The Ukrainian women have to be considered medal contenders. However they "gave up" on stuck landings on floor, stepping out of bounds quite often - no doubt, this will be different during the actual competition. 

The USA was impressive on the Pegases, the new vaulting table, with high post flight phases. On bars they showed clean pirouettes and well rotated Tkachevs. They shouldn't be counted out of the medal race...

Tasha Schwikert (left) seems to be the strongest gymnast for the AA competition and is extremely confident in all her routines.

Oleg Ostapenko

Brazil is already benefiting from Oleg Ostapenko's work. The former Ukrainian top coach has been working there since the Olympics. The young gymnasts were impressive o beam and floor with their well executed acrobatics - 

showing the coach's handwriting. They still lack difficulty on vault and bars. Ostapenko seems to be looking towards the Olympics by stressing methodics, i.e. not introducing top level difficulty too early on, without technical elegance and precision. Even now, the Brazilians should contend for good place in the middle field.  

Germany's gymnasts were happy with what they showed. Apart from a few errors on landings, vault went well.

While one of the national AA champions, Birgit Schweigert, showed a solid routine on bars, her partner in championship, Katja Abel, has been fighting to find her form and against bars all week.

"..but basically everything is normal", says contented head coach Petra Theiss. Her opinion is shared by Cologne coach Zhanna Polyakova and Walter Bernasch from Leipzig, who were both watching over the German team on the podium.

His team will train in the evening. It is worth noting how often double Olympic champion Yelena Zamolodchikova had to attend to the heavily bandaged joint of her left foot...  (see picture right)

The Russians have already been plagued by injuries in their men's team (see yesterday's report on men's podium training).

As expected, the Romanians  were very strong in their tumbling on floor, they also showed very difficult dance elements, but the artistic "package" is still not a strong point for the Olympic team champions. The number of difficult tuck summersaults on beam was impressive as well as their dismount out of combination of three acrobatic elements.

Australia was in the last group of the evening.

The Aussie team's Russian coach Nikolai Lapshin: "I am just satisfied with my girls. Though the younger girls had some breaks, there has definitely been an improvement over the last weeks. Of course, none of them will be able to surpass Allana Slater and her experience!"

Floor was a particularly strong apparatus for the Australian women. There were double-doubles, double layouts, triple twists and on bars there were even two Comanecis in one routine on display. "We expect to reach team finals, and why not win a medal", Lapshin said optimistically.

 Notes from podium training:

Brenda Magana (MEX): Showed a full-twisting Gienger, called a "Def" after a French gymnast in the men's CdP, and then a triple fly away dismount!

Oksana Chusovitina (UZB): full-twisting double layout; her spectacular punch front 1 1/2 twist is still highly debated on the women's scene...!

Rumour has it that Olympic champion Yelena Zamolodchikova (RUS) has submitted a new vault which she didn't throw in podium training...!

Svetlana Khorkina (RUS) showed a gainer 2 1/2 twist off the end of the beam and earned friendly applause for her floor routine.

Saturday will see the opening ceremony and the global gymnastics community eagerly awaits the beginning of the competition (men's team) on Sunday!