CATCHING UP WITH BELGIUM...

There have been a few upheavals in the Belgian gymnastics camp this past year. The appointment of new head coach Yves Kieffer has apprently rocked the Belgian boat a little (okay, a lot), particularly when Kieffer decided not to send gymnasts to last year's world Championships, but rather to concentrate on a future for the program. This and other issues that arose during the upheaval rankled with many, including VanWalleghem, who decided, after only just returning to the central training center after the 2009 Euros to return to her personal coach.

You might remember Triple Full reporting about all the issues that erupted in Belgian gymnastics after the previous head coach was fired in favor of Yves.  Many gymnasts went on strike and some left the gym. 

2008 Olympian Gaelle Mys decided to stay, and trains in the same facility as Julie Croket and Belgium's top male gymnasts. Joilien Eggermont, who has only recently become a senior, will also be there working on upgrading and improving for 2010

Croket will be particularly welcomed inot the senior ranks as Belgium's older gymnast's, Gaelle Mys and Aagje VanWalleghem. Aagje, who had such great results at the European Championshsips last year and was Belgian Women's Champion, has not been seen since she competed in the Stuttgart World Cup. Sick, she did not have the meet she hoped for.

The Belgian gymnasts also spent some time in Decemeber training at a Russian training camp. This should have given them ample opportunity to check out the competition!

I thought it was about time I checked in on those Belgian Croket sisters too.  You might remember I talked about Julie after the EYOF meet last year.  She is one of Belgium's greatest juniors on the rise.  Her sister Stephanie, younger than Julie, is having a great time in the sport too.

Julie had some terrific success last year at the TopGym contest in Charleroi, Belgium.  She placed second in the all-around after Larissa Iordache.  Gymnasts were only allowed to compete in two individual events after the all-around and Julie made a great showing in both, taking fourth in beam and winning the floor exercise.  Topgym had some very strong junior competition, including Iordache and Bulimar from Romania as well as Chiara Gandolfini of Italy, Madison Kocian of the USA and Lisa Van de Burg of the Netherlands.

This was all very good news considering Julie had hurt her foot during the Belgian Championshsips and had to be taken to hospital some months before.  She still won an award for being one of the most valuable sportspeaople in her home town.  Her sister, Stephanie, took third.

Julie is training 32 hours a week and has not competed yet this year.  I am looking forward to seeing her results this year, as it will be quite a test to compete well against those up-and-coming Russian girls.  She should be competing as a senior this year (born in 1994) i believe.

Watch her gold-winning Topgym floor routine, which in many ways reminds me of junior Romanian floor routines..

or HERE


It remains to be seen if Kieffer's upheaval of the Belgian gymnastics program will do their gymnasts good.  Here is hoping it was people railing against much needed change, rather than a series of unnecessary upsets and Belgian gymnastics flourishes again as they take the time to build their program.

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO.....

Elsa Garcia, who turned 20 yesterday.... and.....

And our to very own Belorussian Swan, who turned 37 today!


Two extraordinary gymnasts, for very different reasons.  One who stood out among her fellow countrywomen, and one who made her country stand out.  Best wishes for the year to come!

*****

Well Mostepanovafan is back and montaging with a vengeance.  It seems our favorite montager was rather busy for a while there uploading the Sydney qualifications (for which we are very grateful) but is back to the montaging we know and love best.  This week has seen a wee explosion of "most successful" montages, including the Top 10 most successful Romanian gymnasts, Chinese (no surprise who topped that one) and also the most successful Soviet gymnasts.  Here is the soviet one, which is awesome (and historic).  Go to Mostepanovafan's page to see the others.




Or HERE

(By the way, while we are on the subject of Russian/Soviet gymnastics- does anyone feel knowledgeable enough to take the Russian/Soviet gymnastics assignments for The Couch Gymnast magazine.  You must know your stuff and write pretty well.  If you think you fit the bill, go to the CONTRIBUTE page and find out how to go about it, or drop me an email at listaday@gmail.com.)

