PREVIEW: 28th Tournament of Masters (World Cup)

Igors Vichrovs (LAT)

One of the first guests, the Latvian delegation, just arrived Cottbus. On top the Olympic Champion from Sydney 2000 on floor, Igors Vichrows, but also his teammates Yevgeni Sapronenko and Eriks Revelinch.
All these guests of the Tournament of Masters are old friends here, because they made their first international events as young boys in history here at the traditional 'GWG-Cup for Talents, a worldwide wellknown competition for the best European talents of artistic gymnastics. This tournament have fasten an also long tradition like the Master event itselfs...

Sylvio Kroll

28-Feb-2004 : The Countdown is going on...!
After arrival of the first of the all together more than 170 (!!) participants of this world cup the last preparations for this are going on with full speed...!
The host registered not only a new participation record (50 nations!), but also the hotels of the area noticed an accomodation record of more than 2,000, one week before.(>>... have a look to the GYMmedia Report, February, 28th).
Tournament Director Sylvio Kroll: 'Never before we had to realize such a complexe logistical work, but I'm shure, that our phathastical team of organizers and our big pool of partners and sponsors will be successfully! The event and all guestscan come - we are redy to go!'

Yoshihiro Saito (JPN)

23-Feb-2003
The Japanese Gymnastics Federation pronounced today some changes of the Cottbus' participants (men):
On top will come the doubble world champion of Anaheim Kashima and also Yoneda.
But the 5th of the still rings final in Anaheim couldn't start, so the international wellknown Yoshihiro Saito will arrive in Cottbus.

Eric Lopez (CUB)

17-Feb-2004: Cuba - Nation No. 50!
Today the Cuban Gymnastics Federation announced, that the best Cuban athletes will also start at the European world cups in Cottbus (March 5 - 7) and also one week later in Lyon (FRA).
It will be the two finalists of World Champs 2003 in Anaheim, Eric Lopez and Abel Drigg.
So the German organizers in Cottbus registered a new record of 50 participating nations (old record: 38).
Eric Lopez was the 5th of the world championships all-around final in Anaheim 2003 and placed 7th in the parallel bars final. Abel Drigg ranked on 4th place on pommel horse, together with the Hungarian Robert Gal: The difference to bronze were 0,075 points only! Th Cuban men's team ranked on 15th place, one point after the Swiss crew.

In the Cottbus' tournament history the Cuban athlets were traditional guests:
>> At the first 'Tournament of Masters' 1979 the first finalsts were Miguel Arroyo, Israel Sanchez and Jorge Cuervo.
>> In the Eighties came to Cottbus such gymnasts like Mario Castro, Francisco Ortega, Felix Roch?, Raul Menendez or Felix Aguilera. A legend of the tournament history is Casimiro Suarez, winner on highbar in 1989.
>> The last Cuban victory in Cottbus was the success of Charles Leon Tamayo, winner on vault 2002....

Diane dos Santos (BRA)

13-Feb-2004: Gymnastics Marathon
The first qualification day of the 28th TOURNAMENT OF MASTERS, on Friday, March 5th, will be a gymnastics marathon!
107 athletes (men) will celebrete 287 exercises. The favourite apparate is the pommel horse: 61 athletes will start there, followed by floor (53) and bars (57).
The most femal athletes will start on balance beam (46), 44 on floor, 43 on uneven bars and 41 only from all together 64 gymnasts wants to start on vault.

>> Brazil - host of the World Cup in Rio de Janeiro this year - will come with the powerfull Diane dos Santos, the the reigning floor world champion (Anaheim 2003).
(First time in history a world champion comes from South America)

Well qualified TV-Equipment

The technical equipment for producing the international signal will be provided by GYMmedia-TV – just like in the past two years – and will be coordinated by Eckhard Herholz, the long time German TV commentator for all gymnastics disziplines

Great TV commitment by TV Station RBB
Both days of the finals (6/7 March) are to be covered broadly by Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), for the first time following the merger between SFB and ORB. This may comprise up to 85 minutes on Sunday and is to be broadcast live to a large extent.

Once more again, a professional sports editor, Hans-Georg Dallmer, was taken on board. The former ice-skater has experience especially in the area of technically compositional sports, such as gymnastics, RSG, ice-skating and knows the Lausitzarena already from last year. The TV images thus produced are then distributed worldwide by the Swedish IECinsports company to more than 70 TV stations worldwide, with an enormous demand expected in the Olympic year.

An own Website for the first time
The Cottbus team have contributed to the worldwide excellent reputation of this event by organising up-to-date daily reporting directly from the tournament in a media partnership with GYMmedia already since 1998. Step by step this contents is offered and made accessible here to our users.

(c) gymmedia