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[April 25] Romanian International Championships: surprising
edition
romanian-gymnastics.com
PLOIESTI, Romania- Despite the bad timing, poor participation,
(too) many failures-including a pathetic BB evolution of former
star Catalina Ponor, and the injury of Romanian Gymnastics
Star Sandra Izbasa, latest edition of Romanian Gymnastics
Internationals showed first signs of rebirth for Romanian
Gymnastics.  The
new main coach Nicolae
Forminte seems to do a great job at Deva
and girls can now compete at Uneven Bars, something unheard
during Octavian Belu and Mariana Bitang domination at team!
Photo:
Romanian Gymnastics team main coach Nicolae
Forminte giving instructions to Aluissa
Lacusteanu
The spectacular return of Steliana
Nistor, some really good UB exercises of
Romanian gymnasts (could you ever think this can be possible...in
our lifetime?) and the quality, '80's alike gymnastics showed
again on Ploiesti floor made us though that yes, main coach
Nicolae
Forminte has rebirth somehow the Romanian
Gymnastics...Phoenix bird, which he may found in Deva's ashes
left by former coaches.
Steliana
Nistor, a Romanian gymnast which not long
ago was seen by everybody as "finished", has a spectacular
return and proved she is on the good way to the Beijing. To
the Beijing Gold medals, I mean. This was the real, proved
and unconditioned "return of the Day" at Ploiesti
and not the much-publicized and over-commented *return* of
Catalina Ponor which is a dead end story (unfortunately but
for sure).
During the Dark Age of Romanian gymnastics,
I mean Belu-Bitang, Steliana
Nistorcould have been:
1) a new Marinescu case, because those abusive coaches would
have pushed her far beyond limits or
2) she could have been history, a lost talent like Sabina
Cojocar.
The new team management has proved to be better, with care
and consideration to each team member; maybe also due to the
"shortage" of gymnasts, but still good and unheard
before.
Sandra
Izbasa has felt, for the very first time,
the bitter taste of failure; well, for a Romanian gymnastics
Star and team leader, coming second is a failure. Have you
seen her cold, ice-looking during the Finals ceremony, when
Steliana
Nistor got the Gold? Sandra's face was
frozen, too, (TV reporter couldn't stop notice, too), but
the key was her eyes, my dear Romanian gymnastics fans: in
less than 5 seconds you could have read there: "will
see about that...I will get the Gold next time, every time!"
This cold shower (because of an injury, mostly due to the
poor warm up in a very un-appropiate place to hold a major
event) was a good lesson for her and that bitter taste will
be useful for her, something to be reminded during the next
12 months of hard training for Beijing.
By the way, if you fake a smile (like the
US team do) and applause when your teammates got medals, it
doesn't hurt, Sandra!...US's Carly Patterson did this
for Romanian Gymnastics team in Athens, second after she hardly
kept her tears into her eyes and we believes such gestures
proves you are a Great Champion, not the medals only!..But
the long minutes you have dedicated to the fans, all those
girls asking for autographs, was another nice gesture to make,
keep doing this and fans will respect you more than previous
stars who didn't pay much attention to them!
The new Code of Points, a joint Bruno-Kim
late night Fantasy, is both stupid and dangerous! So much
needed acrobatic at FX is a call for failures and accidents;
regular fans don't "see" much from all those risky
1080+whatever Bruno's team of morons though is necessary to
raise the scores to the sky and give doctors more to do?
Catalina
Ponor's Saga of returning-thinking-they-don't-let-me
and so on has proved to the new generation of Romanian gymnastics
team members that once you are gone from the team...you are
gone, for good and, most likely, forever! 8 months away from
serious training is your ticket for pension, a one-way ticket,
Baby! Maybe pigs will fly, maybe the Black Sea will turn pink,
maybe I will get the million dollar Prize at Lottery (even
if I never buy tickets...), but one thing is beyond any doubt:
Catalina
Ponor -the Athens's Queen- will
remain just that: our beloved Star of Romanian gymnastics
team in Athens.
They named it Balance Beam, but if you
keep coming at competitions and show to people how you...balance
on the beam -twice! (I'm generous today and forget the 3rd,
smaller one), then you just prove you are not really serious
and nobody want this. If you wanted to almost double your
monthly pension by getting that World Medal, you should have
returned last year, when the team really needed you, the coaches
were desperate to have enough girls for the team (and they
were ready to accept you...as you are) and everybody (including
us) was begging you.