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Okay guys, now many of you have had a chance to peruse the new COUCH GYMNAST MAGAZINE , its time to hear from people who would like to participate in the next one.  If you are thinking of contributing in any way, drop me an email on listaday@gmail.com and let me know.  Also, have a look at the CONTRIBUTE page on the actual site to learn more about what we're interested in.
Also, don't forget THE LIST - it's your turn!  I want to see people's top 10 lists.  If you want to do one yourself, write it up and send it in by email.  Once again, check the contribute section for how to send it.
Your contributions don't have to be long, nor do they have to be perfect, and if English isn't your first language, I will help edit it.  If you have something you want to say about gymnastics, we want to hear it!
Also, if you have a hankering to write, but don't know what subject to write on, contact me anyway, because I can help you with ideas and send you off an a reporting job!

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MORE BRUIN LOVIN'...

Bruins got their season high this week with a 196.725!  Yay!  it's no Arkansas 197+ but it's pretty great!

Yay!!

One of the most interesting/exciting tidbits from the meet is that crowd fave, Vanessa Zamarripa won the all-around competition with a 39.675.  She scored a 9.95 on bars and beam, and clearly she did step in for Anna Li, cos she did floor and gained a 9.9.  Bloody magnificent from that little bundle of energy.  The younger Bruins are really, really ripening this year.  It's so fun to watch it happen.

Other highlights included:

A 9.925 from Elyse HH on vault, which must be a personal best of some sort.  Hoppy also got a 9.925 on floor which really does make her one of the most consistently excellent gymnasts on floor this year.  Seriously, who'da thunk it?!!!  Beam maybe, but floor?

Brittani McCullough must have done a very clean floor, because she scored a 9.925.  I love it when she kicks butt on flor, which she generally doea, but often her form lets her down.

But it seems Zam was the star of the meet, with all those 9.9 plusses.  Very exciting stuff!

*****

FINALLY.... THE DAWGS BITE BACK.....

Things just got a bit more exciting in NCAA. It seems like the Gym dogs have finally, two meets or so too late, found their ground, beating the Kentucky Wildcats with a terrific meet score of 197.20.
Shayla Worley finally seemed to live up to expectations, scoring a 9.95 on floor, as did McCool.  All the girls got above 9.8, including Hilary Mauro who, though not the best or consistent gym dog, seems to have been picking up a lot of others slack this season.

Grace Taylor got a 9.95 on beam, showing shades of the Taylor we remember from the last few couple of years.
Shayla also got a 9.925 on beam.

Bars was awesomeness apparently...
Kat Ding got a 9.975
McColl a 9.9
Nuccio a 9.9

Vault not so great, quite a few 9.7s.

What can I say?  About time girls, about time.

There was no way that the disappearance of Yoculan could have had that bad an effect on y'all.  Championships are gonna be TIGHT this year if they keep this up.

*****

LOST IN TRANSLATION!!

The Couch Gymnast Says "Wha?!?!"

So, if you have already read my post below, you know I am oft confused when I have to use babelfish to translate Romanina into English ("weave the golden diagonal" etc etc).

But what i discovered today is that it definitely goes both ways.  I was reading the Romanian online sport forum today, as I am wont to do from time to time, despite the aforementioned translation struggles.  Today I found that they had talked about the new Couch Gymnast Magazine, with particular reference to the Romanian articles and were asking if anyone would translate it into Romanian for them.
(Also Bea, they are talking about you and wether you wrote the Ceresela article which they liked very much)

But one of the funny things I realised is that one confused (i am not making fun as i am eternally confused- one day i may tell you that Gabi Dragoi is resorting to a diet of pure onion and constantly reciting Lady gaga lyrics because that is what babelfish told me Prosport said) reader was questioning wether I was, in fact, a famous gymnast. 

They asked BECAUSE the quiz in the new mag has aWho Am I section.  And the question is posed like so, "I was born in..." and "I won medals at..." etc etc and they thought the "I" was referring to me, the writer!.  i won't tell you who they thought I was in case you haven't done the quiz yet, but it was very funny.  Anyway, now I don't feel so bad.  We are all in the same boat!

Oh to be able to speak 28 or so languages!

