Romanian Gymnastics “is in Crisis”
March 25, 2008 by northernriver
While this article is Bad News, I did snort at the title. Typical Romanian drama-mongering for you…
Comaneci no longer inspires…etc., etc.
While no one believed Belu et. al when they said Romanian gymnastics was at a crisis point in 2002-2003, I see no reason not to disbelieve Forminte yet when he cries “Crisis!” now.
It’s true that the Romanian co-captains (apparently they switch off when the other is injured although Nistor is the de facto leader), Steliana Nistor and Sandra Izbasa have been struggling with injuries–Nistor has had problems ever since she joined the senior ranks, and Izbasa broke her foot at last year’s European Championships, forcing her to compete watered-down routines and tarnishing her most recent performances.
The problem is, Nistor and Izbasa are Romania’s biggest medal hopes. And now, with this new report of Stela’s back injury (which seems to have been a long-time problem), poor Stela’s hopes at an all-around medal seem to be waning, as well as Romania’s chances at a team medal.
You remember Nistor’s God-awful vault I wrote about some time ago? The article says that the one thing Nistor says she probably won’t be able to do is vault–one wonders if her problems with the vault are the cause (or the instigator) of her terrible form.
In any case–Get well soon, Stela!
well she now does have a 7.2 A score on the UB. i would just like to share the comment of Fominente the head coach of romania about nastia’s new UB routine. He said that it was good but too much break from the routine. he said that they are doing upgrades to their gymnast’s routine like nistor’s UB.he said that they want to go with the routines that the gymnasts are sure with less errors. and about nistor’s vault he said that they are doing some development of it.
That’s exactly what I was thinking - perhaps performing with such awful form is exactly what is exacerbating the injury. Thanks for the post.