This year we have at least four girls ready to
compete at four apparatus at Worlds; you know what's mean
four (4)? Yeah, it includes the UB, which you never saw closely
since Athens...By the way, that "serious illness"
which has prevented your return last year, which has made
you drop down the Japanese (generous) TV program has suddenly
cured? Just curious. Maybe it's the late evenings at Constanta's
main disco and the healthy salty air from Black Sea coast.
But we do respect you and if you don't stir any more troubles,
you have a 1st class seat on our 747 charter for Romanian
gymnastics fans going to Beijing, all-included!
Nicolae
Forminte, the main coach of Romanian gymnastics
team: "Some friends told me that I'm having gray hair
since working at Deva." Those friends were very nice,
Sir. If we compare his look from Ploiesti 2007 with images
from previous year, Nicolae
Forminte looks like he returned from a
Space flight, a 5-10 years trip, came years older but here
on Earth we just passed one year.
He almost got a hernia
at Deva, helping girls to improve their UB exercises; it's
time to admit he may use some help and get a UB coach. Stupid
ambitions didn't helped anybody before to get Gold medals
and RGF & ROC must decide in what boat they go for Gold:
B&B's one is like Titanic, use to be very famous but now
it's on bottom of the Ocean and you can't bring it back!...Better
pay the ticket (a 1st class one, morons!) for the Forminte's
boat!
Mariana Bitang has commented for TVR2 almost
half of the WAG contest, Saturday. Apart from trying to kiss
the ass of her new Boss (she is Presidential counselor for
nobody-know-what because she didn't seems to do anything apart
from TV shows appearances), by telling us how much *He* helped
sport by attending some events (this was only to get more
votes) or welcoming gymnasts at Presidential Palace (Ceausescu
did this, too and any other previous President- simply because
they get votes and a piece of cake from gymnast's Glory...and
they are supposed to do that anyway, are paid to do that,
it's not a favor!) , Bitang tried to explain how Steliana
Nistor become European Junior Champion
in 2004.
The main idea was the girl was launched by B&B;
yeas, it was, but this was (another) bad "launch",
since the girl was over-pushed at training (like Marinescu,
Petrovschi and tens others!) and B&B left her to stay
at team only because they wanted to avoid another Petrovschi-alike
scandal, not because they care about her. Her UB "dynamite"
exercise and the (real, complete, not the Ploiesti one) FX
exercise (except the crap, inappropriate music) it's a Gold
recovered from the river water by Forminte only and
B&B have no rights to suggest their *merit* on this. She
did noticed (her "spies" still keep them in touch,
apparently) that Romanian gymnastics team didn't take any
risk (Forminte's strategy) and showed very "light"
versions of their "real" exercises.
Rather than risking the team image (and his Ass,
too), coach Nicolae
Forminte took a 110% risk-margin and cut
everything which could cause problems. People, press, referees
and spectators (and the few millions from TV and webcast)
keep in mind mostly the landings (good or bad) and they DO
over-comment failures. This time, no satisfactions for the
hyenas which came, once more, to see (and comment) some much-desired
(by them) failures... 'Up Yours, idiots!
...By the way, how come that nobody from
Romanian Olympic Committee (ROC) didn't come "to see
how the team performs" , as they did last year at Euros
and Worlds (spending $20,000 with expensive abroad trips,
and later cutting Chelaru
the reimbursing of medicines)? Maybe Ploiesti was too far
(40 Miles) from Bucharest? Last year they made efforts&
big spending to go at European Championships and Worlds...just
in case the Romanian gymnastics team fails and they have an
excuse to attack Forminte (they did it anyway!) for "poor
results".
A pair of Canadian junior gymnasts sparkled
at this 50th edition of Romanian Gymnastics International
Championships. Dominique Pegg of Sarnia, Ont., earned
the gold medal on vault and bronze on uneven bars while Charlotte
Mackie of Coquitlam, B.C., added three bronze medals.
"It feels good, I'm pretty proud of myself,"
said Pegg, a Canada Games champion last month. "One of my
two vaults was new and I was pleased with the landing and
positioning." "I'm happy with all my medals," said Mackie.
"The beam was a new routine and I kept it clean. On floor,
I was pleased with how I stuck my landings."
[This
article was written during the afternoon of Monday 16, right
before the Virginia Tech Tragedy; it should be almost twice
longer but the tragic events from that day has changed everything;
some of Ploiesti info will be included in next articles]
Romanian Gymnastics News Archive.
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