*****

ANNA LI BEING RESTED

Anna Li will only be competing bars and beam this week for the Bruins.  Part of the problem, Miss val attests, is her tumbling 'issues' on floor.  According to Val, Anna should be able to do a double pike "in her sleep", but because she gets such great height on her tumbling, she is finding it tremendously difficult to locate her landing.  Val wants this fixed. 

Luckily, UCLA is so deep right now that there are girls everwhere who can take her place- including Zam on floor, which is always fun.

The resting of Anna and the injury-rest Elyse Hopfner-HibbsH had to take last week means they must be levelling out in AA- at least if Val puts EHH up for AA this week.  Both these girls have really really discovered some consistency this year, making them both amazing AA contenders.  Unfortunately, neither of them have consistently entered the AA line up from week to week. Still, it has been great to watch them both step up.

I really hope Anna can fix her tumbling issues, because that floor routine is a miracle to watch.
As for E Hop-Hibbs, she is banging out that brlliant little floor number at a high level week after week.  As much as I love McCool, I am really, really hoping Hoppy kicks some butt in event finals if she qualifies!

*****

WHAT IS WITH THIS PICTURE?

Seriously.  It looks like a regular old gymnastics photos to me. The Romanian team in their competition leotards chucking that ubiquitous team photographic 'pose' in somewhat questionable leos.  There's plentty of familiar faces- some spanning gymnastics eras.  Steli's looking serious as usual.  Sandra is once again, Towering Moose to the rest of the midgets. And is that Dana Druncea on the end?  What a cutie!

But, you know, whatever. the picture doesn't exactly light my fire.

SO... why then, does this bloody picture appear nearly every single time I do any kind of gymnastics-related image search on google?!?!  Okay, maybe not every time, but it feels like it.  It is the first thing to come up for 'Gymnastics Team" that's for sure. But I swear, I could search "gymnastics cupcakes from Uzbekistan", and up it would appear, at least on the first few pages of my search.  It's WEIRD!

Is it like, the worlds most popular gymnastics photo for some obscure reason and I just don't know about it?

Does it have secrte code embedded in it?

It's WEIRD!

That's all I'm saying...

*****

CARTWHEELS IN.....

MALAYSIA!

It has been a loooong time- too long- since I have done a Cartwheels segment for the blog, and I thought it was about time.

Actually, what made me think it was about time was reading an article a few weeks back about how the Malaysian Gymnastics Federation were working on sending some of their best gymnasts overseas for more international competition opportunities than ever before in order to improve their competitive ability. They will be competing in both the Uzbekistan Championshsips and the Pacific Alliance here in Melbourne this year.  This plan included both male and female gymnasts and, if I remember correctly, also mentioned a training stint in Russia for the women, which will be an enriching experience.

Well, Malaysia is not a country that has been known for its artistic gymnasts, though it has a very healthy and enthusiastic rhythmic gymnastics communtiy.  Even among the Asian countries, Malaysia does not always fare as well as countries with huge and highly regimented training programs like China, Japan and Korea, or even Vietnam.  Artistic gymnastics does survive, however, as attested to by the latest sporting news out of Malaysia.

Apparently, a number of sports (eleven or so) are being removed from the National school sports calender.  In a debate that resembles Australia's larger scale debate about which sports to fund, the difficulty was in deciding wether to keep or cut sports with less participation across the states of Malaysia, or the sports  that have fewer participants but marked success for the country.  Gymnastics, though one paper claimed it did not have adequate participation across the states, survived the cut, testifying to its precedence in Malaysia.

Nurul Fatiha Abd Hamid was a gymnast who carried the candle for Malaysian WAG gymnastics for quite some time.  She competed at the 2006 Commonwealth Games where she placed 20th in the AA. She also placed 13th in the 2007 Asian Games. 

Nurul only retired from gymnastics in 2007 at the rip old age of 21.  Her last competition was the Korat SEA game, an annual meet in Kuala Lumpar.  Narual had won gold in each of these games she entered and was hoping, in her last meet to take gold on uneven bars.  Though her eyes were clearly on the prize, Narul also had her focus and her hopes pinned on the junior gymnasts who would carry on the legacy for Malaysion gymnastics. She told reporters;

 "I will motivate them to challenge for gold medals. It will be a great end to my career knowing that there are gymnasts ready to take over from me"

One of Malaysia's more successful gymnasts is MAG competitior Ng Shu Wai.  At the last Commonwealth Games, Shu Wai placed 5th in the AA, as well as earning a silver for floor and qualifying to four event finals.  His AA score in the team competition, an 86.450 was three points higher than his next placed team mate.  He also won silver at the previous Games too.

