Aussie Gymnasts Ready for Big Challenge
The challenge is mighty, but the Australian women’s gymnastics team are ready to face the much anticipated battle against the United States powerhouse, when they step out at Hisense Arena this Friday night for the Pacific Rim Championships in Melbourne.
As the countdown to the Commonwealth Games continues, the Australian women will take on the superpowers of world gymnastics including China, Russia, Canada and the United States from 7.30pm this Friday (April 30) in the women’s team and all-around competition, before the best of the best return for the apparatus finals on Sunday (May 2) from 2pm.
If there’s an upside for the Australian team, world all-around champion Bridget Sloan from the United States has been forced to reduce her program, after injuring her ankle on Saturday in training.
On the day the US team left for Australia, Sloan landed awkwardly on vault and is now expected to only compete on the uneven bars in Melbourne.
“With such a long flight the ankle feels better than I expected but it’s too much of a risk,” said Sloan after completing the training session at Hisense Arena today.
“It’s a big season with the nationals and world championships still to come, and it was just too much of a risk (to compete on all apparatus). However it’s still important to be here and to support my teammates.”
Sloan’s teammate, world championships silver medallist Rebecca Bross has now skyrocketed to favouritism to take out the all-around crown. Bross, 16, will lead a formidable USA team, which also includes 2008 and 2009 USA junior all-around national champions Jordyn Wieber and Kyla Ross.
“It’s a big competition and it’s a great lead up to worlds,” said Bross. “But it’s the beginning of the season and I’m just going out there to make all of my routines.”
Perennial powerhouses China were also in fine form at today’s official training session at Hisense Arena, and will be spearheaded by Qiushuang Huang who won gold on uneven bars and silver on floor at the World Cup in Doha recently.
2010 heralds a big year for Australian gymnastics with the 2010 Pacific Rim Championships providing the perfect preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and world championships to be staged in Rotterdam in October – the first qualifying event for the London 2012 Olympics.
The relatively inexperienced Australian team will be led by world championships uneven bars finalist Larrissa Miller (QLD), Georgia Wheeler (VIC) and Western Australian Institute of Sport athlete Emily Little (WA) who will be joined by talented juniors Emma Collister (VIC), Amelia McGrath (VIC) and Georgia-Rose Brown (VIC).
One notable absentee from the team is dual world championships medallist Lauren Mitchell who despite recovering from a broken hand last December, suffered another set back when she sprained her ankle landing short on a tumbling pass at training last month.
Australian women’s head coach Peggy Liddick said although this weekend will be a big test for her girls, the Pacific Rim competition was crucial for preparing her young charges for the major competitions of the future.
“This is such a young team,” said Liddick. “It is a total unknown desert for me at the moment, so I’m just putting them out there and discovering what they’re made of for the first time.”
“We’re not expecting any great gold medal winning performances. We don’t have the strength or the experience right now.”
“The only thing I can ask of them is to hit the program that they’ve been training and so far we’re at 90%. We’ve got 48 hours to fine tune some things.”
“This is pretty much the core of our London 2012 squad. It’s just a step in the development towards that.”
To be staged from this Thursday (April 29) to Sunday (May 2), the Pacific Rim Championships will be held at Hisense Arena (women’s and men’s gymnastics) and the State Netball Hockey Centre (rhythmic and trampoline). Tickets are available at Ticketek (Hisense Arena) or Ticketmaster (SNHC).
Further details regarding the Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships can be found on http://www.gymnastics.org.au/.
– Gymnastics Australia