08. August 2004  
Olympic city Athens  
Artistic Gymnastics

All Olympic Gymnasts arrived in Athens

Athens' airport tower

With the arrival of the German delegation, almost all participants of the competitions in gymnastics are in full training in the Olympic city.
The US men already completed their second rotation, the Canadians attracted attention by their hard and strict training, and especially the elder and more experienced gymnasts appear to be excellently well prepared...
These are observation by Dieter Hofmann who will report from the competitions as GYMmedia's correspondent...

Sven Kwiatkowski in the Olympic training gym

Shortly before the hot start...
The German men finished their training at home in Kienbaum near Berlin on Wednesday with a highly focused team competition. Everybody was completely satisfied with the result of more than 225 points.
In addition, the whole team is at least in excellent shape. There has been no reduction of activities due to any injuries, so that everybody starts with cautious optimism into the last phase of the local preparation. Thomas Andergassen from Stuttgart and Chemnitz' Sven Kwiatkowski already know the conditions since past March (Pre-Olympics)...
... and with a 'special mission' to give their best at the Olympics by their colleague Ronny Ziesmer, who is hospitalised in Berlin after he had met with an accident, ... they will perform for him, too!

And also the German women Lisa Brüggemann and Yvonne Musik arrived as individual participants in the delegation. Since Atlanta 1996 they are the first German female gymnasts who become part of the 'Olympic Family'.
Beforehand, they had spent two weeks in an preparation camp in the Belgian high performance centre - together with the best Belgian gymnast Aagje Vanwalleghem. Everybody benefited enormously:

Lisa Brüggemann

'... especially because we could train on the same apparatus as here at the Olympics', said Lisa Brüggemann from Cologne, who feels in best constitution and is wishing for an as error-free as possible preliminary competition. 'However, if every of the 12 participating nations has two gymnasts who will complete a full all-around, everybody can guess how difficult it will be as individual gymnast to reach the final of the 24 best gymnasts', she pondered prior to her departure.

Chusovitina, World Champion 2003

Her father Prof. Peter Brüggemann took another flight route:
He flew directly from Cologne to Athens as personal coach of the World Champion Oksana Chusovitina. He will coach her in Athens on behalf of the Usbek federation: 'Naturally, it is Oksana's great, great dream to finish her incomparable career of more than 15 years in international gymnastics with a medal. However, it will be most difficult with all these strong contestants at these Olympics ...!'
In the age of 15 Oksana won her first WCh-title in 1991 (Indianapolis), became Olympic Champion in 1992, and now as 29-year-old (!) she takes part in her third Olympic Games as the eldest female gymnasts.


Day report from Athens (08-Aug)
By Dieter Hofmann, GYMmedia's correspondent

 With the arrival of the Germans, almost all participants of the Olympic competitions in gymnastics are in Athens. All gymnasts make an excellent impression during their training units. It is apparent that especially the women push through highly exertive programmes,
whereas the men in general train a little bit more at ease.
I was especially impressed by the athletic constitution of the 'established gymnasts' such as Juri Chechi (ITA), the former 'lord of the rings' - he is the eldest male gymnast with 35 years, Ivan Ivankov (BLR), Alexei Nemov or Alexander Svetlitshni (UKR); they certainly did not come as a PR gag...

Munteanu injured...?

With the women, especially the gymnasts from Brazil and Ukraine leave a strong impression - the latter already presented themselves in excellent shape at the ECh in Amsterdam. Altogether, it is apparent that the coaches from the former Soviet Union leave a quality track all over the world such as in Australia, Canada and with Oleg Ostapenko also in Brazil.

<< According to an information from the Romanian team, Andrea Munteana suffers from an irritation of the periosteum at her left foot and the coaches think about sending Silvia Struescu into the competition...
Munteanu is the second female gymnast to be replaced in Athens. Last week, British gymnast Amy Dodsley suffered a neck injury and was replaced by alternate Cherrelle Fennell.

Shewfeldt -Vice-World Champion on Vault 2003

The training of the Canadian men was impressive!
They completed a training competition with the highest discipline and of first class, and also shouted encouragements... I guess I have seen here already two possible medals on floor and vaulting table for Kylie Shewfeldt....

Apropos medals: The Greek specialist on rings Dimosthenis Tampakos improved athletically in an extrem way, he certainly wants to become a hero here at home - after silver in Sydney. However, his contestants are in excellent shape, too, especially on rings.

The USA came with 7 men - undoubtedly in top form - and with also 6 coaches....
Naturally, the current Team World Champion, the US women's team, is in Olympic shape, however, Greece is not Anaheim and Olympic merits have to earned here in Athens...

But, look out: The South Korean men, who completed a first hard training unit this morning, performed brilliantly in a complete team training competiton this evening with outstanding performances especially on rings, vaulting table and parallel bars!!

Dieter Hofmann, for GYMmedia from Athens

Translation: Florian Schmid-Sorg