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The Major Competitions in 2005 |
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Result
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2005 Natinal Championships Day
1
Women's Team Competition
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by
T. Fujii & Koichi Endo
(web published on October 14, 2005) |
DATE: October 14, 2005
PLACE:Amagasaki Memorial Park Gymnasium
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| Toda
City Sports Center celebrates their first team title at nationals. |
It used to be unusual to see a new champion in women's team competition at
the nationals. In the last quarter century, Asahi Seimei Gymnastics Club
had won 20 of 24 championships, producing national champions such as Maiko
Morio, Noriko Mochizuki, Miho Shinoda, and Mari Kosuge. Since their first
victory in 1984, they defended their title until they lost to Nippon
Sports Science University in 1997. Even after that defeat, they recaptured
the championships and had seven consecutive wins.
Losing two Olympians, Manami Ishizaka and Kyoko Oshima, as well as the
reigning national champion, Chihiro Ichikawa, last year, Asahi Seimei had
to compete with very young gymnasts. In contrast, Toda City Sports Center,
the runner-up team for many years, seemed to be ready to beat them for the
first time. They were in their best shape and had very good quality
gymnastics.
Toda started well on vault, which they had spent a lot of time on since
the previous junior nationals. They all hit Yurchenko-fulls and scored
well enough to challenge Asahi. Asahi showed excellent routines on uneven
bars, led by a "Kim Gwang Suk" size gymnast, Nijiko Tsurumi. The turning
point was on the second event: Asahi Seimei GC on beam and Toda City SC on
uneven bars. Toda still maintained steady performances, even on bars, but
Asahi did not; Asahi had two falls from two gymnasts and had to count one
of them. On the third event, Toda had a fall from Mana Ezaki on beam, but
it did not count. However, Asahi's Yumi Ogawa lost control on her double
twist dismount, and Asahi had to count one of two scores below 8.000. Toda
led Asahi by more than one point before the last rotation, and had a
chance to achieve a historic victory.
"Do not go out of bounds!" Toda's head coach, Sugawara, had shouted to his
gymnasts before the last event started. They seemed to know they were
leading the competition and the margin was not big enough that they would
not have to worry about small mistakes. Asahi was on vault, where they
could easily score 43.000 or more. Toda needed to perform without any
mistakes.or losing start values. However, even under that pressure and
being supported by Risa Sugawara, the former national champion from Toda
and now the team leader, Toda performed well enough; their triple twists
were almost perfect and their triple turns were with eye-catching speed
and very beautiful. Finally, Toda performed excellent routines and kept
their lead over Asahi by 0.575. Toda won their first title in the
nationals. Congratulations!
As for individual prelims, Miki Uemura was top even though she sat down on
her double pike dismount on floor. Kyoko Oshima placed second, but she
also had a mistake on beam; she fell on her roundoff to layout stepout
mount. Mayu Kuroda and Ayaka Sahara (with triple twisting back sommie
dismounts on uneven bars and beam) placed third and fourth, respectively,
with steady performances. The 2004 Olympian, Manami Ishizaka, placed sixth
after she fell on beam and went out of bounds on floor. The reining
national champion, Chihiro Ichikawa, hit all events, but her low SVs kept
her in seventh.
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