Monday

Romania in the News: December 5th to 11th

The most important event of the week for Romanians was the Italian Grand Prix held in Catania where Larisa Iordache and Catalina Ponor competed. There were various articles with results but nothing fancy: GSP, Prosport, Romgym .
What concerns me is that they are mentioning Larisa Iordache had a small injury that kept her from competing for several months. Prosport goes as far as five months of break after a foot "intervention" for Larisa and small leg injury for Catalina. How come we didn't we know that?

GSP: Nadia was awarded the key of the city of Acapulco at Mexican Open Gymnastics Championship. (article HERE)

Libertatea: Saint Nicholas filled the shoes of the gymnasts that train at Izvorani with gifts, "especially sweets", as Mariana Bitang mentioned. (HERE)


Sunday

Larisa Iordache returns to competition

As she placed second on UB (after Komova) in a Grand Prix meet in Catania, Italy.
Aside from a few legs separations, She looked strong, better even than last summer:


Also, Catalina Ponor placed second on BB. The combo of pirouettes is a nice addition to her routine:



More routines from the competition on javiercollados's youtube channel.

Tuesday

Romania in the News: November 28th to December 4th of December

Prosport: Anca Grigoras about the reasons why Romanian gymnasts did not compete at Ostrava (HERE) ("they are in a different stage in their preparation", "It was something they applied for months ago", " "It's better so sign up for it in advance and then withdraw then not to do it and regret", you know, the good stuff)

Adevarul: Interview with Catalina Ponor (HERE) "Worlds were disappointing... no.. extremely disappointing" yes, she's said that many times but I guess people just don't have other questions for her, although this interviewer does try to find out a little bit more about Catalina, we must at least give her that.

... and the video version (HERE)

Messagerul Hunedorean: about Alpen Adrian Cup and Top Gym (HERE)

The Couch Gymnast: interview with Nicolae Forminte and Liliana Cosma (HERE)

Cris asks a good question: "Why is everybody leaving?" of the junior team that represented Romania at 2010 Europeans only Diana Bulimar and Larisa Iordache are still training. My question is, is Stoica asking himself these questions?

TVR: a renown Turkish physician has examined the gymnasts at Izvorani (HERE) - includes some training footage.

Libertatea: interview with Marian Dragulescu (HERE) - although libertatea is not AS ridiculous as other times, the interview is still extremely silly: "are you rich?", "what do you think about Marius Berbecar's 0 at worlds?"* and in the chapter "superstitions" we have warming up before competing.

*I am not sure if you are aware but, Marius Berbecar, who is a Romanian gymnast, and a pretty good one too, got a 0 for a vault at worlds. He could not perform the vault so he chose to land safely on his back - the result - a well deserved but far from unheard of - 0 mark. But the Romanian press is so moronic that the episode was presented as THE news from Worlds (maybe "Returning home without medals" was a bit bigger, not sure). I remember even reading something like "From Nadia's 10 to Berbecar's 0, 30 years of Romanian gymnastics". Yes. This is the press we have in Romania.