Leading Australia's charge at the 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships will be national champion Naazmi Johnston, who has made the news here and here.
She is now training under 2000 Olympian Danielle LeRay.
Australia's team to the 2009 Trampoline World Championships (it still sounds weird, doesn't it? Like the Totem Tennis World Championships or something...) will be announced on the 17th of August.
Also named is the team to the Japan Junior International event. Congratulations to Emma Collister and Emily Little.
The Women's Gymnastics Selection Committee are pleased to announce the Women's Gymnastics Team traveling to Japan for the 2009 Japan Junior event in September as follows:
ReplyDeleteAthletes
Emma Collister - Waverley
Emily Little - WAIS
Georgia Wheeler should have been picked over Emily since she beat her at nationals, it's only fair.
Emily's nationals performances were not on par with the reputation she has developed as one of the top juniors. She could barely make it through her bar routine.
Yeah Emily was disappointing at nationals. Her weakness on bars is particularly concerning because she is senior next year and still really struggles on that apparatus. I also think Georgia Wheeler should have been picked but realistically Emily was always going to go because she has received a lot more assignments than any other juniors.
ReplyDeleteAt the time of nationals the WA press overrated Enily a bit. I think one article said that she has the skills of seniors but is still too young to compete senior but I think she still needs to improve before she is as good as the better seniors. Another article said that She and Lauren would be representing Australia at next year's Commonwealth Games unless they are injured, its a fair comment about Lauren but I'm not sure about Emily. I think there is definitely hype on Enily that I am not sure is completely justified.
Yes, Emily's bars at nationals were a real shocker. She couldn't make it over the bar on her reverse giant without a massive form break and frog legs.
ReplyDeleteShe also was hardly making it round on her Y1.5, even with bent legs, and sat it down on at least one of the nights. Her previous consistency on beam seemed to be absent as well.
I read in the newspaper she was trying to adjust to a growth spurt. Maybe it would have been better for her to stay home and work on solidfying her routines if this is the case.
While I'm not traditionally a selection conspiracy theorist, I feel for Georgia Wheeler since she was clearly superior to Emily at nationals. Georgia was less than 0.1 away from winning the title outright and beat Emily by 1.5.
I admit Emily had me thinking a little differently about her abilities when I saw her floor routine at Nationals where she stuck her full-in and double pike in... EF, I think it was.
ReplyDeleteI have a question which hopefully someone can answer.
ReplyDeleteIn MLC's Gymnix report a while back it mentioned Georgia Wheeler debuted a double front on floor during that meet. Did she perform this skill at nationals?
I couldn't see it in any of the Youtube videos of events this year so I was wondering where it went.
mlc turned down georgia's invitation to japan jr. to stay home and focus on building difficulty, emily was next in line
ReplyDeleteWhy would you turn down a chance to get international experience?
ReplyDeleteShona turned down Japan Cup to focus on exams. Emily didn't compete in Germany earlier this year because she was staying home to work on skills, Britt didn't end up going either.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has their reasons *shrug*
I notice on the VIS website that the scholarship holders have been announced for this year.
ReplyDeleteMostly the same girls as last year but for the addition of Georgia Wheeler.
Surprised not to see Rachel Collister named.
Also Ashleigh Brennan is listed as "Former Athlete" - seems that she has indeed retired.
Yes that is a good point Mez but Georgia has not had any international experience except gymnix while the others like Emily and Shona have.
ReplyDeleteYeah I was thinking the same thing. I know they have to work om skills but I thought the international experience would be good for her.
ReplyDeleteGeorgia is senior next year - I think it is imperative that she upgrades if she wants to contend for PacRim, CWG and Worlds. At her current level she is simply not doing a world-level program. It was partly her consistency and clean execution relative to the other juniors that allowed her to do so well at nationals.
ReplyDeleteI will be most interested to see how her vault develops. Right now she has a beautiful pike front, which, while nice, is not as easy to upgrade to a world class standard vault as a yurchenko. She'd really need to be doing a piked rudi or front pike 1/1 to have a usable vault in a team situation, as even the Podkopayeva VT is only 5.2 IIRC and the front pike 1/2 even lower in a time when most top 8 teams are doing 5.8+ VTs.
Georgia's a soild junior but can she step up to the senior level?
ReplyDeletei agree, the reason georgia came 2nd was because she was one of the few that didn't fall.
ReplyDeletei just can't picture her as senior either..