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The Major Competitions in 2003 |
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2003 Artistic Gymnastics National Championships
Men's Team Final |
Report
(web published on Nov. 29, 2003) |
DATE: November 14, 2003
PLACE: KUMAGAYA DOME, Kumagaya, Saitama
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| Award Ceremony for Men's Team Final |
Tokushukai Gymnastics Club, the winner of the 2003 Non-Student Championships,
defeated KONAMI (the former "Daishokai Gymnastics Club" which changed
its owner on November 1) by more than 4 points. Tokushukai had lost to
Konami because of mistakes in the past, but this time they concentrated
to win. Isao Yoneda, the alternate for the 2003 World Championship team,
led the team well; his routines included very powerful stunts such as double-double
dismount on floor, Driggs on vault, etc to win the all-around preliminary.
Tomoharu Sano, who was a member of the 2001 Ghent World Championships team
(but Japan did not send the team), had been very solid since the Non-Student
Championships, and led his team with Yoneda.
KONAMI started the meet with very strong vaults; Driggs from Tatsuya Yamada,
Ryota Suzuki, and Norimasa Iwai, and front handspring layout front with
double twist from Eiichi Sekiguchi. Both vaults had a 9.9 start value.
However, they were weak on pommel horse, and counted many falls. They regained
on rings with very steady and strong performances from Iwai, a finalist
at the Sydney Olympics, and Yamada, a finalist at the Anaheim World Championships,
but they couldn't pass Tokushukai.
Nippon Sports Science University got third , behind Tokushukai and Konami.
The routines oof the Nippon Sports Science University athletes had good
originality, but several mistakes prevented them from catching up with
the top two teams.
The most famous Japanese gymnasts, Naoya Tsukahara (Asahi Life Insurance
AG Gymnastics Club), Hiroyuki Tomita and Takehiro Kashima (both Central
Sports) attracted the attention of the audience and press. Tsukahara had
very clean routines on every event except for floor (he once went out of
bounds) and he qualified for the all-around final in second place. He commented
"I felt a sense of fulfillment after the worlds." which meant he did
not practice with much concentration for this meet. However he could manage
to make no mistake in qualification here as well as at the world Championships.
Tomita had not practiced well due to shoulder pain and had some big mistakes.
He could not perform on floor as he planned, and sat down on his Driggs
on vault. Kashima put his hands on the mat on vault (Kasamatsu-full), but
he made the best scores on pommel horse and horizontal bar; he won the
gold medals at the Anaheim World Championships, and qualified for the finals
in first place on both events.
Comment from Mr. Tachibana, Tokushukai's head coach:
"First of all, we appreciate the help of the Japan Gymnastics Association
because they allowed us to practice at the National Sports Science Center.
We are very satisfied with our routines on all the events except for floor.
We didn't have any mistakes in our top 5 scores on every event, but we
made many mistakes on floor and we didn't have the start values we expected
to have. Yoneda, our team captain, grew mentally and technically to lead
the team, and it made the team spark. We were very glad to win!"
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