Joura Hits Top Form in Selection Trial Opener

WAIS elite gymnast, Dasha Joura has starred on the first day of the Olympic selection trials in Melbourne, after returning a career best all-around score of 61.600.

Joura produced a flawless floor routine, including a quadruple pirouette for the first time in competition, to score a personal best total of 15.75, the best score in the world this year, and an effort that would almost certainly put her into medal calculations in Beijing, if reproduced on the Olympic stage.

The performance reinforced National Coach, Peggy Liddick’s belief that Joura can taste Olympic success in Beijing.

“There’s still some bugs to be worked out for sure but it was really pleasing to see. There were some new skills thrown today and they were completed successfully,” Liddick said.

“It will take at least that to be in the top five and as far as I know Cheng Fei scored a 15.7 last week at the world Cup in China and I haven’t seen a floor higher than that this year.”

For her part, Joura was excited to start the Olympic trial in such strong fashion, but remained firmly focused on the job at hand.

“That was definitely the best floor I’ve ever done,” Joura said.

“I had a quad turn as well which went great and they counted that. The competition is my best score wise, and to score well over 61, I’m pretty happy with that.

“The best thing though is that there is so much to improve on.”

Joura’s teammate Lauren Mitchell got off to a difficult start, but recovered well to be fifth after the first day of competition. Mitchell scored 57.15 with fellow WAIS athlete Olivia Vivian sitting in seventh on 55.225.