I am sooooo thrilled with this decision.GA has released this statement -
Australia will no longer be sending any athletes to compete at the Pre-Olympic Youth Competition.
Emily Little's coaches have made the decision prior to a performance test that was scheduled this week. It has been decided that Emily will remain in training at the WAIS for the National Championships. Whilst it was initially thought that the event would provide solid preparation for her run into the National Championships, it has been decided to turn all attention to physical preparation and the consolidation of new skills.
19 comments:
That sucks. I don't know why it has to be all about Emily either, surely there are at least some uninjured juniors.
I thought that GA was planning to send more than one person to the pre-oympic youth competition, obviously not.
Britt and Emily were meant to go. I guess Britt's foot is bad, looking at Misty's photo from the trial yesterday.
seriously, i am thinking with the total lack of competition experience all of our gymnasts are getting this year - England is totally going to win the Commonwealth Games team comp next year. Wouldn't surprise me if the Canuscks beat us too.
i thought that peggy was going to choose more juniors that trialled at the junior camp - collister x 2,angela donald, georgia rose brown and sophie budack all trialled.
I agree that England will be extremely hard to beat at next year's Comm Games. Great Britain is building up a very strong gymnastics team in preparation for London 2012, so England will be all fired up in 2010 as just one of their many dress rehearsals. It will be similar to Kuala Lumpur 1998 for the Aussies.
Australia has pulled out some strong competition in the past though, so I definitely wouldn't discount us yet - overseas assignments in 2009 or not.
I think the 2010 Commonwealth Games will be the strongest and closest contest we've had in years. All the GB teams will be on fire, Canada will be aiming to redeem themsleves, and the Aussies definitely want to keep the team gold medal down under (where it belongs).
I...cannot...wait!
It will be interesting to see what happens re CWG teams since worlds is only like 1 week afterwards and I can't imagine GB/Canada/Aus using the same team for both meets, it would be too tiring.
Yeah I was wondering about that myself. I don't know why the worlds were scheduled to soon after CGW I know Aus/GB/Can etc aren't great gymnastics countries but it is still a bit strange. Dehli dates have been out before Melbourne 2006 was on. It is had of been a few weeks then maybe the same team could have gone but it would be very hard this way.
CWG will probably be considered more importanto for Austraia, only once every four years and they usually do very well. But I think the worlds team has to finish top 24 to qualify for 2011 worlds so there needs to be a world team to do that.
Yeh, I think CWG is especially important for funding too. If we are winning gold medals GA get lots more money than if they are not getting any medals.
Lauren, Dasha, Shona, Georgia, Amber, Britt and Emily received money from the Australian Sports Commission because they are considered medal chances at the CWG so they must plan on competing there. I think artistic at CWG ends on 9 October. I was looking at the website for 2010 world champs and womens qualifying starts on 20 October.
Last time we saw this was... '06? PAC two weeks after CWG?
Good luck to 'em, hope the powers that be make the right decisions.
Has Emma D. retired too? Is that why she did not get funding for Comm games? If she hasn't retired, how is it that Emily (still a junior) gets it? I don't understand.
No, Emma is not retired last I heard.
I remember reading that because of injury she was only a visiting athlete, not actually on the AIS/GA squad, when the grant application was handed out to GA/AIS squad members.
Waverley was upset that because she was not on AIS/GA squad at that time (but had been pretty much permanently for the past 2 years and is clearly a top prospect imo moreso than Emily or Britt especially) she was not allowed to apply for a grant so completely missed out funding, which is a huge issue for club based athletes.
I just hope that those athletes who did receive the funding don't just retire before CWG and let it go to waste when then are girls with long terms goals who could have really used it.
Emma dennis has retired, it says so on gymnastics Australia website. As has melanie jones.
Well... that's odd. Because both Emma AND Mel are listed (and pictured) with the rest of the current squad on the women's profile page. Mel was going to aim for Worlds THEN head off to college. I will be surprised if she has walked away from the Aussie lineup now.
I am under the impression they've made a mistake with the header there. I mean, all were present at the last training camp. Surely they've still got competitive intentions? (Though I dare say the lack of competitions before June hasn't much helped with motivation)
Yes, that is clearly a formatting error. The names should be under the 'Visiting Athletes' header. Looks like they made some changes to the page and it got moved down a couple of spaces. If they areretired they move thier profile to the 'reitred' section and list a date of retirement.
I might be wrong, but i think that the English team for CWG will be selected from the ENGLAND squad, not the GB squad. Gymnasts in the GB world class squads are not eligible for the England squad. So the worlds team and the CWG team will necesarily be completely different.`
Yes, of course the Commonwealths English team and the Worlds GB team will be a bit different. The English team comes from England only. The Great Britain team comes from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - all of whom will be represented separately at Commonwealths.
Furthermore, there are age differences. The minimum age for qualifying to the Comm Gams is typically lower than that of Worlds. So there are likely to be competitors who represent England in the Comm Games but are ineligible to represent GB at Worlds in the same year.
However, I don't agree that the GB team and the English teams will be "completely different". There will almost certainly be overlap - there always is. England sends its strongest competitors to the Comm Games, and these competitors are very often also GB's strongest competitors. Think Beth Tweddle. She has been England's best gymnast for many years, and she has also been Great Britain's best gymnast.
England supplies Great Britain with many great gymnasts. The English gymnasts often dominate the GB team - though there have been some notable exceptions. :-)
Beth Tweddle competed for England at Manchester's CWG in 2002 and was supposed to compete in Melbourne but got injured just before competition started. I think many of GB's top gymnasts are English and can compete for England at CWG.
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