Nguyen 1st, Boy 2nd, Spiridonov 3rd

Marcel Nguyen won with 87.600 points over Philipp Boy (87.000) and Eugen Spiridonov (84.100) at the first German trials for the Worlds in October. Fabian Hambüchen competed only four events and got the top score on high bar (16.25).

Once again, Philipp Boy, the European Champion, showed some nerves, had some problems on pommel horse, an “eye-problem” on high bar and counted altogether three falls (dismount on rings, Dragulescu on vault – I never thought, Boy would try a Draguelscu as he almost always landed his Roche in warm-up and also sometimes in competition on the butt -, dismount on parallel bars). He started strong on floor with 15.25 and finished good on high bar with 15.40, but lost some points in between. Boy is an excellent gymnast but he’s been very inconsistent and somehow it’s a miracle to me how he kept it together at Worlds and this years Europeans. If everything will go as planned – and he still has the German Championships – he’ll score over 90.00 and is definitely capable to win another AA medal at Worlds.

In my opinion, Marcel Nguyen worked and still works extremely hard to prove himself every time he competes. Currently, everyone thinks of him as the number three behind Hambüchen and Boy, but this guy who won German Championships last year, got injured right before Worlds and came back extremely strong at Europeans, is also very capable to win a medal at Worlds and more importantly place higher than Boy at an important international meet. His competition today wasn’t perfect, he had several small problems on floor, parallel bars, where he couldn’t show the tsukahara dismount, and high bar. He still got the highest scores on parallel bars and vault.

Fabian Hambüchen‘s destiny for the next Olympic Games will be pommel horse. He has been fantastic and very consistent on high bar, good on parallel bars (lost a few tenth on the dismount), rings was okay but pommel horse not. No fall but 13.000 are way to low for the team as well as his all-around score. And what concerns me more is that the past months he didn’t train floor or vault, but focused on only four events, so if there had been a good chance to improve on pommel horse, it’s gone. Hopefully he’ll prove me wrong and improve his difficulty and execution in the next weeks and more importantly over the next months. But still: It’s great to have him back – he rocks the high bar!

Eugen Spiridonov, Thomas Taranu, the very young Ivan Rittschik (1992) and Sebastian Krimmer placed third to sixth with scores between 84.100 and 82.550.

Sebastian Krimmer had a standout performance on pommel horse with 15.15 points but also some problems on rings, parallel bars (fall) and floor (fall). Plus he has a very easy vault: a Yurchenko full. The question for him will be: Is pommel horse enough to get me on the team? Or do I and can I work harder on the other apparatus? It might be enough for Worlds but certainly not enough for the Olympics where only five and not six gymnasts will be on the team.

Thomas Taranu is in a similar situation. He’s excellent on rings where he got the highest score (15.00) but has problems to convince on the other apparatus. His vault is better than Krimmer’s, a tsukahara double back, but he fell on this one. All he has to do is to show clean and consistent gymnastics on the other apparatus and increase the d-score here and there a little bit so that it’s enough for qualifications. This might bring him on the Worlds team.

Eugen Spiridonov, the veteran, who turns 30 next year, and the young talent Ivan Rittschik both had a pretty good competition. Spiridonov also fell twice but managed to show another Kolman on high bar after he fell on this element. The second fall was on his new tsukahara on floor. Spiridonov proved for many years that he’s a reliable team member. Rittschik – a dark horse for me – will be one to watch for the next years, but he might be too young and unexperienced to make the Worlds team.

So far so good. I guess we will all know a lot more after the German Championships in two weeks, especially whether Matthias Fahrig is going to compete floor and vault.

complete results / preview / videos

German Men’s at Trials, Worlds and Olympics – preview

Today, at the first German trials for the Worlds this year in London – the qualifying event for the 2012 Olympic Games – almost all of the top elite gymnasts will give us a preview of what they’re capable of. Only three athletes will miss the competition due to several injuries: Last week, Matthias Fahrig landed his new tumbling pass on floor badly, a double arabian+front layout full. Luckily nothing tore or broke, all his foot needs is rest. In the meantime he’ll focus on the four remaining events, pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and high bar – not really his favorite and best events. If Matthias Fahrigs foot heals in time, he still might have a chance to be on the Worlds team as he could definitely medal on floor or vault. German Vice-Champion Brian Gladow underwent surgery on his shoulder in July and won’t be able to train for several month as well as Philip Sorrer who crashed very badly on his head after something on vault went wrong during training. Anton Wirth, Viktor Weber and Robert Weber won’t compete either.

