GYMNASTICS IN THE AUSTRALIAN PRESS, Preolympics, Sydney 2000

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Sunday 27 February 2000

First Games medal drives girls further and harder
SYDNEY,
By LINDA PEARCE
IT was not so long ago that the extent of Australia's gymnastics travel in an Olympic year was a trip to the national championships and perhaps, for the very lucky few, one competition overseas. Not so in 2000, when the only thing to rival passport stamp tallies will be bulging bags of frequent flyer points.
Today's last apparatus final in the International Challenge at Sydney's new $200 million SuperDome will signal the start of global excursions funded by the Federal Government to the unprecedented tune of more than $100,000. From Montreux to Montreal, from Paris to Puerto Rico, most continents will be visited as Australia's quest for its first Olympic gymnastics medal intensifies.
With its fifth placing in the team event at the 1999 world championships in China, Australia showed the more traditional gymnastics nations it had the technical prowess and required level of difficulty to compete. Although needing to further build its reputation to ensure the judging recognition so vital in this heavily subjective sport, the greatest leap had been made.
And so the next challenge arrives, with less than seven months remaining until the start of the Games. National coach Peggy Liddick's quest for consistent excellence is far from over, as demonstrated by Friday's mediocre display in the international all-around, even if her team's reputation now precedes it.
``It's a given now that we're quality,'' said Liddick, recruited from the United States to replace Ju Ping Tian more than two years ago. ``It's not like `well, I've heard the Australians are good'. Now it's expected, and I like that. ``So now it's (a matter of) going from fifth to third. To get into that medal group, we're
going to have to have all six girls with full difficulty, and training and competing consistently.'' With the first three places almost certain to be filled by new national champion Allana Slater, runner-up Trudy McIntosh and the experienced Lisa Skinner, support for the entire squad is unprecedented. An example is the recruitment of Russian-born choreographer Irina Milogradova - creator of McIntosh's routine, Waltzing Matilda, and that of bronze medallist Alex Croak - to work full-time for the next six months.
McIntosh's theme is unashamedly designed to tap the public's patriotic vein when the SuperDome's 15,000 seats are filled in September. ``That's what we're hoping for,'' Liddick said.
Vault is still the team's weakest link, and likely to earn Perth specialist Jenny Smith an Olympic berth, but it's not a problem that can be fully rectified in the short term. ``I'm starting now on the 2004 (Olympic) squad, so we don't have the same hole that we have in this squad,'' Liddick said. ``But, actually, (the standard's) coming up. It's still not enough for a gold medal, but we're not giving up yet. We're going for it, and the team again will be selected around the vault. There's a direct correlation: medal-winning teams are always the strongest vault teams.''
As for well-travelled teams, that base is safely covered, with passports filling and air miles ticking over as never before. Skinner and the Australian Institute of Sport's Jacqui Dunn leave tomorrow for the prestigious Stars of Moscow meeting, while McIntosh and Slater will contest three world cup events on the continent, starting later in March. ``We've definitely stepped up a notch since the world championships and that was basically what the girls were asked to do,'' said Liddick. ``What I like now is there's 12, 14 girls who are vying for those spots now, there isn't just six.''
Still, just six will compete, and Australia's Olympic squad will be finalised in August. Only two men will be selected, a full team having missed qualification on the basis of its 15th placing at the world championships. Only recurring injury seems capable of denying Andrei Kravtsov one spot, while Brennon Dowrick, Philippe Rizzo, Damian Istria and new national champion Pavel Mamin are among the contenders for the other spot.

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2000, Saturday, February, the 26^th

Future funds in the balance
By LINDA PEARCE

Fresh from its most successful year of international competition, gymnastics is threatened with the loss of its $880,000 program at the Australian Institute of Sport. The Australian Sports Commission has again deferred its decision on the future of eight threatened institute sports, and gymnastics, at least, is anxious that its post-Olympic future be known.
Australian Gymnastics Federation executive director Jane Allen said she could not understand how gymnastics was still grouped with diving, canoeing, kayaking, squash, rugby union, volleyball and water polo as an AIS danger sport. Five months ago, Australian women posted their best team result, fifth, at the world championships in China, as well as outstanding individual efforts from Allana Slater and Trudy McIntosh. ``We would very much appreciate having our future at the AIS settled because it's very
destabilising, not knowing where we're going,'' Allen said. ``The fact they've deferred it again
concerns us because we must know our future now. ``If we are not going to be in the AIS, we must start preparing financially, as well as spreading our resources to where the other programs are, and trying to make sure that the gymnasts involved have a home to go to. The delay in the decision affects our planning and it makes the gymnasts at the AIS very insecure. At the moment, we have four AIS gymnasts
who are strong, strong contenders for the Olympic team who must feel, well, what is their future?''

