakase, Watanabe, Niiji-ma, Okiguchi) 269.70; 2. RUS (Balandin, Barkalov,
Dyomin, Garibov, Olennikov) 263.40; 3. CHN (Huang,
Wang, Yan, Fu Min, Liu) 260.25.
AA: 1. Yosuke Hoshi JPN 87.25; 2. Wang Heng CHN
87.20; 3. Kim Soo Myun KOR 86.95; 4. Manuel Campos POR 86.45; 5. Marcell Hetrovics HUN 86.40; 6.
Nikolai Kuksenkov UKR 85.85.
FRANCE, ITALY IN CONTROL
Led by all-around champions Youna Dufournet and Benoit Caranobe, French gymnasts
won seven gold medals at the 16th Mediterranean Games, held June 26-July 5 in Pescara,
Italy. The host country earned four titles, including a narrow win in the men’s team competition.
Italy’s Elisabetta Preziosa continued her
emergence on the international scene with her
all-around silver medal and floor gold. Born Sept.
21, 1993, in Tradate, Preziosa trains at the Gin-nastica Artistica Lissonese club in Lissone.
Goksu Uctas earned Turkey’s only medal,
the silver on women’s vault. Born Aug. 30,
1990, in Sahinbey, Uctas began training in
1995.
Men’s floor exercise champion Eleftherios
Kosmidis of Greece maintained his status as a
consistent medal threat on his best event. Kosmidis, who turned 18 on May 6, placed first on
floor at the 2008 Junior Europeans and third on
at the ’09 Europeans. In floor finals on the World
