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Opening
Ceremony
With a minimum of speeches and a maximum of amusement the Dutch host
celebrated a phantastic opening show in the theatre hall of the RAI
Congress Center of Amsterdam on Wednesday evening:
Corpus
Acrobatic Theatre shows visual acrobatics at a very
high level.
Hans Klok, the world famous
illussionist - the "David Copperfield of Amsterdam" -
amazes the teenaged audiance with a big show and ended with a
surprise: Renske Endel came
out of a box and celebrated a nice show program on the stage. |
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A
sport acrobatics group from Zwolle presented its
program "The Journey" and than comes "Do",
a Dutch singer and super star, who is famous all over the world
with her title "Heaven", for instance - all
together a manyfoldly program which was the right for the young
gymnasts and guests from the 37 participaiting nations.
After two wounderfull hours UEG-President Dimitrios
Dimitropoulos from Greece declered the European Champs for open!
>> ... more Impressions
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PODIUM
TRAINING:
In
the first subdivision of the day...
... Romania was impressive and looks
set to grab another team title. With no major errors and a high level of
difficulty, nobody could match them today. Catalina
Ponor sat out bars, Monica Rosu
beam and Silvia Stroescu floor with Alexandra
Eremia and Daniela Sofronie
doing all four pieces of apparatus.
Spain’s
Elena Gomez didn’t look as sharp as in recent memory, with
small errors here and there – short on her triple twist, wobbles on
beam. According to the announcer, Patricia Moreno has submitted a
quadruple twist for evaluation but only competed a 3 ½ here.
Since
they had not had full teams at the 2002 European championships, both
these medal contenders were relegated to the first group by the (bad)
luck of the draw. The then had to sit and see what the others could do
in the last session of the day. The top eight teams from 2002 are
automatically in the last group.
Russia
looked inconsistent and struggled here and there. Svetlana
Khorkina did all four pieces of apparatus and debuted new music on floor
but largely kept her choreography from last year. Leysera Gabdrakhmanova,
highly touted as a vaulter and tumbler, failed to impress across the
board. Her double twisting Yurchenkos were scrappy and she put her hands
down on her double layout. Polina Miller has mistakes on her one event,
bars.
Ukraine’s best showing was
ironically vault, normally their weakest event. Bars and floor were a
struggle for most with Irina Yarotskaya comitting a lot of errors. She
took a scary fall on her bars mount of straddle over, totally missing
the high bar and crashing into the mat. Alina Kozich looks set to
contend in the all-around with smooth bars and a nice floor routine.
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... next to the
podium: Svetlana Khorkina
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Great Britain put on an impressive
showing – nothing too spectacular (with the exception of Tweddle on
bars) but a totally confident team performance. Vanessa Hobbs debuted a
1 ½ twisting Yurchenko that looked easy.
France is battling numerous injuries,
but looked very strong on bars where Emilie Le Pennec earned applause
for her hop full to Delchev and double double dismount.
Recently
injured Suzanne Harmes did everything but bars for the host
team and the Dutch left a good impression despite the string of injuries
they have had to face in the past.
Also coming off an Anaheim disappointment, Italy also seems on
the way back with some solid gymnastics on display here.
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Balance:
A perfectly organized European Championship
Frans
Koffrie
