2011 Artistic Gymnastics European Championships – Apparatus finals day two
10/04: The last day of the European Championship in Berlin and 3 more finals for the British gymnasts.
Beth Tweddle, going for her third floor title in a row just fell short .An injury that plagued her preparation limited her tumbling to score her 14.300 and 4th place to go with her bars Gold from the first day of apparatus finals. (Daniel Purvis being the other British medal winner - Bronze in the men's all-around)
Hannah Whelan on beam, the first beam final for a British gymnast in 9 years, finished in 8th.
Reports
Beam
All-around champion Dementyeva (RUS) was up first and was near perfect to set the standard and score 15.350 (Gold).
It had been 9 years since a British gymnast had made a major beam final and now Hannah Whelan took to the podium.
A beautiful start from Hannah and then disaster, a fall following her difficult combination, and another fall shortly after, she composed herself brilliantly to dismount and score 11.950.
Kaeslin (SUI) up next competes cleanly and elegantly with 14.125, and is followed by Ferlito (ITA) is wobbly in places but stays on to give her 14.500 (Bronze).
Croket of Belgium is neat and precise to score 14.150 and sneaks in with a chance of the medals. And last up Preziosa of Italy with all the scores ahead of her she kept her cool for 14.500 and pip her teammate to Silver.
Hannah Whelan: “ I started really well, having thought I may be pretty shaky but it was all going really well and then I don’t know what happened. I can’t blame nerves, as I actually felt pretty good so I don’t know what happened. Its brilliant that I made the final in the first place, with British gymnast not usually excelling at beam, but still my week hasn’t been as good as I hoped so plenty more work to do!”
Women’s floor
Beth Tweddle was faced with the unbelievable task of winning her third floor title in a row, to go with the three consecutive bars titles she confirmed the day before.
It was no secret that Beth had been struggling with injury problems however that had limited her training and meant she only just made the floor final, qualifying 8th.
Demetyeva (RUS) the all-around and beam champion up first, just about holds together 2nd tumble in an otherwise clean performance, scores 13.950. Teammate Belokobylskaya next up with more difficulty and the score to match – 14.450 (Bronze)
Csillag of Hungary entertained with nice dance work for 13.150, and Croket of Belgium was extremely neat with her tumbles with the crowd loving her choreography for 14.275.
Then came Romania’s Sandra Izbasa (Gold) a renowned floor worker, her beautiful lines impressing as always on her way to 14.500 for the lead.
The mark set for Beth Tweddle.
She exploded into the her tumbles, with slight hops on landings the only faults and perhaps showing her injury, the rest of her routine was clean but not perfect - 14.300.
Chelaru (ROU) followed with stunning work, the whole crowd mesmerized by her charm and personality clearly coming out, she was rewarded for it with 14.475 (Silver), pushing Tweddle out of the medals and into 4th place.
Beth Tweddle: “I couldn't have asked for much more out there considering I haven’t really trained floor fully for quite a while, so I'm pretty happy to have gone out clean with the deductions on my landings perhaps showing my injury. To have won 5 of the last 6 floor and bars titles at the Europeans has been beyond my wildest dreams. I began gymnastics for fun and am so proud to have achieved so much. Looking ahead its great that I have been able to get my new routines out there and I can now focus on perfecting them in the run up to the Worlds and 2012.”
