ZURICH -- The music was pumping and the energy was much higher on the second day of training in preparation for tomorrow's Swiss Cup.
The morning's mood was expressed perfectly by Sandra Izbasa as she did a warmup line of front handsprings on floor. Finding herself bounded into the air after her last one, she did an impromptu flying split leap, playing it up with arms out and head back, a goofy grin on her face. Great spirit.
Huang Yuguo, who did mostly timers and seemed drained of energy yesterday, showed more why he was sent to Zurich this morning. I saw sharp pirouetting dismounts on pommel horse and a front tuck full to immediate double front on floor. Huang landed his first one on his backside, but he and his coach had a laugh about it after he stood up.
The Chinese have sent two coaches to Switzerland, one for Zhang and one for Huang. Zhang's coach spent much of yesterday taking photos with his camera -- of the gym, the posters, the bleachers -- everything, it seemed, except any of the gymnasts.
Huang's coach was a magnet for several little Swiss children, who ran around with pens getting the Swiss Cup t-shirts they were wearing autographed by all the gymnasts when they weren't training. I don't know if they were searching for the Chinese coach's autograph as well, or if they just liked him, because they all approached him several times with something new to tell him.
Lisa Kartharina Hill worked out in the morning and afternoon, and Elisabeth Seitz showed up sometime around noon. Hill looked very good on bars and beam, but Seitz had a more frustrating practice. Ever had a day when your gymnastics is just off? That was what it seemed like watching her on floor, though she did stick one nice full twisting double pike. She overrotated everything else and looked like she wanted to cry a few times. But she's tough, and didn't.
Germany's Sebastian Krimmer showed up in the afternoon and did some work on pommel horse and parallel bars. I'm not sure if there are two German teams here, or if Seitz and Hill are competing for who's going to partner with Krimmer, who is replacing Fabian Hambuechen.
A Bulgarian team has also been added: Jordan Jovtchev and Ralitsa Mileva showed up in the afternoon. Jordan is popular with all the athletes and coaches, and spent a lot of his workout shaking hands, perhaps in his capacity as President of the Bulgarian Gymnastics Federation. Gymnastics-wise, he worked out very little, avoiding tumbling and doing very simple skills -- strength exercises, really -- on rings, parallel bars and vault.
Mileva is a tall, slender gymnast. She did a handspring front tuck half on vault, as well as some Yurchenko timers, and a dance through on floor. Tumbling-wise, she did a front tuck through to double full and a 2.5 twist. She also worked beam.
Zhang Yelinzi appeared far more rested on day two in Wallisellen. An interesting ankle strengthening tactic from her: She puts a tennis shoe on an eight inch mat covered by a sting mat and then stands on one foot, hopping horizontally back and forth over the shoe. I have a feeling that's a bit harder than she made it look.
On beam, Zhang perfected her front half, her switch ring and her flight series of two two-footed back handsprings to a two footed layout, followed by immediate back handspring swingdown.
Claudio Capelli worked a layout Thomas on floor. He did it well the first time and clapped his hands, like, "Yeah!" He also did a roundoff, 1.5 to layout front to Rudi, a roundoff double full and a 2.5 to front tuck full. Then it was off to pommel horse.
Besides the cool front tuck full to double front, Huang worked a 1.5 to immediate front double full.
Izbasa and her coach were very chatty -- rather, I should say Izbasa was very chatty with her coach, who mostly listened to what she had to say and added an occassional comment. I guess when you're her age and you're an Olympic gold medalist you get some ownership over your training.
It's obvious that Sandra knows what she needs to do to be successful, and she does it very cheerfully. All smiles, she was the star of the afternoon session in a black leotard that showed off her platinum hair. After her charming dance through on floor (she plays up with that choreo!), one of the Swiss volunteers applauded, then looked around in bewilderment at how he was the only one clapping.
Vanessa Ferrari, in short black leg warmers, short black shorts and a red leotard, worked half sets on bars in the morning. She did a lot of them, and looks like she's in good shape. On floor, she did two dance throughs back to back, an endurance mechanism she also used at the World Championships (where she did three back to back). She did a double pike at the end of her first run through. I really like Ferrari's routine -- it suits her perfectly and shows off the maturity in her dance as well as allowing her personality to come out a lot more than it did when she danced to "Nessun Dorma."
Ferrari was the only woman here to work all four events. She vaulted Yurchenko timers, landing on her back on a huge foam rectangle provided by Swiss equipment supplier Alder Eisenhut, which has provided the fixtures for this meet. She looks like she's in very good shape, though she's such a munchkin that I think she's going to appear a little round no matter how much she works out.
Roman Gisi stuck his double pike off parallel bars and then did a kind of slow motion one armed fist pump, while former Swiss coach Eric Demay applauded. Gisi, in red warmups and a red t-shirt with white lettering, was a walking advertisement for the event.
Ukraine has subbed Anastasia Koval in for Yana Demyanchuk, who was initially supposed to partner with Mykola Kuksenkov here. Like Zhang, Koval isn't that much of a tumbler, though her double tucks and double pikes look very easy. Where she excels is on bars and beam.
Koval is just beautiful on both, such a quality gymnast, but even in training there were small weirdnesses that keep her from doing well. Almost everything she does looks like it's meant to be a full set (she salutes before everything), but she balks slightly on beam, not on hard things but on simple ones and jumps off or stops or whatever. It shouldn't be much of a surprise to see the Ukrainian women do the same thing in competition, I guess.
Ariella Kaeslin and Giulia Steingruber did identical balletic exercises by beam, each on one side. On floor, their red-haired coach clapped out the numbers as they did pushups and situps. They got together with Hill over by the fruit for a German-language gossip session late in the day.
Marine Brevet, in an elegant white leo with red starburst at the shoulder, continued to look strong and prepared.
Sunlight poured into the gym during the second afternoon of podium training. The Dutch were the first to come in for the second session (the British and Koval were the last to leave the morning round). Jeffrey Wammes lay sprawled out on the floor mat while Amadeus Williams bounced around, but eventually both ran around the mat with Marlies Rijken. Jeffrey was seen giving Marlies, who struggled a bit with her tumbling -- a shoulder massage as they left at the end of the day.
Final observation of the day: Matteo Morandi has muscles everywhere -- even in his calves!
Follow Gymnastics Examiner Blythe Lawrence on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GymExaminer or click the "Subscribe" button above to receive the latest gymnastics news and results via e-mail.
Comments