ziert alert!
Back to Berlin
THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS were held in Berlin, Germany, April 6-10, at he Max-Schmeling-Halle. For me, this was an amazing trip, because in the late 1970s I traveled to West Berlin, and three months later I was in East
Berlin as a coach and delegation leader
for U.S. men’s competitions. Of
course, that was when this beautiful
city was divided by a 12-foot-high wall
to separate the East and West Berliners. But now the second-largest city in
the European Union ( 3. 5 million people) is alive and abounding with history
and culture, and there is no visible division left in the society, at least that I
could see.
I arrived early enough to watch the
podium training, which is a great way
to forecast what’s coming in the competition. Of course, with the Russian
and Romanian women represented by
most of their great ones, including
Aliya Mustafina, Tatiana Nabiyeva, Anna Dementyeva, Ana Porgras, Sandra Izbasa and Diana
Chelaru, I was sure that we would see
some wonderful gymnastics, and we
did. Unfortunately, after qualifying for
the all-around final with a 59.75
(almost 3.0 better than Dementyeva in
second), where she vaulted only a
Yurchenko-double twist, Mustafina left
most of the gymnastics community in
mourning when she tore her ACL on
an Amanar vault in the first rotation.
Nevertheless, Dementyeva carried
on to deliver beautiful exercises to keep
the gold in Russia. Porgras looked very
good in the podium training, where
she showed work on all four events,
but when it came to the competition,
she melted down on the two events she
competed, bars and beam. Izbasa and
Chelaru looked much cleaner and
determined. Apparently, the return of
Octavian Bellu and Mariana
Bitang will spark the Romanians to a
higher level than we have seen in the
past few years.
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I actually had the most
fun watching and blogging the men’s competition! I was so impressed
with the German and
British guys.
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Last but hardly least, Beth Tweddle
showed a character that is beyond definition! Prior to this competition, the
uneven bars in her club collapsed on
her, she injured her Achilles’ tendon
slightly and got new floor and bars routines. Yet she stepped up big time to
win bars and place fourth on floor.
And Epke Zonderland from the
Netherlands lived up to the title that
the announcer used to introduce him,
“The Flying Dutchman,” and performed one of the most outrageous
horizontal bar routines ever! He won
the event with a 7.7-D-score. Although
only two gymnasts had lower E-scores
than Zonderland, he is executing much
better than before!
GYM-MART
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