Komova - All Around European Champion (Jr)

Victoria Komova won with a total score of 58.35, followed by her teammate Anastasia Grishina and Larisa Iordache of Romania. Diana Bulimar, who did not have a great UB routine, came 4th.

Larisa Iordache had a slightly better day than in qualifications, with the highest score of the meeting on the BB.

1 721 KOMOVA Victoria RUS VT 14.525 UB15.325 BB14.100 FX14.425 total 58.375

2 723 GRISHINA Anastasia RUS 13.950 15.225 13.400 14.375 /56.950

3 717 IORDACHE L. ROU 13.650 13.150 14.675 14.200/ 55.675

4 716 BULIMAR Diana Laura ROU 13.125 12.575 14.150 14.325/ 54.175

5 686 FASANA Erika ITA 13.925 13.300 12.250 13.450 /52.925

See the complete results here.

Euro Quals - Romanians make it to all the event finals!

I am thrilled for our Romanian girls, they have managed to qualify for all the finals! AND the greatest achievement is, in my opinion, having qualifiers for the VT finals: Diana Chelaru and Amelia Racea on 5th and 6th place respectively.

Great contest for Ana Porgras, who seems to have managed the routine of her senior career so far: first qualifier to the Beam finals (14.95 with 6.2 D score, that makes it 8.75 for execution!!)

For the Russians it was a great day for Alyia Mustafina, who qualified for 3 finals and Tania Nabieva, with great scores on VT and UB.

Probably the most impressive gymnast of the day was Beth Tweddle, huge scores for both FX and UB. She is definitely going to get that UB world title back some day.

You can see all the EF qualifiers here.

And the team qualifications results here.

Euros- juniors qualifications: Larisa and Diana - probably out of beam finals

The juniors qualifications are going on as we speak... Romanians have already finished competing. The bad news is that Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar fell off beam. The good news is they had good UB and FX sets.

These are the results, as the All Around posted them. Thanke a look on theor website for live results.

Vault

Beatrice Margarit: FTY 13.625

Diana Bulimar : handspring front pike off. 13.250 // FTY 13.525

Diana Rusu: FTY 13.575 // handspring front pike (step)

Larissa Iordache: 1 ½ twisting Yurchenko13.875 // FTY (stuck)

Uneven Bars

Madalina Neagu :12.650

Diana Rusu : 9.925

Diana Bulimar: 13.650

Larissa Iordache: 13.275

Beam

Beatrice Margarit : 12.850 (they didn’t count the leap series)

Diana Rusu : 13.150

Madalina Neagu: 13.950

Diana Bulimar 13.200 (fall on flic – layout)

Larissa Iordache: 13.625 – fall on flic – layout

Floor:

Diana Rusu : 13.600

Beatrice Margarit: 14.075

Diana Bulimar: 14.425

Larissa Iordache: 14.775

Euros Podium Training - why Ana Porgras doesn't look good

Prosport reports that our Bright Star, Ana Porgras is having some problems in her first days in Birmingham. She has big pains on her left ankle and her palms are bleeding severely. probably that's why I read on the All-Around that she didn't hit a single routine in her podium training :(.

Read the entire article in Prosport.

I just couldn't help it...

So I gathered the best pictures of Ana Porgras I managed to take. I am not very good at this, but she is sooo beautiful that, even the pictures seem acceptable.

One of my favorite floor routines - it's predictable, of course

I like Gina - and I think we all should

This is one of the main reasons I like Gina:


Other reasons would be the fact that she was one of the best floor workers... her landings look miraculous and her jumps .. sigh...
her consistency is really amazing
and her temperate reactions are very sincere. I admire honest people. And I don't particularly agree with the people that show all of their teeth just because they are in front of the camera.
You go Gina :-)

The fantastic improvement of Diana Chelaru

When Diana Chelaru first appeared on the international scene, in the spring of 2009, people were less than unimpressed. Her presence in the Romanian national team seemed more of an enigma, after she placed on the14th place in the all around final at the 2009 Euros. And I must add this: she was behind two gymnasts from Switzerland and one from Poland (among others). But this spring has brought to our attention a new Diana Chelaru. It seems that her hard work and the faith of Nicolae Forminte have paid off: they have managed to build, with patience and confidence, a gymnast for the team.

Take a look at her improvement on beam. I have rarely seen something similar (maybe it's just me):

April 2009 (or here)

April 2010 (or here)

and, of course uneven bars, although she is not an expert yet, at least she doesn't fall three times on the same routine as she used to :-)

June 2009 (or here)

April 2010 (or watch here)

In the gym, relax... in your own way

This is how gymnasts choose to relax between routines: Amelia Racea does what we would al do: she's eating chocolate, Ana Porgras is doing what all gymnasts do: walks using on her arms rather than her legs and Goksu Uktas ... seems like either she is sleeping in a straddle position or she has died in a straddle position.

