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* GYMmedia-exclusive interview with
Paul SIELER, president of the "International Rhönrad Federation" (IRV)
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*GYMmedia:  – What kind of World Championships were these competitions with the Swiss hand writing?
* Paul SIELER: - "Overall surely a WC of the superlatives. That includes the organisation, the performances, the number of audience, the whole infrastructure, the development of quality, the atmosphere and even the weather. The Swiss gave us a lot of heartiness and perfect organisation to the smallest detail. Everything was great!

*GYMmedia:  – Were there tendency in certain disciplines that especially stroke the viewer in these World Championships?
* Paul SIELER: - "The performances of all countries reached a level that has never been this high before and the top got closer."

*Annotations:
On the days of the Rhönrad-World Championships (19. - 24. May 2009) GYMmedia registered an online visit of 43.760 users from overall  97 nations only on the Rhönrad pages. That led to an overall sum of 437.000 page impressions. We counted  over proportinally high visit rates from Asian regions (Japan), South America (Brazil), Canada and the USA.
Tendency: Generally do the GYMmedia-Users inform themselves about every current even / information that are offered.
That shows that not only one discipline group stays amongst itself but that it creates a general interest. Everyone profits from the broad target group of the "aesthetic Gymnastics-Family".
- the editors

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2009 USA National Wheel Gymnastics Championships
 - Chikago, USA; March 15 -
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The competition was exceptional with very promising results of junior athletes:
Edith KEME(15.6), Dave ETTELSON (13.1), and at the elite category Cornell FREENEY (22.75) won All-Around competition in their respective disciplines for their efforts.

Cornell FREENEY is a veteran of competition, having won 2nd place in vault and 6th place in straight-line competition during the last World Championships held in Salzburg, Austria in 2007.
The full list of scores for the competition is listed below. Several of the athletes will be travelling to Baar, Switzerland May 18th-24th, 2009 to compete in the 2009 World Championships in Wheel Gymnastics.
Many friends, family, and fans of wheel gymnastics were in attendance, leading to standing room only after the event started.
Judges for the competition were Vanessa Enk (former German National Junior team member and former TSV Taunusstein coach), Maribeth Joy McManus (Circesteem Project Manager), Lisa Brown (USA Competitor 2003, 2005 World Championships), and Evan Brown (USA Competitor 2001, and Judge 2003, 2005 World Championships).

The All-Star-Team with World Champion Cecile Meschberger, Sabine Krumm (both Switzerland), Vincent Klimo (Austria) and Solveig Krapf (Norway) was leading the competition for long. In the last-but-one round, the scores of all teams were close together around 16,00 and 15,00...

>> On Sunday, the competitions of this 2-part World-Team-Cups 2008 will be continued in Ramstein-Miesenbach.

GYMmedia International will report with details and pictures. 

The best of the WORLDS will be there...
"The original host of the event, Lüdenscheid and Würzburg, had given back the competition - Wolfstein and Ramstein fortunately accepted quite fast, so that this popular competition can take place after all, ", says Dirk Balkenohl of the International Whee Gymnastics Federation IRV happily. "We are expection the leading teams, the best three of the World Championships in Salzburg and we are especially happy to welcome the gymnasts from the Netherlands, who surprisingly won gold in the WORLDS." 

In the German team, all members have current World Champion titles: Janin Oer (FOTO; VFB Fallersleben) is the current all-around world champion and together with Nadine Münster (TSV Bleidenstadt) she is alse title holder in twist.

Clear victory for the German team on the second day, too

As on the first day in Wolfstein, the wheel gymnasts from Germany were dominating in the competition in Ramstein, too, and won over the other teams with flawless routines and with 25 points before Japan and the All-Star-Team (both 16,00). The gymnasts from the Netherlands achieved the fourth position. 
"Also on the second day all the gymnasts tried very hard in, again, very exciting competitions. "  says Dirk Balkenohl of the International Whee Gymnastics federation IRV. "Everything was well-organised and the IRV thanks Franz Obry warmly, for his taking over the event and carrying it out with routine."
The public really liked the launching of a joker in the competitions this year. The teams did not know when which gymnast of the other teams would perform and had to trust their own cpacities. Balkenohl: "This made the event unbelievably attractive!"

