R U S S I A!!!!!!!!!!! What a night!

Yep, they did it! The drama was there, there was some great gymnastics, there were some nasty falls, there was some over scoring but not so much underscoring... Great competition! Congratulations to the winners!

Romania did not have a perfect contest either but I think it was the only team without a fall. In the end they delivered exactly what their fans wanted: no falls, happy gymnasts, some great skills although we all know there is plenty of room of improvement, oh and did I mention that Diana almost stuck all her landings on floor?

I will come back with a more detailed analysis.

Raluca Haidu and Anna Dementieva are officially more than cute

just watch Haidu on bars:

and floor

As for Dementyeva... just watch her beam (here) and her floor (here) from the qualifications.

Lovely gymnasts! It seems to become an increasingly interesting sport with kids like this around.

Many videos of the Romanian in the qualifications can be found on the channel mondialegym2010 on youtube.

Sandra pleased with qualifications

"It was a beautiful contest, with a warm audience. I was not expecting to be so many Romanians to be there. That helped me a lot and we did pretty well in qualifying. I have so much experience that can compete after five years as well, it did not matter that I missed for this long. I felt very good and I'm glad I managed to come back again in the elite. There is room for improvement, but I did well and I had the evolution that I wanted " www.romgym.ro

Good job guys!

Worlds 2010 - favourite moments of a Romanian fan in day one of qualifications

(picture from GSP)

Today I was in the Ahoy arena with the Romanian fans. I am proud to say that Romania was the only team to have proper fan support in the first day of qualis. That does not mean that we did not cheer for other teams as well, like Russia or China or Japan or even GB.

This is why I will have to make two list of my favourite moments- one for our team Romania and one for the others... so bare with me :)

I will politely start with "the others" :P

#6 China on bars - well is not a moment but it surely feels like one

# 5 Lauren Mitchell on floor- this music and choreo really suit her

#4 Deng Linlin on beam - absolute control

#3 Beth Tweddle on bars- everybody in the arena stopped breathing

#2 Mustafina on vault- wow 6.1 and 6.5 D scores. And what execution!

# 1 The Russian Drama on floor. I actually started praying for them after Semenova fell twice, (once almost landed on her head); they sure seemed to be losing it. But this only made the evening better

Now, Romania

#6 Nadia at the official table hears our shouts "Haide Cera! Haide Gabi! Tareee"... she looks to see where the Romanian cheers are coming from. My friend Luiza and I sense the momentum and start waiving at Nadia. And Nadia waves back!!! Nadia is cool!

#5 Diana Chelaru on uneven bars: 8.6 execution. better than Ana Porgras LOL

#4 all three Romanian DTY receive over 8.8 E score!

#3 Ana Porgras' beam: 15.266 and the best beam score of day 1!

#2 Raluca Haidu's floor. She did not put a foot wrong. 14.2

# 1 for Romania in the first days of qualifications: I would have to give this to the best Romanian gymnast of the day, and not only in terms of scores but in outdoing herself. Sandra Izbasa brought "gargantuan" scores for the team - 14.8 on Vault, 14.766 on floor and 14.333 on beam. Thank you Sandra for keeping it together, you are a great champion!

What was your favourite moment from the qualifications?

Worlds Qualifications - Day 1 starting list

Romania will start on uneven bars:

HAIDU Raluca Oana

DRAGOI Gabriela

RACEA Elena Amelia

PORGRAS Ana

CHELARU Diana Maria

IZBASA Sandra Raluca

so Cerasela is the reserve, according to this list. Very sad. I love this gymnast.

China will start on UB as well:

YANG Yilin

JIANG Yuyan

HUANG Qiushuang

HE Kexin

SUI Lu

DENG Linlin

Wu Luifang is the reserve

HUANG Qiushuang will attempt to qualify to the vault finals

Russia will start on vault:

SEMENOVA Ksenia

AFANASYEVA Ksenia

KURBATOVA Ekaterina

MUSTAFINA Aliya

NABIEVA Tatiana

DEMENTYEVA Anna

So Myzdrikova is the reserve after all...

- Kurbatova, Mustafina, Nabieva will have two different vaults, trying to qualify for the vault finals

This is the complete list.

Another championship, another Nadia interview

Actually, this one has nothing to do with the worlds. Nadia was invited to the 21st edition of Sportel (an international convention for sports and media).This is the translation of an interview from Gazeta Sporturilor (they mention that the source is AFP)

What do you recall from the 1976 Olympic Games?

I remember the moment I got that 10. It was very noisy and I couldn't understand what the 1.00 on the scoreboard represented. One of my colleagues told me "It is a 10 but they couldn't post it properly". I did not realised it was an historic moment. Today people talk more about the 10 than about my medals.

What is the place of the sport in your life?

I am recognised as the woman who took the perfect 10. I have influence on certain people. I can travel and I can talk and I can for instance motivate women, no matter what their domain of activity is. In the US, my husband and I have a gymnastics academy. We have 30 coaches and 1200 students. Whenever I get the chance, I watch children training, I show them how to do certain skills, I like that. They have seen pictures of me in the gym on the internet , so they know who I am.

What is the role women have in the world's sport?

There is always a competition in sport, where men are always favoured compared to women; but women must brake the ice. A sport becomes famous if it has a star, man or woman. Today's gymnastics is dominated by women; women can work hard if they are given the opportunity.

Is gymnastics a sport overlooked by the media?

The attention paid by media is very important. You must be exposed all the time, not only once every four years, when the Olympics come. The fans want to know all the time what their favorite athlete is doing, every day, every week, including what his personal life is. There are not only medals and results.