The remaining gymnasts are: Philipp Boy, Marcel Nguyen, Fabian Hambüchen, Sebastian Krimmer, Eugen Spiridonov, Thomas Taranu, Andreas Toba, Steve Woitalla, Helge Liebrich, Andreas Bretschneider, Max Wittenberg-Voges, Jonas Rohleder, Florian Lindner and Ivan Rittschik.

Right now, I’m dreaming of an absolutely healthy Olympic year for everyone which would enable Germany to send a superb team including Fabian Hambüchen – by then he’ll be back at old strength on all apparatus – , Philipp Boy – the Vice-World Champion and European Champion, Marcel Nguyen – second in qualification at this years Europeans and Champion on parallel bars, Matthias Fahrig – mainly for floor and vault and Sebastian Krimmer – who’s excellent on pommel horse even under pressure (see TF at 2010 Worlds), good on vault and parallel bars and should improve a little bit on rings and high bar.

This year at the World Championships, Philipp Boy and Marcel Nguyen will definitely be on the team if they are healthy. Fabian Hambüchen and Matthias Fahrig would complement one another perfectly. If both aren’t prepared enough after the injuries, Sebastian Krimmer, Thomas Taranu and experienced gymnasts like Eugen Spiridonov or Robert Weber will help the team. For them it’s really important to score high in the all-around in order to contribute to a team which might include Hambüchen and Fahrig, both limited to 2-4 events.

So let’s see what the men will show today… you can follow the liveticker of the event (German) or read a report on GymNiceTic which I’ll publish after the meet.

The women including Kim Bui, Marie-Sophie Hindermann and Oksana Chusovitina will compete this evening – Elisabeth Seitz injured her foot (edema) in training when she slipped of the balance beam and watches the competition with crutches. She should be back for the German Championships in two weeks.

Hambüchen earns impressive 16.65 on HB

What a comeback! Originally, Fabian Hambüchen, who tore his achilles tendon in January, planned to come back at the first German trials for the Worlds in Altendiez next weekend. But then he decided to test his routines (except floor and vault) before the trials at the fifth competition of the German Bundesliga.

He struggled on pommel horse (10.45), but showed good routines on rings (15.40, only topped by Marcel Nguyen’s 15.70) and parallel bars (15.50) and an excellent one on high bar: 16.65/7.5 including a Kolman, a layout Tkatchev and a layout Jaeger full (E). That’s the routine he plans to keep until the 2012 Olympics. You can watch a part of the routine on the sports news/zdf though the video might not work outside of Germany.

Overall, KTV Straubenhardt (Hambüchen, Nguyen, Weber, Taranu…) won over KTG Saar with 160:4 at this meet.

DTL / tagesspiegel

Eberhard Gienger – 60th Birthday

Eberhard Gienger turned 60 today! Happy Birthday!

The German gymnast not only won gold on high bar at the 1974 Worlds, the Olympic bronze medal in 1976 and several European and National titles but also performed the so called “Gienger” (it’s Gienger NOT Geinger!) which is a very popular D-element on UB (on the women’s side). Since then he’s always been involved in the sport and sometimes still likes to get his grips on.

Here’s a nice interview and report on his life (it’s from today). Click play or watch it on YouTube:

fun factor: Actually, Eberhard Gienger wanted to perfom a Deltchev but did it the wrong way – that’s how he invented the Gienger.

Chellsie Memmel – comeback kid

Gymnastike did a great job with this interview of the 2005 World Champion Chellsie Memmel, in which she also does some skills on bars, beam and floor. Memmel says she’s trying to get her old routines back which means she might show us the following ones this weekend in Chicago.