4th WORLD TEAM CUP 2008
- 15./16. March, Wolfstein and Ramstein -

* RESULTS

1. Germany - 49,00
2. All-Star-Team - 34,00
3. Japan - 32,00
3. Netherlands - 32,00

- Results 1st round, day 1 -
1. Germany - 24,00
2. All-Star-Team - 18,00
3. Netherlands - 17,00
4. Japan - 16,00

- Results 2nd round, day 2 -
1. Germany - 25,00
2. Japan - 16,00
2. All-Star-Team - 16,00
4. Netherlands - 15,00

>> detailed results follow!

Bientzle has performed in countless shows, including Cirque du Soleil’s with the show "Quidam" in Amsterdam  and "Mystere" for three years in Las Vegas, as well as numerous television appearances, so The Late Show with Dave Letterman and on Viva Variety, many circus festivals and galas, like at the Laureus World Sports Award events...

As a coach he has trained German Wheel for the last year's world champions,  trained all the current Cirque Du Soleil wheel performers and numerous World Champions.

He is undoubtedly the driving force behind Wheel Gymnastics today, especially in the United States, but also a wellknown name and person in his homeland Germany, yet!

... trained more that 15 assistant coaches and brought new levels of skills and artistic expression to the young artist there.He also made CircEsteem the home of the U.S Gymnastic Wheel Federation.
Cornell Freene has been a student with CircEsteem for several years and has had the privilege of Bientzle’s attention:
“I have been training under the belt of Wolfgang for about two years. Our most recent project has been training for the 2007 World Championship in Wheel Gymnastics.
For months, Wolfgang woke up every morning to coach me at 6:30 am before school. The training was hard but worth it, I placed 2nd in the world in the junior boys vault competition. Wolfgang is also very creative. He has choreographed our individual acts well as our whole shows, which has been amazing.”
>> ... read more about CircEsteem

In the second week of their stay in Brazil the German wheel gymnastics group an number of shows and hands-on events in Rio de Janeiro and the surrounding countryside; in particular, many children and young adults came to these events and after overcoming their shyness towards the blonde Germans, it was evident that even the youngest participants had fun with the wheel...

The contact with UNICAMP is to be reenforced by a course for trainers in Brazil and the participation of Brazilian wheel gymnasts in an international course of the IRV in Denmark in 2008.

Back in Germany bthe group agreed that they had had many exciting moments, had gained many friends and are sure to return to Brazil.
Report and photos: Sigrun Leisner
Red.: Gritt Ockert, gymmedia

The German female juniors came under pressure in the vault finals. Here, Anouschka Welsing from the Netherlands was delighted to receive the gold medal, Tonje Thu came second, Maren Opfermann (GER) placed third.

In the straight-line event the all-round wolrd champion Victoria Henninghausen (GER) came out on top, in front of Mareike Jochem/GER and Sean Dermer (ISR). Michaela Gangl participated for the Austrian hosts and placed fourth just behind Dermer.

Maren Opfermann (GER) won the gold medal in the spiral finals. Victoria Henninghausen (GER) won the silver, Melissa Fiahlo (FRA) the bronze medal.

In the men's event the Japanese gymnast Motonobu Tamura became the world champion in the vault, followed by Nobuhiro Koyama, also from Japan, and Achus Emeis (GER). Constantin Malchin was able to defend his title and won the gold medal in the spiral event. All-round world champion Achus Emeis (GER) secured the gold medal in the straight-line event.

 

Final Straight Men Senior

1. Achus Emeis (GER) - 9,40 Punkte
2. Hendrik Strauß (GER) - 8,85 Punkte
3. Rick de Boer (NL) - 8,20 Punkte
Finale Straight Men Senior
Finale Straight Men Junior

Final Straight Women Senior

1. Cecile Meschberger (SWI) - 9,15 Punkte
2. Annette Pusch (GER) - 9,15 Punkte
3. Takakko Hiwa (JPN) - 9,05 Punkte
Final Straight Women Senior
Finale Straight Women Junior