The men's gymnastics program is centralised in Canberra under long-serving national coach Warwick Forbes, while the women were decentralised amid much controversy several years ago and are now supervised by Melbourne-based head coach Peggy Liddick. The strongest state programs are run at sports institutes in Victoria and Western Australia. Former national coach Ju Ping Tian still heads the AIS women's program. A review was instigated last June and, faced with heavy lobbying, the commission board first deferred its decision in December. Another meeting on Wednesday also failed to resolve the
issue of what will happen when the current round of funding ends just before the Olympics. ``The ASC asked us to go back and liaise with the AIS and try and get a closer relationship,'' Allen said. ``The AIS didn't feel the AGF was making them the major program, or focal point, in Australia, and we were saying that the AGF believes without question that the AIS program is an extremely important part of their gymnastics elite program and that our whole standing on the international scene would be severely hampered if we lost the AIS program. ``We're now talking with the AIS and how the AIS can play the leading role within that decentralised model and we've had good, positive discussions.''
Alexandra Croak was the best-performed AIS gymnast at Wednesday's national championship, finishing third in the all-around and also taking the bronze on floor. Jacqui Dunn, a member of last year's world championship team, was second on bars and beam and fifth overall, while Katarina Frketic and Liz Wong were also among the top10.
The Sydney international challenge concludes tomorrow at Homebush. The program includes
apparatus finals and a strong rhythmic competition featuring world champion Alina Kabaeva of Russia.

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Source: Sydney Morning Herald published: Saturday February 26 2000
Trouble for hosts as visitors share medals

- by TIM KEEBLE

Australia's hopes of a medal were dashed at last night's International Women's Gymnastics Challenge at the SuperDome when Canadian Emilie Fourniere stole the locals' thunder. Fournier came from behind in the final rotation with a score of 9.437 on the balance beam to take out the event with a total of 37.623 out of 40. Romanian Andreea Isarescu (37.375) took silver and China's Yun Yang (37.293) bronze.
The 13 Australians didn't exactly bomb out, but they fell well short of the top three competitors.
National No 1 Allana Slater was second after the second rotation before slipping to 10th overall, while
No 2 Trudy McIntosh had one of her worst performances in recent memory, slipping on her favourite
apparatus, the vault, and falling off the uneven bars. She finished 12th. The highest-placed Australian was Melinda Cleland, who finished sixth. Teammates Brooke Walker and Lisa Skinner came seventh and eighth respectively. Slater and Jacqui Dunn qualified for tomorrow's individual uneven bars final, and Jenny Smith and Cleland progressed to the vault final. McIntosh will still be around tomorrow for the floor final, as will Walker. McIntosh will also contest the beam final with Zeena McLaughlin. "I think we all had a bit of a problem tonight, so we'll all go back to the gym and try a little bit harder with our consistency," Slater said. "I should have really been stable on beam and floor, but unfortunately that wasn't the case, and I'll have to go back to training and do more." McIntosh also admitted to being below her best. "It was the first time I've ever fallen on my vault," she said. "I was just really disappointed with my vault and my bars. But I guess everyone has to have a bad competition once in a while. I just have to make sure I never do it again."
Australian coach Peggy Liddick should not be overly concerned. Without trying to undermine the
tournament's prestige, this was essen tially a "test run" for the real thing in September. The contingent of talented internationals took the tournament seriously and provided a sprinkling of highlights. Fournier produced a string of strong routines and Isarescu was similarly consistent.
However, the event lost some of its lustre following the last-minute withdrawal of two Romanian competitors, who instead competed in the annual World Stars meeting in Russia.
The 4,500-odd spectators didn't seem to notice. But Spain's Sara Moro wasn't just speaking for herself
with her comment earlier in the week that a much greater prize will be on offer the next time she visits
Australia.
"This is a very important trip. I believe it's important to see the city in advance, to use the equipment
and the venue, so I'll feel comfortable when we come back for the Olympics," she said.
"[Last night I did] the same routines I did in the worlds. I will change for the Olympics. I think it will be
the same for most of the girls."
The focus shifts from artistic to rhythmic for the final two days. With Australia's top-ranked rhythmic
representative, Danielle Leray, 59th in the world, Australians are likely to take a back seat to the
overseas competitors in today's qualifying rounds.
The final will precede the men's and women's individual apparatus finals on Saturday and Sunday.

