Team Qualifications here: PDF Document
Thoughts in bullet form. There was quite a bit of bad news, and quite a bit of good news:
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NOOOOO!! The grande dame of French gymnastics, Isabelle Severino, is injured!
There have been reports that she TORE her Achilles tendon, though not totally confirmed yet. In any case, this is HORRIBLE.EDIT: International Gymnast confirms that Isabelle did tear her Achilles. Damn. -
Even more bad news: Cerasela Pătraşcu (ROU), who I have very high hopes for, locked her knees on her uneven bars dismount and had to be carried off. This is BAD NEWS for Romania in team finals, as they may very well be unable to replace Pătraşcu’s score.
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Marie-Sophie Hindermann (GER) fell on her uneven bars dismount, and didn’t make it to the bars event finals. Sucks–she could’ve been a contender.
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YAY! My girl Sandra Izbasa (ROU) rocked floor exercise and balance beam to qualify first for both event finals! (15.700 and 15.875, respectively). You know it, you tell the whole world, go Sandra!
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Ana-Maria Tămârjan (ROU), who missed out on last year’s World Championships due to a broken leg, qualified to floor finals with 15.150. Good for her!
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Guess what! Steliana Nistor IS THE TOP ALL-AROUNDER HERE in qualifications! (This years’ European Championships don’t have an all-around competition, so we won’t see a Ferrari vs. Nistor showdown, hah) The Romanian drama-mongerers are W-R-O-N-G, ha ha ha ha!
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Don’t believe me? Click HERE.
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Vanessa Ferrari…she’s not been very forthcoming yet. She’ll probably pull out all the stops later in team finals. Hopefully. I want to see her do some serious arse-kicking so that I can be sure that Shawn has competition.
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Hats off to Oksana Chusovitina (GER) for making floor and vault event finals. She’s still going strong.
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There was some kind of DRAMA going on in the Netherlands camp, though it’s not surprising given they only have one Olympic berth between three possible gymnasts (notably Suzanne Harmes, Verona van de Leur, and Lichelle Wong). Personally I’m pulling for Verona, though I wish she would stop moaning about how the Dutch coaches, etc. seem to overlook her.
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Beth Tweddle (GBR) rocked uneven bars (15.925) though I wish she could get a higher score and challenge the 16+ scores of Nastia and the Chinese. However, the current world champion on bars, Ksenia Semyonova (RUS), had a watered-down routine that placed second to Beth (15.875).