Shu Wai has apparently left the sport, but according to an article published in the Star only three weeks ago, Wai is planning to return- on his own terms.  He has told the Malay Fed that he will return to compete in both the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games only if he can train on his own.  As the current batch of gymnasts are nowehere near the calibre of Shu Wai, it seems the federation will concede.

Malaysia did not seem to send any women to the 2008 Asian Games, though nor did China.  It may have had something to do with the Olympic year.  But they have competed regionally in other places.  Chan Sau Wah, won medals both at the SEA games, and oat the Vietnamese Open in 2008, winning her the unexpected accolade of school sportsgirl of the year.

Chan did not expect to beat the swiimers she saw as favorites, but winning medals at both the aforementioned meets helped her to be pushed forward into the limelight.  She continued to compete in 2009.

A newcomer to the scene is Cheong See Teng, a sixteen year old who overcame knee injuries at the Kuala Lumpar mini-Olympics, taking the gold in the AA out from under the noses of gymnasts far more seasoned than herself.  Funnily, Cheong, who had only joined the senior team the year before, had only decided to compete three days before the contest.  Cheong, modestly attributed her success to the fact that others (including Sau Wah who won silver)  were also suffering injury.

Nevertheless, her gutsy performance proves that there is still more talent rising in Malaysia and that their strong inter-state, inter-school competition regiment provides a much needed competitive basis for young athletes. 

Hopefully the new plan to bring their best gymnasts out into the world more often for competition will work to improve their international standings. Secretary of the Federation, N. Shamagarajah has also told reporters that the Fed has enlisted the help of foreign coaches to prepare them for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.  Hopefully this will see them become competitiove if not in the world, then at least in Asia.

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HMM.. PROSPORT IS WEIRD.

(pic from prosport)

I am not sure half the time if it is me, or just the horribly crazed translations provided by babelfish half the time.  But I just don't get Prosport.
(Also, try understanding what this sentence means; "Thus for every day she could weave gold diagonal"!)
But, from what I understand, Corina Ungureanu (remember the naughty Romanian who like to get her kit off and who could tumble like a demon?) is back visiting Deva.  She has been hanging out there and working out, because, despite trying aerobics, gymnastics is her one true love.  At age 27, apparently Corina is so small and youthful looking that she doesn't look much diifferent to the other girls.  Corina told reporters that although the training equipment had changed, and there was the new building on campus (those new dorms for the girls- will they ever be finished?!) everything feel the same, enough for a flood of nostalgia anyway.

The article of course, couldn't resist mentioning Corina's forays into nudity and her work in playboy.  It also, strangely in my opinion, included a photo of Svetlana Khorkina's photos for the same rag. 

Okay, so, I am not really sure what Corina is doing exactly.  I get the impression that it is just a visit, but then it seems like she is there to stay "a dream resumed 11 years ago today." I can't really imagine she is back for good.  That would be seriously FREAKY!

Who knows?  Well all the Romaninas do, and I am sure someone will fill us in.  But what I do wonder, is about the last lines of the article, which is a quote by Nicolae Forminte, saying basically that seeing a girl of 27 inspired back to gymnastics should show something to the girls of 18 and 19 who might be thinking of retirement.

A message to Sandra, perhaps?
Anyone heard any news on how her training is going?

*****

TCG NEEDS A FAVOUR!

(He Kexin- of the much-maligned sweet sixteenth!)

Hi guys!  I need to ask y'all a favor.  I am currently doing my Phd paper about sports and blogging, and I need to put together a short paper on sports controversies and blogging. 

Of course, one of these controversies will be about gymnastics-the Chinese age controversy during the Beijing Olympics to be exact  What i really need to know is where to find any blog (or forum) discussion of the Chinese girls being underage BEFORE the Olympics began.  I know it was out there, but I need to find it!\

If you participated in a conversation about it, read about it, or blogged about it before the Beijing Olympics, The Couch Gymnast would truly, really love it if you could let me know where to find it.

