31. August 2007
Stuttgart / Germany
Artistic Gymnastics
FRIDAY: Men s PODIUM TRAINING closed - the Worlds can start!
On Friday at 10 am local time the second day of podium training starts with the last four subdivisions at the worlds venue "Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Hall in Stuttgart.
First Australia, Canada and Portugal will go on the podium, followed at 1 pm local time by Rumania and the USA, at 4 pm by Italy, Ukraine, Greece.
The German team iss pleased with its place in the last group of the second day at 7 pm in the evening, together with Korea and Spain....!
* Thursday, 30th August
PODIUM TRAINING, Men - 1st Day:
Without doubt - the presentations today are world class. It is inexplicable that there are not hundreds of clubs, trainers, coaches using these demonstrations of the world's elite as free practical lesson... except for a few gymnasts from Backnang the hall is nearly empty! What a waste...
- 1st SUBDIVISION:
Unlucky lots for Japan and Russia
Both teams of course are technically excellent, and yet their performances to date weren't entirely convincing: there were too many insecurities, in particular on horse and high bar.
- JAPAN: - Suprising, un-Japanese, disorganised goings on on the podium: the impression was that the team was merely limbering up, but not willing to show their prowess on the apparatus !?
The question remains of whether this was a tactical measure or a lack of enthusiasm...
- RUSSIA: - also displayed a high technical standard, particularly on floor, horse and rings, but also too great a degree of instability and many mistakes on horse, falls from the high bar, even though these happend during very difficult elements. For instance Nikolai KRUKOW fell while perfoming a circle forwards in reverse grip with a full turn to handstand and subsequent circle forwards in reverse grip with a half turn.
WASSILIJEW - showed an impressive first sequence on floor, including salto backward with 1/1 twist, stretched salto fwd. with 1/1 turn and a double salto directly afterwards!
Rings specialist Safoshkin, who wasn't in top form the ECh in Amsterdam after injuries, showed top class performances on rings and parallell bars;
* 2nd SUBDIVISION
- SWITZERLAND: - presented itself very well, also as concerns the effeicient use of podium time, very well organised, a technically well trained, young, ambitious team, though still displaying too many insecurities on horse and high bar.
- KASAKHSTAN: - with improvements reminiscent of the old times of gymnastics legends such as Lyukin, Nowikow and Fedortshenko. After a period which featured successful individual gymnasts, a solid team performance is once more developing which deserves our attention!
- GREAT BRITAIN: - a good team with rather athletic, dynamic gymnasts; striking were the superb horse performances of LUIS and KEATONS;
- HUNGARY: - here it was the horse supremo BERCI who made a particular impression, for instance with an attractively performed renaissance of auf, z.B. mit attraktiv geturnten Rennaisance der scissor swings to hand stand, created as long ago as 1983 by LI Ning, but very rarely performed in modern times: however no less than three times today...
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Dmitri KARBONENKO (FRA) - one of the most experienced athlet!
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* 3rd SUBDIVISION:
- FRANCE'S men presented themselves with a tersely organised heat - good practice close to the conditions of competition. The astonishing Dmitri KARBANENKO is still the impressive lead figure! Despite this, the French miss their injured gymnasts, such as Thomas BOHAIL, the European vice-champion on floor (shoulder injury) and the double medal winner WIGNANITZ (serious contusion of the knee in the run-up to the WCh), very much. The will to compensate this lack was visible - the Frenchmen will have problems...!
- BRAZIL was not only strong on floor and vault, it also showed improvement on all pieces of apparatus as compared to the WCh 2006.
Diego HYPOLITO of course made a big impression again, for instance performing first a Kasamatsu with 1 1/2 twist and then a handspring salto forward with a double twist, both to greatest perfection - the duell with Dragulescu should be exciting!
On floor he has now upgraded his programme as compared to Aarhus, from 16.6 to 16.9 (!) - his double twist peaked with a 1/1 twist in the first acrobatic sequence is a gem!
* 4th SUBDIVISION
- CHINA - a team of the highest standard!
... for instance at the vault table: precisely one warm up and one competition vault were executed - very discipled and close to competition conditions!
... the most perfect swing technique on the parallell bars, all gymnasts presented three flight elements, the air was thick with Belles, Morisues and straddle saltos...
