31. August 2007  
Stuttgart / Germany  
Artistic Gymnastics

FRIDAY: Men s PODIUM TRAINING closed - the Worlds can start!

On Friday at 10 am local time the second day of podium training starts with the last  four subdivisions at the worlds venue "Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Hall in Stuttgart.
First Australia, Canada and Portugal will go on the podium, followed at 1 pm local time by Rumania and the USA, at 4 pm by Italy, Ukraine, Greece. 
The German team iss pleased with its place in the last group of the second day at 7 pm in the evening, together with Korea and Spain....!
...  on the horizontal bar - to date not the strongest piece of apparatus for the Chinese - the team showed a marked improvement since Aarhus, technically improved el-grip behaviour, swing forwards with a full or 1/2 turn ... only during the flight elements did some of the men seem a little hectic;
- improvement on floor also, in between times a bit of a shock, when CHEN, Yibin took rather a rough jolt on the neck after performing a 1 1/2 salto to roll fwd;
ZHOU, Kai shone with a 2 1/2 twist, immediately followed by salto forward with double turn!
- on pommel horse all six gymnasts were entirely up to scratch, performed as if they came from another galaxy, five out of the six should make the finals and even among these, the title holder XIAO, Qin is in a category of his own - if he has a rival, it is surely himself!!

... and otherwise:
- the Belgian Donna-Donny TRUYENS from Ghent performed surprisingly well on pommel horse, and it was once again amazing to see what good form the oldest participant of these WCh, the Norwegian Espen Janssen (38), has achieved for his 13th WCh participation since 1991!
* 6th SUBDIVISION
- USA - The Americans are far removed from their standard of the Olympic year 2004, when they won the silver medal, however they seem to have improved since Aarhus. However here on the podium their performance was marred by too many mistakes, especially on parallell bars and horizontal bar.... they will have difficulties making the top ten, however the Olympic 'round of twelve' is in reach.
HORTON excelled, showing a perfect 'Fedorchenko' on horizontal bar, i.e. a stretched double salto with triple twist as descent; the pommel horse performance of ARTEMEV also looks like a ticket to the finals...!

- RUMania -  In the past, their performance on the podium was rarely convincing, but they mostly improved massively in competition. This year however a large improvement will be necessary if they want to purchase that team ticket to Beijing. Their most prominent gymnast Marian DRAGULESCU, who used to be a very good allrounder, but seems to have turned into a floor- and vault-specialist since he went solo, seems to have a few personal problems at present, appeared unconcentrated, only sketched his exercise on floor instead of show-casing himself ... could all this be only tactical manouvers?
At least today a coherent team performance from Rumania was not in evidence.
- NETHERLANDS - the Dutch gymnasts as a team seem weaker than expected.
It was clear that their rings supremo Yuri van GELDER would give a convincing performance on his favourite piece of apparatus, but his rivals, such as 'oldie' Yovchev (BUL),  Safoshkin (RUS), and the Italians aren't napping either...
Epke ZONDERLAND, ECH third in Amsterdam 2007 on parallell bars, and excellently prepared at that competition, is maybe even better on the horizontal bar: His Kolman salto, i.e. a Kovacs with full turn, was fantastic...!

- NORTH KOREA - was not represented by a team, but with three individuals of extroadinary prowess:
RI, Young Song - showed a triple Tsukajara on floor on he podium, just as had already been observed in free training. Just that is exciting! However he topped this with a double salto, followed by a triple twist...
and last of all another double Tsukahara, in tucked form. Unbelievable content with an A-score of 16.8 to 16.9 !!
He appears destined to perform turns around the longitudinal axis:
At the vault table he performed first a Kasamatsu with  2/1 turns, i.e. in total a triple turn arund the longitudinal axis, as the normal Kasamasu already contains one, and then as his second vault a Dragulescu, in other words handspring, double salto fwd. with 1/2 turn.
In free training he even risked a Im freien Training riskierte er sogar den "peaked Dragulescu "...!!!
... the inventors and others should beware!
And more:
RO, Chol Yin, his compatriot, hat similarly exciting super-vault in store:
1. - Handspring, stretched salto fwd. with 2 1/2 twist (i.e. the 'Kroll'-vault with a whole additional turn and
2. - Tsukahara with subsequent peaked double salto, as performed for instance by the Pole Blanik and other specialists

... by the way, a very pleasant change today:
More spectators than on the previous days, which turned the rather sterile atmosphere into one approximating competition, which obviously benefited the athletes!

* from Stuttgart: Dieter HOFMANN; Eckhard HERHOLZ
- translated by Susanna THIELECKE
* 8th SUBDIVISION  
- GERMANY - the host's men's team gives the impression of being well prepared and concentrated and tried to make their apparatus performances as similar to competition as possible. The star of the team, Fabian Hambüchen, had a little problem on horizontal bar, when he came a little early on a circle in reverse grip with 1/1 turn and had to correct himself...
... however in repetition the 'Yamawaki' and 'Rybalko' as  E-D-D-value combinations were exemplary and precise.
In this state ANDREAS HIRSCH's team is in with the best...!

- KOREA -  The South Koreans performed better here today than just a few days ago at the national meet with Switzerland in Maienfeld: There they positively stumbled through the competition, with 10 falls on rings (5x), vault (3x) and horizontal bar (2x) however they had come directly from intensive training.
Today they showed a high standard on all pieces of apparatus, maybe with a few difficulties on parallell bars.

- SPAIN - The Spaniards showed no great development as compared to the WCh 2006 in Aarhus. They are certainly candidates for the Olympic dozen, and the Athens Olympic champion on vault of 2004, Gervasio DEFERR, also showed a strong performance on floor.

A first, careful, evaluation ... ?!

Whoever wants to win here will have to beat the Chinese! Only Japan and Russia even come close, so these nations are the main medal aspirants. Next should come Canada, Korea and Germany, all of course with a caveat and depending on stability of performance...!

.... further six teams ... maybe with Italy and Australia added - in other words 14 teams are tussling for the coveted 12 Olympic places. And last of all, as an aside: observations from the podium give a first impression and enable vague assessments - the real competitions start now, and everything that happened up to today will be of no significance from tomorrow.
In other words: the World Championships can begin!

* from Stuttgart: Dieter HOFMANN; Eckhard HERHOLZ
- translated by Susanna THIELECKE


>> ... see Schedule: Men's Qualification