Muchas Gracias! (If i knew how the Chinese said it I would say it that way!)

*****

NEW COUCH GYMNAST PROJECT!

Hi guys.  So, over the summer the Couch Gymnast has been working on a little project for y'all.  It's the new online Couch Gymnast Magazine!  Now, before you get too excited, it is not a big glossy mag with huge photos and competition reports.  It is a zero-budget webmagazine, produced by myself and readers of this blog.

I was inspired to do this project by my readers and their comments.  I believe that even though we don't have the means and money that big publications like IG and Inside gymnastics have (not knocking them of course) so many of my readers have a passion for gymnastics, a heck of a lot of collective, truly international knowledge of the sport, a sense of humour about it, and above all, strong and informed opinions about how this sport should be. That, to me, is invaluable and also, my favorite kind of gymnastics writing to read.  So I wanted to make a space where people who don't have time to make their own blogs and webspaces could contribute to this ongoing discussion about our favorite sport.

For the first issue, I contacted some of my more regular contributors to the comments section, but I am seriously hoping more people will come and take part in this collaborative project.  For more details, read the first issue your self!

The blog will stay here, partly because a website brings about a whole lot more copyright issues than the safety of a blog does, but also because I kind of like it here!

But I really hope you enjoy the magazine.  Thanks so muc for the first crew who took part.  It was so great working with you and I hope you do it again.

GO TO THE COUCH GYMNAST MAGAZINE

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COSMA WINS A MEAT TRAY!!!

While I was checking to see if Nicolae Forminte indeed did not mention Amelia Racea in his Euros selection considerations (he did- it was brain fart on my part) I found Prosport had published a new article about Lili Cosma (beam coach- read more about her here) Once again, Lili has been honoured as the Coach of the Year for the Huneadora county (where Deva is situated and where Cosma comes from) after two of her gymnasts, Racea and Haidu had the best sporting results of any athletes in the area. Racea was ranked first, and Haidu fourth for the county.  This is also the fourth time in a row Lili has won this award.

When asked how she felt to win the award repeatedly, Liliana was quick to remind reporters of the work carried out by the girls previous club coaches, the gymnasts themselves and the other coaches at Deva that contributed to their success as athletes. 
The funniest part of it all, was that as well as earning the usual trophy, Cosma was awarded with....meat!

When asked what she will do with her prize, she said she would have the Deva staff to dinner.  I foresee many, many stomach pains ahead, which is probably why the gymnasts won't be getting any.

When asked what she hoped for the next year, it was for Romania to remain on the European and World podiums, and for all the competition-worthy girls at Deva to be able to participate in at least two major competitions.

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ANOTHER WOOT FOR UCLA!

The Bruins whipped some Arizona State butt last night which is happy-making, but what is even greater is that they did it with a season-high score.  This means not only is Miss Val honing in on the right line up for meets early in the season, but that the Bruins are steadily improving along with everyone else.  It was still only in the 196s, and they are not going to overtake Bama again.  But still, they are contenders and might well crawl back up a few places!!!  It would have placed them in second spot last week, so that is good news.

On the individual front, people did very well.  There were nine scores of 9.9 or better.

Zam produced a new vault.

Tauny hit a 9.9. (that girls is awesome- I am so glad she is competition form.  Miss Val used to always go on about how great she is, how good it would be when she was back, and I was like who?  Now I know.  She's great.)

Anna Li rocked bars with a 9.925.  Amazing!

They had to count a fall on beam.  Beam is getting a bit shaky for them of late.  They really need to address that.  More dawgy-style repetitions, perhaps?  Stalwarts EHopH did good with a 9.9 and Zam with a 9.85 wasn't far behind her.

Floor was the winner, with Anna Li finally doing that choreography justice (not that she has done half badly lately by any means!!!) with a 9.9.  Lichelle Wong, whose gymnastics is so very pretty, scored a 9.9.  And once again, Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs proved that she has become the Bruins most consistently successful floor worker (same could not be said last year) with a 9.925.  Pretty amazing consistency considering the power of her front tumbling.