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Donna-Donny TRUYENS - a very talented young gymnast from Ghent, Belgium
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... on the horizontal bar - to date not the strongest piece of apparatus for the Chinese - the team showed a marked improvement since Aarhus, technically improved el-grip behaviour, swing forwards with a full or 1/2 turn ... only during the flight elements did some of the men seem a little hectic;
- improvement on floor also, in between times a bit of a shock, when CHEN, Yibin took rather a rough jolt on the neck after performing a 1 1/2 salto to roll fwd;
ZHOU, Kai shone with a 2 1/2 twist, immediately followed by salto forward with double turn!
- on pommel horse all six gymnasts were entirely up to scratch, performed as if they came from another galaxy, five out of the six should make the finals and even among these, the title holder XIAO, Qin is in a category of his own - if he has a rival, it is surely himself!!
... and otherwise:
- the Belgian Donna-Donny TRUYENS from Ghent performed surprisingly well on pommel horse, and it was once again amazing to see what good form the oldest participant of these WCh, the Norwegian Espen Janssen (38), has achieved for his 13th WCh participation since 1991!
* Friday, 31st August
PODIUM TRAINING, Men - 2nd Day:
* 5th SUBDIVISION
- AUSTRALIA - is badly hit by the withdrawal because of injury of horizontal bar world champion Philipppe RIZZO, technically also the team appears to be less than perfect, however its performance is very stable.
Remarkable is its star, the vice world champion on pommel horse, Prashanth Sellathurai (18) ,who at 1.51 and 45 kgs is not only the shortest, but also the lightest WCh participant, who however has well-founded ambitions of winning a medal on horse. On rings also his performance is strong because of the good ratio of stregth to weight, however he is somewhat impeded by latent shoulder problems, missing swing elements and thus a lower A-score.
- CANADA - appears to have higher potential altogether and can thus compensate the unfortunate withdrawal of the floor Olympic champion Kyle SHEWFELT due to a knee injury; the team strength in total as increased.
On parallel bars the Canadians even come very close technically to the superb Chinese: It is impressive how O'NEILL, who is better known as a floor and vault specialist has perfected his swings with a full turn between the bars. If the Canadians perform with comparable stability in competition, a strong middle rank among the top ten teams is in reach...!
* 6th SUBDIVISION
- USA - The Americans are far removed from their standard of the Olympic year 2004, when they won the silver medal, however they seem to have improved since Aarhus. However here on the podium their performance was marred by too many mistakes, especially on parallell bars and horizontal bar.... they will have difficulties making the top ten, however the Olympic 'round of twelve' is in reach.
HORTON excelled, showing a perfect 'Fedorchenko' on horizontal bar, i.e. a stretched double salto with triple twist as descent; the pommel horse performance of ARTEMEV also looks like a ticket to the finals...!
- RUMania - In the past, their performance on the podium was rarely convincing, but they mostly improved massively in competition. This year however a large improvement will be necessary if they want to purchase that team ticket to Beijing. Their most prominent gymnast Marian DRAGULESCU, who used to be a very good allrounder, but seems to have turned into a floor- and vault-specialist since he went solo, seems to have a few personal problems at present, appeared unconcentrated, only sketched his exercise on floor instead of show-casing himself ... could all this be only tactical manouvers?
At least today a coherent team performance from Rumania was not in evidence.
- NETHERLANDS - the Dutch gymnasts as a team seem weaker than expected.
It was clear that their rings supremo Yuri van GELDER would give a convincing performance on his favourite piece of apparatus, but his rivals, such as 'oldie' Yovchev (BUL), Safoshkin (RUS), and the Italians aren't napping either...
Epke ZONDERLAND, ECH third in Amsterdam 2007 on parallell bars, and excellently prepared at that competition, is maybe even better on the horizontal bar: His Kolman salto, i.e. a Kovacs with full turn, was fantastic...!
- NORTH KOREA - was not represented by a team, but with three individuals of extroadinary prowess:
RI, Young Song - showed a triple Tsukajara on floor on he podium, just as had already been observed in free training. Just that is exciting! However he topped this with a double salto, followed by a triple twist...
and last of all another double Tsukahara, in tucked form. Unbelievable content with an A-score of 16.8 to 16.9 !!
He appears destined to perform turns around the longitudinal axis:
At the vault table he performed first a Kasamatsu with 2/1 turns, i.e. in total a triple turn arund the longitudinal axis, as the normal Kasamasu already contains one, and then as his second vault a Dragulescu, in other words handspring, double salto fwd. with 1/2 turn.
