Gymnastics - the competitions continue.

Normally the weeks after a world championships are a quiet time, when athletes and teams have a chance to rest and regroup.

Not so it seems in the world of gymnastics 2010.

Within 2 weeks from the competition finishing in Rotterdam, some of the world's top gymnasts were competing again at the Swiss Cup, a mixed pairs event where a female and male gymnast from each country compete for the highest combined total. Elizabeth Seitz and Fabian Hambuchen took top honours, making up for Seitz's disappointment in the bars final in Rotterdam.

The top 5 teams were
1. Elizabeth Seitz & Fabian Hambuchen (Germany)
2. Vanessa Ferarri & Matteo Morandi (Italy)
3. Ariella Kaeslin & Claudio Capelli (Switzerland)
4. Sandra Izbasa & Flavius Kocki (Romania)
5. Anastasia Koval & Nikolai Kuchenkov (Ukraine)
Ful results and report at International Gymnast (here)

That's not all here's a list of some more major competitions coming up in November. No rest for the wicked it seems.

Men's British Championships (Leicester Nov 5-7)
Osijek World Cup (Croatia Nov 5-7)
DTP World Cup (Stuttgard, Germany Nov 12-14)
Glasgow Grand Prix (Scotland Nov 18-21)


2010 world championships gold medalists Lauren Mitchell (Australia), Thomas Bouhail (France), Eleftherios Kosmidis (Greece) and Krisztian Berki (Hungary) are each slated to compete in at least one World Cup in November.

 Imogen Cairns, Becky Downie, Jennifer Pinches, Hannah Whelan, Ruslan Panteleymonov, Daniel Purvis and Louis Smith are all due to compete for GB in Glasgow, a few weeks after the city (which is already hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games) announced a bid for the 2015 world championships.

Also in November, World Champion Aliya Mustafina is due to face off against the Youth Olympic gold and silver medallists, Viktoria Komova and Tan Sixin at the Italian Grand Prix (or 'Freddy Cup') on November 13. Both Komova and Sixin were too young to compete in Rotterdam but will be eligible for senior competition in 2011.

Event finals - day 2 (finally!)

Unfortunately my Sunday was rather busy (as was my Monday!) So it wasn't until last night that I managed to finally watch the event finals from Sunday.

Still there were a few happy- makers to be had.

1) Ana Porgras finally some gold around her neck after beautiful performances and graceful composure all week.


2) After the floor final had begun to look like a bit of a splat-fest, brilliant performances from Ferrari, Chelaru, Raisman , Sui Lu and of course Lauren Mitchell finished the women's competition in style.


3) The Rotterdam home crowd mustering to cheer on their gymnast, the incredible Epke Zonderland. And then with no subtlety at all boo the judges when he was knocked down to silver by Zhang Chenglong of China.


4) No bronzes handed out to the women on Sunday, showing just how close the competition is!

2 Golds, 4 silvers!

So that was Worlds 2010. With only 640 days to go until London 2012 it looks like we still have plenty to look forward to.....

Goings on

I'm currently away from home in Newcastle for a family wedding with a wounded laptop in tow - still feel it is right to update on the recent sports happenings when I get a moment.


A few miles from here the GB gymnasts beat the Swiss girls in their latest friendly international. Some of the bigger names were competing here than at the recent GB vs Romania meet. GB (Rebecca Downie, Jenni Pinches, Danusia Francis, Nicole Hibbert, and Hannah Whelan) scored 168.700 in the team competition to convincingly beat Switzerland (Ariella Kaeslin, Jennifer Senn, Jennifer Rutz, Linda Stampfli, Minu Krasniqi) with 152.850.

Becky Downie returned from her recent injury to claim the all around with a score of 55.950.
Becky said: “It feels really great to put in a performance like I have today. I was really happy with Beam and excited to be able to show off my new Floor routine, so overall I’m very happy.” GB also took the top 4 spots in the all-around with Kaeslin in 5th, scoring 53.100.

At the Russian Cup, Aliya Mustafina showed she is back on form after collecting a number of medals at Europeans then looking lacklustre performance at the Japan Cup. Mustafina took the all-around with 62.271 (The scores here were inflated as the judges gave extra marks for originality). The Ksenias, Afansyeva and Semenova took silver and bronze respectively. I would love to see all 3 of these girls at Worlds, although I suspect Semenova will miss out on the AA final.

In the skating world, as I predicted the Russian's made a comeback in the ladies event at JGP France. Polina Shelepen completed a 7-triplr jump programme to take gold ahead of Yasmin Siraj (USA) and Rosa Sheveleva (Russia). France's Yretha Silete was 4th and Jiang of the USA 5th. Andrei Rogozine (Canada) held onto the Men's title. Stepanova and Bukin of Russia decisively won the ice dance event.

Stateside- one of the USA's international bar workers, Cassie Whitcombe has a broken leg. This will likely take her out of the World's race. What this means is that either Bridget Sloan needs to get healthy and fast - or Mackenzie Caquatto (who I had dismissed for being inconsitent) may get the call. For such a strong team USA has a big weakness in the bars department- Where's a healthy Liukin when you need her!

And finally - on the other side of the World, Sui Lu won the all around at the Chinese Nationals. Her score of 56.900 bettering Jiang Yuyuan (56.35) and Huang Qiushuang (55.600). Deng Linlin missed the competition with a pulled thigh muscle.

Gym Videos of the week.

Here is one of my videos from the British Championships - Beth Tweddle's bar routine. She won with a (for her) relatively low score of 15.000. My boyfriend swears he saw her bang her foot on the bar. I can't see it watching it over again but it would explain the deductions.



Edit: yes- he was right - I watched a more side-on version of this routine posted by RETROMADDY on youtube - she does bang her foot on the second swing past the low bar.

British Gymnastics will be posting more videos this week here.
One to watch is Lauren Mitchell's impressive beam routine- she won the junior beam and junior all-around titles.

Also you can watch videos from the team final of the Japan Cup here.
Or from the All-Around here.



Aliya Mustafina appears to have changed her floor routine music since Europeans. I like the new routine, but I think I liked the old one better!