All in all, things are looking gooooood for the Bruins.  I know last weeks two meets were all about Miss Val messing with the line ups to see what fit, but it was still making me nervous! Next week they take on Arizona U.

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ANOTHER COMEBACK KID!

Chelsea Davis just tweeted that she finished her first meet in a year-and-a-half.  It "was such a rush" she tweeted, "it can only go up from here!"  I have no idea how performed at the meet.  There are no scores yet, but I know she was competing bars and beam and possibly floor.
I'm really happy to hear that Chelsea is back in competition form.  She told Anne at Gymnastike that she would be back to the all around sometime this year.  It must be incredibly hard to find skills again after eighteen months away.  It is a testament to the value of a solid and deep bond between coach and athlete that Chelsea remains in intense and focussed and is clearly rapt to be back in a sport she clearly loves.

I still kinda wished UCLA had nabbed her, but she'll fit with the gym dawgs, and it looks like they are going to need her.

It will be interesting to see if Chelsea can make any kind of run at international meets.  She still has a year ahead of her before college.  It sure would be nice to see this frank, funny and talented gymnast out there on the mats again. Let's hope Marta agrees.

*****

KIM ZMESKAL'S GENES....

If anything, cuteness definitely runs in this family!  So cute and so, so funny.


Gymnastics Videos on Gymnastike
OR HERE

OLD DOGS- NEW TRICKS!

Quite often, on gymnastics teams these days there is an older gymnast.  One who has somehow cheated the youth-dominated sport of gymnastics and is as fit and strong, or simply just mature and uninjured enough to continue in the sport long past when others her age leave it behind.  In recent years we have seen many such gymnasts who have defied the norm of gymnastics being a 'little girl's' sport and continued through their late teens and into their twenties. 

Here, I am thinking of gymnasts like Isabelle Severino, Beth Tweddle, Cheng Fei, Svetlana Khorkina, Alica Sacramone, Mohini Bhardwaj and of course, the brave Yelena Zamolodchikova, who kept competing simply because her country needed her.  She told reporters she would stop when the struggling Russian system stopped needing her.  Others simply missed the sport, like Severino and Bhardwaj, who felt herself still longing to compete after an elite and a college career were done.  Some didn't stop experiencing success like Tweddle, Chusovitina and Khorkina.  Some felt a sense of duty to their team like Zamo, and, of course Cheng Fei.

It wasn't quite as common to see the older gymnasts in the old days, past 1976, when the Soviets and Romanians dominated the sports and seemed to have a never-ending trail of young talents to replace girls as they aged (as in turned 15!) and left the sport.  There was such depth that it was never necassary and quite rare to see a gymnast who could maintain a level of excellence to match those younger, lither and without the injuries that come with longevity in such a sport.

One of the first girls I can think of who flouted the age conventions was the indomitable Svetlana Boginskaya.  The 'Belorussian Swan' had a heck of a career, winning many world and Olympic medals over a lengthy period.  While she now lives and coaches in the United States, her future was not always so certain.

Boginskaya competed and earned medals in three Olympics and endured as the Soviet Union fell, and training was thrown into chaos as they formed the unified team.  According to Sveta, this did not affect her drive to win.

"Before the Seoul Olympics, we were told to protect the honour of the motherland, that you perform not for yourself, but you display the image of the Soviet Union and socialism.  Now they don't say things like this, but we know ourselves what we want."

And so she continued.  There are a few reasons why Boginskaya was so successful for so long.  Though as she aged, many gymnasts came along who were doing far more difficult things, it was hard to find someone who executed so consistently perfectly, who was so popular and famous (for the judges too), who was creative and exquisite in everything she did and who oozed pure, steely determination to win.

One thing I have wondered, is how tough it is to be the 'old lady' of a team.  Certainly there are gymnasts who seem to thrive in the team leader role, like Sacramone and Cheng Fei, but that can't always mean it is easy on them.  If you are older and more mature, yet a lot younger than your coaches, it must be difficult to find someone to relate your own difficulties too.

