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At
first a disappointing start for Germany...
On
floor the
German juniors had expected more as Fabian Hambüchen had presented the
2nd best routine during the qualification. However, he messed
up his first acrobatic line:
After
his 2 ½ twisting salto fwd. – punch front he sat down on the mat.
Another mistake followed when he stepped out of bounds on his second
line – and that was that with the, quite realistic, dream of
a medal – rank 7. The gold medal went to Romania’s Adrian
Ionescu.
| Pech
für "Piepe" |
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Piephardt...
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On
pommel horse Alexei Ignatovich from
Belarus competed in a class by himself: The young man from Minsk
celebrated pommel horse gymnastics with a brilliant technique
and simply unbeatable. Hungary’s Krisztian Berki came closest
to him and won the silver medal. Behind those two no other
routine without mistakes could be seen.
<<
Berlin’s René Piephardt
had also high expectations when he went into this final. He had
a great start, very offensive, and even had put an extra
B-element in his routine – but then he leaned to much to the
front with his shoulder on a Russian wendeswing – and gone was
the, also quite realistic, chance to win a medal...! He of
course rankled a lot with it.
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On
rings
Great Britain’s Mark
Freeman won the gold medal with a very good routine. In it he
already presented a high amount of specific strength elements which many
other boys of his age not yet can perform but certainly will in future.
Fabian Hambüchen presented his routine solidly and absolutely within
the expected level (SV 9.8; rank 8) – the strength, that will
certainly improve later on...
On
vault the
only gymnast who managed to show two high quality vaults was Georgios
Tsiopoulos from
Greece. He presented his double-twisting Yurchenko and his
double-twisting layout Tsukahara (2x SV 9.7) quite well. This secured
him a deserved gold medal in front of Martin Konecny form the Czech
Republic and Jeffrey Wammes from the Netherlands. Through this the
latter now managed to win a medal also in the men’s field after one
week ago the Dutch women had shown a great competition.
...finally
today’s first medal for Germany
Until
parallel bars they
had to wait but then the success arrived. Fabian Hambüchen and
the title holder from Bremen Waldemar Eichorn presented the most
difficult routines of this final. Fabian even had upgraded his
routine (from SV 9.4 to 9.6) by including a double salto to
upper arm hang from a giant
(E-element;
2 tenth bonus points). After having nailed the landing of his
double piked bw. dismount he had his long-expected medal at his
first ECh for sure.
The last starter in this final was the title holder. Waldemar
Eichorn highly concentrated presented his routine with the start
value of 9.7. Probably it was the small step on the landing of
his dismount which cost him the victory.
Nonetheless, Germany had won gold and silver in this final.
Eichorn shares his silver medal with Raphael Wignanitz from
France who presented a good routine with a sticked dismount.
Fabian
Hambüchen >>
with his special element "Wells" at the last ECh test in
Berlin |
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On
high bar
Germany’s head coach Andreas Hirsch originally had planned to set up
Robert Weber from Ehmen. But already before the European championships
he had problems with his flight element. So in the team competition
Waldemar Eichorn started on high bar – and managed to qualify for the
EF. As ambitious as he is, he transformed his straddled Tkatchev into a
counter hecht (D-element) which brought him a bonus of one tenth and
then he transformed his straddled Stalder into a piked one – another 2
tenth bonus points. All this secured him the silver medal!
Congratulations!
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However,
the most difficult routine of this final was presented by Martin
Konecny from Prague. He showed 4 flight elements: At
first a layout Kovacs and then the triple combination of piked
Tkatchev – straddled Tkatchev – Gienger. After he sticked
the landing of his double-double dismount he had secured the
first gold medal at this Junior-ECh for the Czech Republic.
The
German team can be quite happy with their outcome at this
championships: 1 – 2 – 3, gold-silver-bronze. This has been
the best performance of a German team since the invention of the
team competition in 1994 and gives some hope to the future of
German gymnastics. |
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Eckhard Herholz
Infos: Jens Milbradt
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