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Friday 25 February 2000

Official puts Games protest fears to rest
By TIM KEEBLE

The scoring fiasco that overshadowed the close finish in the Australian women's gymnastics
championships on Wednesday night won't resurface at the Sydney Olympics. National women's judging co-ordinator Jill Wright said yesterday that the controversy - an 11th-hour protest that forced Trudy McIntosh to relinquish first place to national teammate Alanna Slater - was a "storm in a tea cup".
Eight international "experts" are appointed to monitor routines at the Olympics, removing any control teams have in lodging protests at that level.
Five of the eight will oversee the International Challenge at the SuperDome tonight. Wright said McIntosh and Slater had readily accepted the late reshuffle of final placings and the reasons behind it.
She said protests happened regularly in national competition. Moreover, coaches are encouraged, within reason, to question judges where they see fit.
"In Australia, we welcome protests. It occurs in most countries," Wright said. "It's important to encourage interaction and communication between judges and coaches. It's looked upon more as a query than a protest.
"There's no chance the same thing which happened last night could happen at the Olympics, simply because there are no protests at the Olympics." The relationship between judge and coach stretches to the training gym. The workshop environment is not unlike a referee taking part in a football team's training
session. "It's an education process that works both ways," Wright said. "They query certain things,
and it works in reverse, we help them better understand the things judges look for." Wright believes the gymnastics competition at the Olympics will be a dream to run if this week is any guide.
"For a test event, I think it's been very good. From a judging point of view, it's been fantastic. We've had no major hitches at all," she said.
The Australian team has as good a chance as its traditionally powerful rivals to take out the event tonight, according to a leading American coach. Don Peters, who coaches United States team member Jeanette Antolin, fears that the host nation will take some stopping at the Sydney Olympics if it gets a taste of success in front of an expected big crowd tonight. Australia will take the world No5 ranking into the tournament behind, in order, Romania, Russia, China and the Ukraine. The US are seeded sixth.
European teams have dominated international women's competition for several years. However, with the Olympics approaching, there is a growing belief that those days are all but over.

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Thursday 24 February 2000
Slater wins national gym title after protests
By Linda McSweeny

West Australian teenager Allana Slater snatched the national women's gymnastics title from Victorian Trudy McIntosh amid controversy at the eleventh hour at the SuperDome last night. Slater top scored with 38.218 out of 40, narrowly beating 1999 Australian Champion Trudy McIntosh with 38.198.
Alexandra Croak of New South Wales took third place with 37.530 after an outstanding 9.5 final floor routine which left Victorian Brooke Walker in her wake. The outcome followed confusion among the judges, with a quick score change at the end of the event delivering extra points to Slater for her favourite event, the bars.
Two expert judges questioned the heavy-handedness of the other four judges in deducting points for Slater's execution on the bars and they awarded her extra points, national judging coordinator Jill Wright said. National coach Peggy Liddick later confirmed there were 15 protests at the event, an unusually high number but not surprising as the stakes were so high. Protests were lodged on McIntosh's vault, Lisa Skinner's vault and Slater's bars routines. Liddick acknowledged it was the right of personal coaches to lodge protests, but it was the coaches' jobs to protect the girls from the controversy and just allow them to do their best. ``The coaches have the right to protest that score and the judges have the right to
re-evaluate that score and if they change their mind, they change their mind,'' Liddick said. ``That happens at every level of competition.''
The girls go into the 2000 International Gymnastics Challenge on Friday night ranked fifth as a team in a high profile lineup of competitors, including world leader Romania.
``I wasn't taking too much notice of the scores I was just going out there and doing my routines,'' Slater told journalists after her win.
McIntosh was also unaware of the protests until after the event, saying she was eager to perform her floor routine to the tune of Waltzing Matilda again in the Olympic stadium after its debut tonight gave her a 9.637. ``It was just how I imagined it,'' McIntosh said. ``It was great and it was really inspiring
music''. Liddick hailed the performance of the girls on the night as a great indication of things to come, saying the Australian standard had improved dramatically. ``Their performances and their overall confidence in performing their higher difficulty program is, I would have to say, pleasing me the most, when you look at the overall team.'' Last night's event would help the girls attend to their performance levels and improve, she said. ``They need to take a look and see who's beaten them, they need to step up to the plate, they need to get their difficulty, they need to get the kind of experience the girls have and do it when it counts, and that's the key. ``I hope they understand how close it is (between Slater and McIntosh) and I hope they both understand how much they are contributing to the team score, number one. ``Number two, I hope they have individual aspirations of being the number one gymnast in Australia.''