Pictures from Romanian International!!(Part 3)

Pictures from Romanian Internationsl (part 2 )

Three of my favorite gymnasts :P

Nicolae Forminte had a few words with the girls before Beam Finals

Sandra Izbasa visited her friends today as well

Lăcrămioara Filip (-Moldovan) - one of the heroes of the day (she's the beam coach for Diana Bulimar and Larisa Iordache)

Amelia Racea fell on the las pass at Floor - Nicolae held her for a while because she was crying

the Coach spent some time talking to the girls and joking around

Videos from Romanian International uploaded by moi :P

Amelia has been a little sad after this. I hope she wins floor tomorrow and she'll be happy.

This is the silver on UB: Raluca Haidu:


This is Ana Porgras's ok UB set (she won, she's happy - Nicolae won't kill her after this :) )


And this is Diana Chelaru's first vault:


You can watch a bit more on youtube: gymnoceiling

Pictures from Romanian Internationals!!

These are some of the pictures I captured today at Romanian Internationals. As you may already know, Diana Chelaru won the VT with two vaults that made her vaulting coach really happy (the man literally started to jump) and Ana Porgras scored 14.8 on UB winning the contest over Raluca Haidu (lovely form) 14.6 (I think).

The Coach's final advices prior to UB

Ana Porgras - Before UB (probably that was what the coach told her :)) )

Raluca Haidu

Diana Chelaru and Sandra Izbasa (rocking some denim)

Cerasela Patrascu seemingly not intimidated by Nicolae Forminte

Amelia Racea and Diana Chelaru

Cerasela Patrascu helping her team mates to warm up for UB

Raluca Haidu, Ana Porgras and Diana Trenca

It's late in Romania but really have to tell you this...

There are videos from Romanian internationals on youtube. yuhuuu

You can find things like Ana Porgras's BB (shaky) and FX (lovely) but also Amelia Racea's Beam routine

and Raluca Haidu's consistent Floor

In the beginning of Ana Porgras' BB exercise you can have a glimpse of Sandra's new look (very Nastia like but one must admit it's practical and looks ok):

I would insist on adding that I watched Sandra's brief interview for the national television: the usual, she misses gymnastics a lot, she seems a bit sad about the whole situation, would have loved to be able to show us the routine she had prepared for the 2009 Worlds but is not yet strong enough. The more interesting is that Sandra aims at returning on 3 events, she said that for the 2010 Worlds she has to be able to compete in more than one event because it's difficult to have high expectations in only one event when everything can fall to pieces in a second. Hmm.. what about wanting to help the team? Just joking :)

You can watch all the videos on Ecorn1X's channel.

Sandra Izbasa comes back

This is not a joke! This is as serious as it gets!

Sandra Izbasa will show her Beam routine (just an exhibition) at Romanian Internationals this week-end. the coach hopes this will help her be more motivated.

I am so thrilled about this because not more than two weeks ago he said that Sandra may never compete again. I wonder what was he up to...

You can read the entire article in Prosport

Marine Debauve - La surprise Europeenne de la Journee :-)

Over the years, the Europeans have brought to our attention (by hitting us right in the face with gold medals, that is) gymnasts that were not considered to be among the very elite of the sport. Gymnasts that were nonetheless talented but that no one would have actually seen winning say the All-Around in major meets. Until that happened at the Europeans. Some of them continued to compete at the same level for the next years (such as Vanessa Ferrari- top score all around and silver on floor at the 2006 Euros) and others have returned to their previous lives of good gymnasts but without ever again making a difference in the quest for medals.

One of the very best gymnasts at this was Marine Debauve. In 2005, at the Euros she did something meny people hated her for: won the AA over Anna Pavlova. The fact that the difference was 0.024 points did not help either.

Here is her UB routine (I couldn't find the one from the AA, which scored better)

However that was not her best aparatus... Amazingly so, she was even better on BB, event in which she won the silver medal (gold went to Catalina Ponor). This is her amazing performance from the BB final:

Corina Ungureanu - The surprise Euro Champ of the day

It was a tie with many many times European Champ Svetlana Khorkina. Naturally who was actually the best that day is debatable:

I prefer Corina's performance but maybe it's just because I am Romanian and I don't like tall Russians with crooked turns and tacky choreo.

Corina's exercise was the last surprise of that day (3 out of 4 finals had unlikely winners).