Click play or watch her bars form the 2008 Olympic trials on YouTube:

Click play or watch her incredible beam routine on YouTube:

In other news, Shawn Johnson trains a Shaposhnikova.

So how about this 2012 US Olympic Team: Shawn Johnson, Chellsie Memmel, Rebecca Bross, Jordyn Wieber, Alicia Sacramone!?

Ksenia Semenova back in shape – video

Alexander Alexandrov, the head coach of the Russian women’s team, named Ksenia Semenova as candidate for the Russian team for Worlds. Below is a short video of her on the uneven bars, in which she looks like in 2007 (she definitely lost some weight). She performes a toe-on full+Deltchev.

Click play or watch her on YouTube:

A big thank you to shagya from the onlinesport.ro forum for the link!

Draw of Rhythmic Worlds & Ukraine Host in 2013

Violaine Robinet (front) and Delphine Ledoux (back)

Here are some FIG news on the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships this September in Montpellier, France. And if you haven’t seen the promotion video, you should. It will be a great competition – tickets for the finals are already sold out. Click here to see the draw!

The draw for the 31st edition of the Rhythmic World Championships took place recently at the FIG headquarters, with the FIG President himself on hand to oversee proceedings.

Montpellier 2011 will be particularly significant for two reasons, as it will first serve as the first of two qualification routes to the 2012 Olympics. The 15 best individual gymnasts in the All-around and the six best groups overall will book their tickets to London! The competition will also qualify the gymnasts for the World Games to be held in Cali (COL) in 2013 and featuring Gymnastics with its Rhythmic individuals, Trampoline synchro, Aerobic and Acrobatic Gymnastics.

and the post-Olympic Worlds will be in Kiev:

The FIG and the Ukrainian Gymnastics Federation have signed an agreement that will see Ukraine play host to the 32nd Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in 2013. It will be the first time that Ukraine has staged such a prestigious event.

(FIG)

the complete French team

official website / more photos on the rg-blog

Ariella Kaeslin enjoys her gymnastics-free life

Swiss gymnastics superstar Ariella Kaeslin announced her retirement last week. But she’s already enjoying her past-gym life waterskiing on the Lake of Lucerne.

Click here or on the screenshot below to watch the video!

Sport will always be a part of her life. She is even considering doing an Ironman Triathlon.

Kaeslin looks great!

more photos on blick.ch

Here’s a nice interview in which she talks about her general plans and that she thinks, Switzerland will definitely qualify for London (what?).

Yuri van Gelder is really fast

Yuri van Gelder of the Netherlands was in Lausanne at the 2011 World Gymnaestrada, where he entertained the audience with a very fast routine on rings :-).

Click play or watch him on YouTube:

Hambüchen will compete in less than a month

Fabian Hambüchen, the guy who tore his achilles tendon in January, will compete at the first trials of the German women’s and men’s teams for the Worlds 2011 in Tokyo. The German gymnastics elite will meet on the 13th of August in Altendiez. Hambüchen will do three to four events but as the doctor Johannes Peil forbid him to train floor and vault, he definitely won’t do the all-around: Neither at the first trials, nor at the second trials – the German Championships on the 27th/28th of August -, nor at the World Championships. He definitely doesn’t want to risk to injure his foot again. For example, he will only compete in Altendiez if he’s allowed to use soft landing mats.

But Andreas Hirsch, the German head coach, has enough healthy gymnasts to chose from: Philipp Boy, Marcel Nguyen, Matthias Fahrig (who is extremely strong on the two apparatus Hambüchen can’t do – vault and floor)… As every team, Germany (well, the men’s team) will try to qualify directly to the 2012 Olympics.

Fabian Hambüchen worked extremely hard for his comeback – 40 hours/week of rehab instead of the normal 32hours/week of training – and added a lot of muscles in his upper body. And his father and coach, Wolfgang Hambüchen, thinks he’s even stronger than before the injury on high bar, parallel bars, pommel horse and rings.

(DTB / mz-web)