Sometimes the exchange can be rewarding too, as Isabelle Severino discovered when she returned after a long injury to train for Beijing to find most of the team has changed.  Though she had been accustomed to working for and with people older than her, she found she learned a lot from them.

Okasana Chusovitina claimed she was happy to join the far, far younger German gymnastics team because she was tired of 'fighting alone' as a competitior for Uzbekistan, who were yet to develop their own gymnastics talent at the time.

Alica Sacramone claimed one of her Beijing goals was not just to make the team, but to be team captain and lead them to medals.  This has always been an important part of her career.  (Also, does anyone remember seeing the Youtube video, with the cute little exchange between SJ and Asac where SJ was joking, and saying "come on, I vote for you in that 'little thing' (which I take to mean team captain vote) it was cute and funny and i have never found it again.)  Her famous talking-to, of the US girls at Worlds, is seen as inspirational by many.


Boginskaya, though she seemed to take on the leadership role (who can forget her comforting Gutsu, who thought she'd been left out of the AA finals?), she also seemed to struggle somewhat as the eldest gymnast.  She told journalists once that while she was friends with her female team mates that she couldn't "be frank with them".  It was easier for her to talk to the male gymnasts of the squad.  She also claimed to miss the older gymnasts who were once in her team, but who left after the Soviet Union fell, and are now focussed on marriage and children, who wrote her letters, telling her it was time to leave gymnastics.

And gymnastics became less fun too, as she stopped learning as many new tricks.  Training became about repetition, and trying to maintain consistency on elements that used to come so easily too her.  "Now it's more routine work for me" she told reporters, "it's repetition and repetition, which of course, is less interesting."

Of course, other factors must have affected her.  Particularly the looming decision of what she could do with her life when she left the sport, and the training center she claimed to have lived most of her life inside.  Khorkina, the girl who had been too shy to enter the Round Lake training center because her idol, Boginskaya was in there, knew when it was time to finish.  "I think it is high time I stopped" she told reporters.  "As any other woman does, I'd like to have a family.  I'd like to have kids.  "I'd like to be loved."

Boginskaya certainly didn't feel the same sense of self-assuredness as Khorkina, who'd already found a degree of financial success, and competed most of her career in a somewhat more stable political, economical and personal environment.
 "I just don't know what will happen," the Belorussian Swan said about her future.  "so far, I only know gymnastics."

*****

PROSPORT GOES TABLOID!!

(pic from prosport )

A recent interview in the Romanian news source Prosport, tried to make out by its headline that Nicolae Forminte wants to leave Deva.  Methinks they were going a little hyperbole on us.  From what I can glean from the very rough translation (Bea!? Bea!? Help!) is that Forminte would consider leaving Deva if the financial situation that makes it so difficult for Deva to produce gymnasts, for Romanians to live well, and to sponsor sport also began to affect his family.  then he'd think of leaving.  It is not, however, a decision he would arrive at easily.

Aside from the somewhat empty threats posed by the headlines, Forminte gave some insight into what is in store for Romania this year.

-The team objectives are to win one or two medals at Worlds and Euros and for the girls to perform with confidence.

-Dragoi, Tamirjan and Izbasa's recoveries are going satisfactorily, but their returns are not imminent.  Dragoi and Tamirjan are recovering slowly.  Izbasa has physically returned, but Forminte claims it remains to be seen wether she can conquer the mental effort to return to performing difficult tricks.

-The euros team will be entirely new, except Porgras and Chelaru.  As well as the juniors coming up, Forminte has not excluded Ceresela Patrascu from consideration if she loses a little weight.  He is hoping for six healthy girls to make up the team.

-When asked if Porgras is seen differently because of her world medal, he says no, and that Ana still has work in front of her and high expectations from the gymworld.  At the same time, he doesn't want to put too much pressure on her himself.

-They will be focussing on getting gymnasts who are best at each event, as their is no AA contest.

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HOW I LOVE MY READERS....

Thanks to everyone who emailed me their answers to the question "if you could change anything about elite gymnastics, what would it be?  I got many, many great responses.  You will see the fruits of your labors in a week or so. 
Sadly, I will not be using any more responses as the project is complete, but feel free to write me anyway and tell me what you think...

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