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30 APRIL / 1 MAY - WORLD CUP GRAND PRIX, GHENT, BELGIUM, BETH WINS GOLD ON BARS! ALICIA STRIKES DOUBLE GOLD
This weekend, gymnasts from 34 nations competed in the Men and Women’s Artistic Grand Prix World Cup event in Ghent, Belgium. A fantastic line up included GB’s Beth Tweddle, Romania’s Catalina Ponor, Monica Rosu, Daniela Sofronie, Alexander Eremia, China’s Cheng Fi and Zhang Nan and Alicia Sacramone from the USA. The men’s event included Marian Dragulescu, Jordan Jovtchev and the Netherland’s specialist on rings Yuri van Gelder. In the qualifying events, Beth Tweddle won the A Bars by 0.3 points scoring 9.55 which made her a clear favourite for gold in today’s Final. In the Floor qualifiers, Alicia Sacramone qualified in 1st place with 9.375, Zhang Nan 2nd, Suzanne Harmes from the Netherlands 3rd and Catalina Ponor 4th, Beth qualified in 5th position.
The Finals this afternoon were very exciting as the Medals were shared between 8 countries and Great Britain’s Beth Tweddle won gold on Bars with a fantastic routine scoring a well deserved 9.6, and the highest individual women’s score of the finals.
17 year old Alicia Sacremone from the USA performed brilliantly to win Gold on Floor and Vault and defeated reigning Olympic Champion Catalina Ponor of Romania on floor. Both women received the same score but World Cup tie breaking rules awarded the Gold medal to Alicia. This followed her success at the 2005 Visa Cup in February where Alicia won gold on vault and silver on floor. It was a double success for the USA on Vault as 16 year old Annie Diluzio from Byers Gymnastics won a Silver medal on her International debut scoring 9.312 to equal the score of China’s Olympic gymnast Cheng Fei. Catalina Ponor won Gold on Beam scoring 9.735, winning by a margin of over 0.65 from Silver medalist Suzanne Harmes from the Netherlands.
In the Men’s finals, Brandon O’Neill from Canada won Gold on Floor, with The Netherlands’ specialist on Rings Yuri van Gelder winning Gold. Andreu Vivo from Spain won P Bars and Razvan Selariu won the Team’s second Gold medal for Romania.
The British fans were celebrating Beth’s success which follows her triumph at the British Team Championships last month and a terrific performance from the 4 times British Champion.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THREE PAGES OF FANTASTIC PHOTOS FROM GHENT!
Full results were as follows:-
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