DATE: November 14, 2003
PLACE: KUMAGAYA DOME, Kumagaya, Saitama
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| Award Ceremony for Women's Team Final |
Asahi Life Insurance Gymnastics Club won an overwhelming victory over every
other team. They seemed in good shape and didn't make many mistakes, even
in warm-up. They did have some small mistakes but their difficulty and
steadiness were outstanding. Manami Ishizaka, a member of the 2003 World
Championships team, performed very good E-skills (full-in and triple twist)
and her landings were also very clean. She looked very confident in this
meet. Kyoko Oshima, also a member of the World Championship Team, upgraded
her first pass on floor to layout front with double twist to layout front
with full twist, which gave her 0.2 bonus for D+C combination. On uneven
bars, however, she put her hands down on her double layout dismount, and
she qualified for the all-around final in third place.
Toda City Sports Center had many mistakes on landings and finished second.
Legyc Sports, which had many young gymnasts, was third. Their top gun,
Mayu Kuroda, has a very good body line, and had a very good meet with no
major breaks. She qualified for the all-around final in second place.
Ayaka Sahara, the only all-around finalist for Japan in the Anaheim World
Championships, performed a triple twist dismount on every event except
for vault, as usual. She showed the world's best combination on floor
exercise: whip back to triple twist. She had a fall on uneven bars and
she qualified for the all-around final in sixth place. We were looking
forward to her improving her standing in the final.
14-year Shoko Ono (Ritto Junior) was very solid on every event and, surprisingly,
qualified for the final in third place tied with Oshima. She had very difficult
elements on every event except for vault, and especially, on floor, a nicely
controlled two and a half twisting back sommie to full twisting punch front.
Comment from Ms. Tsukahara, the head coach of Asahi Life Insurance Gymnastics
Club
"In the first rotation, we went out of bounds a few times on floor due
to the spring difference of the floor panels, but we calmed down after
that event. We had adifficult time to start the training again after such a very big meet,
but we were careful about correcting the parts which had big deductions
at the World Championships."
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