2 September 2010 | The UK National Governing Body for Gymnastics
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London, Friday, 16th October 2009 The biggest honour in Women’s Gymnastics for 2009 was decided in dramatic style at the O2 arena tonight. After a pair of solid and powerful vaults, American’s Rebecca Bross (top qualifier) who is coached by Valeri Liukin and teammate Bridget Sloan, a member of the Olympic team in 2008, never looked back on their way to an American one, two. After errors from several of the gymnasts, the path to the rostrum was made clearer for the Americans. Both Chinese girls, Deng Linlin (fall on beam) and Yang Yilin (fall on bars) as well as both Russians, Ksenia Semenova (European Champion) and Ekaterina Kurbatova who made errors on bars and beam respectively left themselves with too much ground to make up. This was sadly also the case for Ana Porgras of Romania who had qualified in second spot. Her magnificent high tempo beam routine (14.125) unfortunately contained a fall which dropped her to seventh position. Performing with confidence throughout the American Bridget Sloan claimed gold (57.825) after hitting her floor routine which was a particular highlight (14.2) due to the sky high tumbling. Teammate Bross who was in the lead coming to floor after an exquisite beam exercise (15.3) missed out on the gold after she failed to land her final tumble on her feet. Nevertheless, she shows great promise for in the run up to 2012 despite having to settle for silver here (57.775). The bronze went to Japan’s Koko Tsurumi (57.175), who is the first female from her country in recent years to win an all around medal. Excellent on bars and beam she is another one who will flourish in the future. Also worthy of a mention were the solid performances from 2008 Junior European Champion Youna Dufournet (France) who ranked fifth and the Australian Lauren Mitchell, whose unique beam exercise (15.1) helped her to fourth place (57.15). The British representatives, 17 – year –olds Rebecca Downie and Rebecca Wing had mixed fortunes. Wing looked a little shaky throughout but had no major errors to finish 18th (53.4), whilst Downie had a night of mistakes on bars (one fall) and beam (two falls) after such a positive opening on floor exercise to finish in 16th spot. Tonight belongs to the Americans but Saturday and Sunday will open up opportunities for many more gymnasts when the apparatus titles are decided. |
| Last Updated on Friday, 16 October 2009 21:00 |