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Thursday 24 February 2000

Title turns on late twist
By LINDA PEARCE, SYDNEY

Already known before last night's national gymnastics championships at Homebush were the identities of two of Australia's very best. To be updated was the pecking order, which Allana Slater headed by claiming gold on protest by 0.02 points from fellow standout Trudy McIntosh.
In a confusing finish, McIntosh thought she had won back-to-back all-around titles. A review of Slater's uneven bars score in the last rotation, after a protest by her coaches, lifted her score from 9.675 to 9.712 and elevated the Western Australian to her first national all-around title. A protest by McIntosh's coaches over the Victorian's final vault score was dismissed. So the pair's healthy rivalry continues. In 1999, McIntosh won the all-around at 14, becoming the first gymnast to jump straight from junior champion to senior winner, and launching a year that also brought a top-25 ranking and fifth position in the world
championship vault final, both comparing with Slater's team-high ninth in the all-around.
The only title McIntosh did not own this time last year was on the uneven bars, her weakest apparatus. Slater claimed that gold again last night, along with the balance beam, leaving McIntosh to take consecutive apparatus titles on her pet vault event and the floor exercise, where she successfully unveiled her new "Waltzing Matilda" routine.
Another of the night's best performances came from AIS-based Alexandra Croak, who grabbed the bronze medal with an elegant 9.5 floor routine and did not drop below 9.225 all night. A solid fourth was world championship team member Brooke Walker.
Missing from the podium in the surprise of the night was Lisa Skinner, 16th overall at the world championships. Skinner crashed into 15th place, second last, with bars her only score above 8.95
and a disastrous wipeout on vault.

Australian gymnastics' most polished all-rounder retired after Atlanta but agreed to a comeback after a visit from national coach Peggy Liddick more than two years ago. Limited vault training due to injury contributed to her downfall, but Skinner should still be the third member of the trio that will form the nucleus of Australia's Olympic team.
Another with some work to do is 1998 Commonwealth Games spearhead Zeena McLaughlin, the 18-year-old who struggled last year and was dropped for the October world titles but whose experience and all-round abilities would be welcome in September should her mind and body again be willing.
The national all-around champion in 1998, McLaughlin's drop to sixth place in the all-around 12 months later was the start of her slide.
Having completed her VCE at the end of the year, the Victorian arrived at the SuperDome in encouraging shape, but she could finish only 12th. Still, she will be among the national squad of 20 from which the six gymnasts for Sydney will be chosen, and selectors will also nominate a top 12 to take part in the
international challenge over the coming days.
Earlier, Russia swept both trampoline gold medals, showcasing a gymnastic discipline that will make its Olympic debut in Sydney. World champion Irina Karavaeva dominated the women's
competition while compatriot German Knichev won the men's. The highest-placed of the four Australians was men's No.1 Ji Wallace, who ranked second after the compulsories, qualified sixth
for the final and maintained that spot with a score of 35.70 in the eight-man final.