In free training he even risked a Im freien Training riskierte er sogar den "peaked Dragulescu "...!!!
... the inventors and others should beware!
And more:
RO, Chol Yin, his compatriot, hat similarly exciting super-vault in store:
1. - Handspring, stretched salto fwd. with 2 1/2 twist (i.e. the 'Kroll'-vault with a whole additional turn and
2. - Tsukahara with subsequent peaked double salto, as performed for instance by the Pole Blanik and other specialists
... by the way, a very pleasant change today:
More spectators than on the previous days, which turned the rather sterile atmosphere into one approximating competition, which obviously benefited the athletes!
* from Stuttgart: Dieter HOFMANN; Eckhard HERHOLZ
- translated by Susanna THIELECKE
* 7th SUBDIVISION ( 1 pm, local time)
- UKRAINE - an improvement on the team performance of the 2006 WCh, where the proteges of Igor KORBTSCHINSKI only came 12th behind Korea and France, was barely recognizable, although the absence of rings European champion Worobjow should not have impaired the team: altogether lots of insecurities, also superficialities, in particualr on parallell bars and floor In the team once again parallell bars Olympic champion GONSHAROV , who performed rarely of late, but was well prepared on his specialist piece of apparatus.
- ITALY - represented by one of the oldest and thus most experienced teams, which is known to be strong on rings and horizontal bar, however: five or six other teams achieve the same standard that the Italians do at present, they will have difficulties (they were 15th at the 2006 Aarhus WCh);
... striking individual performances:
- an interesting gymnast from IRAN (!!) (Name - ??), though obviously not schooled perfectly in technique, made magic on the pommel horse;
- here a sample for real pommel horse specialists: ...Russian wendeswing between the pommel - wendeswing outwards - Russian wenddeswing at the end of the horse - then 'WU, Guan Yan' (= wendeswing with travel along the whole hores and two turns) - and last a 'TONG, Fei', a further wendeswing ending in a handstand with a 1 1/4 turn - wow!!
... and all this from a gymnast from the Islamic Republic of Iran! Gymnastics is a global sport!
... seasoned maestro Aljaz PEGAN - still in a class of his own on horizontal bar, not only because of his flight elements, the old dog has learnt new tricks, his el-grip turns are markedly improved - however where his descent, a triple salto is concerned, we are always relieved when he has landed - all to often he has barely squeezed past the bar...
* 8th SUBDIVISION
- GERMANY - the host's men's team gives the impression of being well prepared and concentrated and tried to make their apparatus performances as similar to competition as possible. The star of the team, Fabian Hambüchen, had a little problem on horizontal bar, when he came a little early on a circle in reverse grip with 1/1 turn and had to correct himself...
... however in repetition the 'Yamawaki' and 'Rybalko' as E-D-D-value combinations were exemplary and precise.
In this state ANDREAS HIRSCH's team is in with the best...!
- KOREA - The South Koreans performed better here today than just a few days ago at the national meet with Switzerland in Maienfeld: There they positively stumbled through the competition, with 10 falls on rings (5x), vault (3x) and horizontal bar (2x) however they had come directly from intensive training.
Today they showed a high standard on all pieces of apparatus, maybe with a few difficulties on parallell bars.
- SPAIN - The Spaniards showed no great development as compared to the WCh 2006 in Aarhus. They are certainly candidates for the Olympic dozen, and the Athens Olympic champion on vault of 2004, Gervasio DEFERR, also showed a strong performance on floor.
A first, careful, evaluation ... ?!
Whoever wants to win here will have to beat the Chinese! Only Japan and Russia even come close, so these nations are the main medal aspirants. Next should come Canada, Korea and Germany, all of course with a caveat and depending on stability of performance...!
.... further six teams ... maybe with Italy and Australia added - in other words 14 teams are tussling for the coveted 12 Olympic places. And last of all, as an aside: observations from the podium give a first impression and enable vague assessments - the real competitions start now, and everything that happened up to today will be of no significance from tomorrow.
In other words: the World Championships can begin!
* from Stuttgart: Dieter HOFMANN; Eckhard HERHOLZ
- translated by Susanna THIELECKE
>> ... see Schedule: Men's Qualification
