Asahi Life Insurance G.C. members celebrates their victory.

In the women’s competition, Asahi Life Insurance Gymnastics Club was very strong as usual...no surprise. The two Olympians (the only Olympians for Japanese women), Manami Ishizaka and Kyoko Oshima, were the great powers for the team; and Chihiro Ichikawa, the same age as Ishizaka and Oshima, was the most consistent in the team final. The three veterans (actually they were still eighteen years old each) led their junior gymnasts and gained an unbeatable margin over the second place. Oshima had suffered from a back injury since the Olympics, and kept most of her skills in reserve in the post Olympic exhibitions, but recovered well and returned to good shape. In contrast, Ishizaka showed her fear of the combinations on beam and missed. She finished third in the qualification for the all-around.

Toda City Sports Center was the second best team in the team finals, and they showed their talent. Kasumi Ide was elegant and made the best use of her beautiful body line, similar to the world champion, Svetlana Khorkina. Yu Minobe is a very small gymnast but she performed a keen triple twist and triple turn. The team had great skills on each event.

Aomori University, the Intercollegiate Champions, finished third. They recruited the all-round finalist, Ayana Sahara, at the 2003 World Championships this year, and the team increased the number of its medalists in the national championships. They were not solid on apparatus events and got low scores, but on the final rotation they were superb on vault and made the second best total for this event and ended up third.

Tokyo Women’s College of Physical Education, Legyc Sports, and Kyoto Jumping Gymnastics Club were fourth to sixth, respectively. Legyc Sports showed the most original movements on floor, but they were too weak on vault to get a higher ranking.

In the all-round qualification, Miki Uemura, the alternate for the 2003 World Championships and 2004 Olympics, was very solid on each event and placed second. She cleanly hit her routine on uneven bars and beam, but she missed the event's only double twisting Yurchenko. Shoko Ono, the runner-up in the last National Championships, was fourth. She performed clean dance elements on beam and floor and gained high SV.

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