25. Februar 2006  
Cottbus / Germany  
Artistic Gymnastics

Ponor and Dragulescu in Cottbus

Ponor, Dragulescu (ROM)

Nearly all the world champions will be in Cottbus...
After the promise of the Rumanian world champion Marian Dragulescu nearly all the Melbourne's world champions will start at the Cottbus world cup '30. Turnier der Meister' at the end of March - only the Chinese pommel horse champ Xiao will missing there...
Also the three times Olympic Champion Catalina Ponor will be on top of the strong Rumanian delegation...

Coach Stanei and Catalina Ponor

Ponor working to get back on track
Even though Ponor and her coach have put serious thought into giving up her Olympic career at the end of last year, at the beginning of 2006, Ponor reconsidered. 'We only started training on January 9 and I am very happy with the way things are going,' said Matei Stanei, her home coach in Bukharest.
Catalina Ponor's coach declared, the gymnast has started training on her vault event too, besides her regular beam and floor events, in order to help the Romanian team at the upcoming European Championship in Volos, Greece, at the end of April.
'She thinks she could obtain a high score in vault too,' Stanei said. The coach declared he was pleased by the way the gymnast's preparation is progressing, even though her training sessions only started three weeks ago.
'We were both about 80 percent sure of quitting. Then Catalina came to me and said she wanted to go on. Of course, I couldn't have done anything else but stand by her side,' the coach said.
<< Catalina Ponor is currently training at the 'Lia Manoliu' Sports Complex in Bucharest. According to her coach, she currently weights 53.7 kilograms, measuring 1.60 meters in height. 'We have decided it would be best for her to lose an extra 1.5 kilograms before the Europeans in April,' Stanei concluded.
So the participation at the Cottbus world cup in March will be an important step to the Europeans on month later.
Rumanian press


>> All information on '30. Turnier der Meister' (World cup, Cat. B)