 By Caroline. |
By Caroline. |
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2003 French Internationals (part 5). Sunday 16 March: the apparatus finals. Beam final. The moment of truth came on the apparatus with the most errors this weekend. Three finalists (Ban, Harmes and Gomez) fell. The best marks on this piece were for routines with the greatest number of well-performed acrobatic skills, and Anna Pavlova was a perfect example of this. There were no fewer than 6 somersaults in her routine, some in straight position and others twisting, with a magnificent triple twist dismount. At 16 years old the young Russian, who is in her first year as a senior, took her second gold medal on beam. Remember her name! In second place, the Romanian Leonida performed a routine with a very high level of tumbling (full twisting backflip, two backflips followed by a triple twist as a dismount) but her execution wasn't very clean. Emilie Lepennec and the Italian Ilaria Colombo both received the third highest mark of the final (9.050), but via the same rule that was used in the vault final, the little French girl got the medal placing. With a totally different style of routine, not as lightly performed but more athletic, the Italian Colombo demonstrated all her aptitude on this piece.  Floor final. The spectators had the chance to see a final of very high quality, an indication being that 5 of the 7 finalists had already taken part in a World Championships final on this piece. Emilie Lepennec, whose tumbling is on a par with the best in the world, may have struggled a little in this company due to a lack of experience. She finished last after falling on her two and a half twisting salto into punch front. Meanwhile history repeated itself for Diane Dos Santos! After qualifying in first position both last year and this year, the spirited Brazilian wasn't able to build on her lead. After unfortunately stepping out of bounds on a tumbling run (she rebounded too strongly) she finished off the podium in fourth position. There was disappointment too for the little bombshell Oana Ban, much loved by the public, who finished sixth. Fortunately one Romanian is often followed by another and Leonida Florea made up for what had happened by pocketing the bronze. In a totally different vein, Svetlana Khorkina finished in fifth position. The Russian girl doesn't have four tumbling runs and with less than this it seems to be really difficult now to get on the podium at world level. In the final the judges had difficulty separating the Spanish girl Gomez, the World title holder, and the Brazilian Hypolito. There was perhaps more tumbling in Danielle's routine and more presence in Elena's. With a little fault on landing for one and a slight loss of balance on a jump series for the other, the judges had to add up the tenths lost due to penalties before finally crowning the pretty Spanish girl. It was a tremendous duel that ended this 12th edition of the French International with a flourish. |
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