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Thursday 24 February 2000

Bouncing into the Olympics
By TIM KEEBLE, SYDNEY

Trampolining, the long-time black sheep of gymnastics, has all but made the final leap from the backyard to the Olympic arena. Judging by the awed reactions and gasps of portions of the crowd, not to mention the unmistakable squeals of smitten schoolgirls, at yesterday's International Challenge at the Superdome, the inclusion of trampolining for the Sydney Olympics has all the makings of ahit.
It didn't even matter that the four Australians competing failed to gain a medal in the men's or women's tournament. The opportunity to see a handful of the world's best in a sport that is still trying to prove its
legitimacy was sufficiently entertaining. Quick routines, even quicker results and acrobatics usually seen only at the circus ensured the event was warmly received. But the best part is yet to come: the Australians, particularly the nation's top trampoliner, Ji Wallace, have been tipped to rocket into medal contention in Sydney. Wallace finished sixth yesterday behind winner German Khnichev of Russia. Khnichev's teammate and world No.1 Irina Karavaeva took out the women's event.
Australian team coach Nikolay Zhuralev, a former Russian youth team coach, suggested a gold medal is not beyond his top pupil.
``Ji is beginning to change his techniques. It's all going very well,'' Zhuravlev said. ``He will compete in some big tournaments in Britain and Austria before Sydney, and I think, I'm sure, he will show good results in these competitions. ``There is a lot of work to be done. He must do a big job between now and the Olympics. I think he can win a gold medal.''
Two spots will be reserved for trampoliners when the Australian Gymnastic Federation finalises its Olympic team in August.
The top two males are Wallace and Adrian Wareham. Robyn Forbes and Jackie Cully are the
leading Australian women. Wallace and Forbes have the inside running after finishing fifth
and 22nd respectively at last year's world championships.

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Wednesday 23 February 2000

Bronzed Australians welcome at the Olympics
By LINDA PEARCE

National women's gymnastics coach Peggy Liddick has all but conceded the gold and silver medals to Romania and Russia at the Olympic Games in September. The bronze is Australia's most realistic target, but it is also within reach for the first time as the final leg of the host nation's long preparation starts tonight at the Sydney SuperDome. The national championships precede a four-day international challenge involving men and women from all of last year's world championships top10, except Russia. Liddick's squad was placed an unprecedented fifth at last year's world titles, with Allana Slater ninth in the all-around and Trudy McIntosh fifth on vault. If the world's best are not all here (the top-ranked Romanians are also without their top three gymnasts and American Robin Phelps was a late injury scratching), there is still plenty to like about the Australians. ``You'd be mad not to want (Russian veteran Svetlana) Khorkina and (Romanian star) Simona Amanar, and we did work very hard to get at least one of those here to be a flagship, but we've found that for once there really is something to promote in our own
women's program,'' said Gymnastics Australia executive director Jane Allen.
The quality of the international men's and rhythmic fields are outstanding. Tomorrow night's men's all-around, from which the weekend's apparatus finalists will be drawn, will include Japan's world No.2 Naoya Tsukahara, ninth-ranked Roman Zozula of the Ukraine, world high bar champion Jesus Carballo of Spain and Chinese rings king Zhen Dong.
Australia's hopes are far stronger in Friday's women's all-around, with the top six or seven from tonight's national championship qualifying for a field that includes Spain's 10th-ranked Sara Moro, Chinese beam queen Yuanyuan Kui and Romanian world championship team members Andreea Isarescu and Loredana Boboc.
A 20-strong Australian squad will then be named, from which the six Olympic team members will be drawn after the final selection trials in August.
One of the dinosaurs of Australian gymnastics, Pavel Mamin, broke through for his first national title in the men's championship at the Superdome last night.
Mamin, 28, won the rings and vault, was third in the pommel horse and fourth in the parallel bars. He clinched the overall win after finishing fifth in both the high bar and floor. Defending champion Andrei Kravtsov was forced to retire after winning the pummel. Kravtsov has dominated the national men's scene, winning four of the past five national titles. But he has been plagued by shoulder injuries in recent times.
Mamin had all but given up his dream of national success five years ago. But he gradually fought his way back and completed the comeback to elite gymnastics with last night'svictory.
His previous best was a sixth at last year's nationals. ``I had to be in the shadows for a
while, but I jumped out,'' he said. ``A few guys had shoulder reconstructions so that's one of the reasons why I won.'' Mamin said he still had hopes of getting the second Olympic spot behind Kravtsov.
Canberra's Brennon Dowrick was second last night and Damien Istria of Queensland third.

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