What do you say about people criticizing the training methods of the Romanian athletes back in 1976?

People say that gymnastics was too tough for such small children, but that is not right. When I started, there were very few options for women to practise a sport, and gymnastics was one of them. What I started, at 6, my parents considered it was a positive thing because I was too energetic and I was ruining the furniture in the house.

The minimum age for gymnasts to take part in the Olympics has increased from 15 to 16. Is 15 too young?

There is not a big difference. For me it was ok to go to the Olympics at 15, I had the time to return 4 years later but if a gymnast goes to the Olympics at 17 for the first time, chances are that at 21 she has a different occupation.

Nadia and Bellu, circa 1981 - Picture from GSP

Bellu - optimistic about his team

(picture from GSP)

via www.romgym.ro

"At this point we are after the third training session, including the official one that took place on Tuesday afternoon, the only one with this character, considering the large number of teams. What can I say? The girls are not "unleashed" yet, but will do it in the coming days, we continue a program with two daily training sessions until the 16th, when the championship begins. The days that have passed have represented the first contact, during practice there were achievements and failures but this seems to be the general situation, from what i have seen. We have four days until a full shift in the engines, period during which, day by day, we will surely reach the desired physical condition".

Romania - Podium Training

These are all updates offered by TessaW, who posted an extended coverage on Online Sports Forum. Thank you Tessa!

-Sandra Izbasa has a triple twist as a dismount from BB, has upgraded the last pass of her floor routine and is able to stuck a double twisting Yurchenko

- Diana Chelaru has put back in her floor routine the double layout

-Amelia Racea and Raluca Haidu both do double twisting Yurchenkos

The training seems to have been full of wobbles and mistakes but, in the end, it's only a training session isn't it?

Larisa Iordache wins four (out of five) finals in Schiltigheim

(www.romgym.ro)

Per www.romgym.ro the competition took place in Alsace region (Bas Rhin department - near Strasbourg) and Romania was represented by Larisa Iordache, Maria Balea, Diana Trenca and Dana Andrei.

The all around contest was won by Larisa Iordache (by a considerable margine):

1) Larisa Iordache- 58.000

2) Dana Andrei - 54.750

3) Diana Trenca - 52.900

View complete results here .

In the events finals, Larisa won uneven bars, beam and floor and was second on vault (she had the same mark as Elodie Perez but a tie-breaker put her in second);

Dana Andrei was second on floor and uneven bars, third on vault and fourth on beam;

Diana Trenca was second on balance beam and third on uneven bars;

Maria Balea was third on floor, with 13.8 (5.6).

I have found videos of Larisa Iordache: vault, uneven bars, beam, floor

There are more on youtube, on eipos24's channel.

2010 Worlds Team Contenders - China

(International Gymnast)

This is the final part of the series "Team Conterders" and the most difficult, for me. The D scores are the ones from the Chinese Nationals that were held in the end of August, combined with the ones the gymnasts had in the beginning of the summer 2010 (for the ones that couldn't compete their full routines or did not compete at all). Secondly, the E scores I gave are an optimistic evaluation of where they should be now compared to August.

An overview of their team first:

Jiang Yuyuan - her D scores are: VT-5.8/ UB-7.2 / BB-6.1 / FX- 5.8; with such difficulty she could challenge for the AA title, but her execution on UB and BB make her lose valuable points.

Huang Qiushuang - her D scores: VT- 5.8 / UB-7.1 / BB - 5.9 / FX-5.4; her strengths are the vault, the uneven bars routine and the presentation on floor; her weaknesses: the inconsistency on uneven bars and the balance beam

Yang Yilin - her D scores: VT-5.8 / UB-6.5 / BB-5.2 / FX-?; strengths: flawless execution/ weakness: lower D scores

Sui Lu - D scores: VT-5 / UB-5.4 / BB-6.9 / FX-5.9; strengths - will probably be one of the favorites to win the EF on BB and FX; weakness - low D scores and quite bad execution on the other two events

He Kexin: D scores: UB-7.4 (or so I've heard)

Deng Linlin: She has not competed in the last competitions; D scores: VT-? / UB-? / BB-6.8 / FX-?

So, here is my line-up:

Vault:

Huang Qiushuang: 14.45 (5.8/8.65)

Jiang Yuyuan: 14.4 (5.8/8.6)

Yang Yilin: 14.1 (5.8/8.3)

alternative:

- none that I know of, I think He Kexin and Sui Lu have only 5.0 SV; I do not know what Deng Linin is capable of.

Uneven Bars:

Yang Yilin: 15 (6.5/8.5)

Huang Qiushuang: 15.5 (7.1/8.4)

He Kexin: 16 (7.4/8.6)

Alternative:

Jiang Yuyuan: 15.2 (7.2/8)

Balance Beam

Yang Yilin: 14.1 (5.2/8.9)

Deng Linlin: 15.3 (6.8/8.5)

Sui Lu: 15.6 (6.9/8.7)

Alternative:

-Jiang Yuyuan: 14.5 (6.2/8.3)

Floor

Huang Qiushuang: 13.9 (5.4/8.5)

Jiang Yuyuan: 14.3 (5.8/8.5)

Sui Lu: 14.4 (5.9/8.5)

Alternative:

- Deng Linlin (?)

Conclusion: Team China is able to get a score around 176... If something did not change dramatically consistence wise since August we might see 2-3 falls, at least. If they have a good day, they can score more than that.

What do you think?