Japanese victory in the first gymnastics senior international meet against Germany

In the Tokyo "ARENA Tachikawa Tachihi" today there was a victory of the Japanese senior gymnasts in the historically first international competition of the senior gymnasts against Germany.
The "gymnastics oldies" of JAPAN won with 163.650 : 162.960 against the on average somewhat younger German selection squad.
This first international comparison of the gymnasts was embedded in the annual traditional "Open Japanese Championships", in which a total of 54 club teams participated.

At the successful premiere country competition of the gymnastics seniors Japan against Germany also the "second" winners are the Top Stars!

Since Japan's world-famous Olympian Mitsuo TSUKAHARA, whose jump and flight creations in free space - half a century ago revolutionized the gymnastics world and this initially "moon somersault" called flight from the high bar entered the technical terminology of this sport, and who was also at the cradle of the idea for this senior international competition, it was now an absolute MUST of the German team to immortalize themselves with this gymnastics legend on a historical photo!!!

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The German team leader and team gymnast Jens Krüger summarized overjoyed the whole thing so:
"Here it was not about the 0.7 point difference at the end between the teams, not about victory or defeat. We all won here!
It took an eternal three years until we finally, finally ... we got it ... and then we actually stand here on the mat, and hear the national anthem ...!
Cool, cool, cool ...!
Nothing against our national championships, which we also have, but this was already a kick more!

... and how it went ...?

Well, floor went quite well at the beginning, but after that we probably all pretty much "screwed up" pommel horse ... but after that everything went well again, but honestly - that wasn't the point at all!
Here we were in front of 500 people in the stands and with about 200 active gymnasts together on the apparatus in action.
That alone was already crazy!
You always have to set yourself higher goals. I ask myself, why does it have to be mostly over in artistic gymnastics after the Olympics, it can also go on with apparatus gymnastics also competitively and meaningfully! One should not sit from 50 only on the sofa and look at screens. You should always set new goals for yourself in new phases of life.
We have already heard e.g. first inquiries from Norway after similar competition comparisons, an inquiry ran also already toward the USA.
No, seriously: Why don't we form a tribe of senior national squads for a senior national team with interested people.
Maybe our competition today was the prelude, maybe the first milestone to that."

* A major pillar of our team was the portable performance of our competition-experienced Frank Pollmeier (49), who can look back on more than a quarter century of league experience - here is, by way of example, his parallel bars routine from Tokyo:

* Please have also a look to: