As we all expected, the little gymnasts from the junior category also joined the Romanian Artistic Gymnastics National Championships in Buzau! Below you can find the reasons why I personally consider that the Nationals this year were the juniors’ competition rather than the seniors’.

Even if the future of Romanian gymnastics appeared quite shy at the beginning of the first day of competition, it still showed us what we somehow missed during the Senior competition: passion, ambition and love for gymnastics. Despite their falls in the first day, especially on the uneven bars, when they cried and seemed overwhelmed, the juniors came back and performed a lot better the second day, proving that the future looks great!

As expected, our big hope is the little great Larisa Iordache. She actually came pretty close to over scoring the seniors, although they were in a different division of the competition. Larisa had a great competition on beam and floor. On beam she threw a new combination (flick + tucked full twist), a difficult double turn and one of the best triple twist dismounts ever. Thus she upgraded her beam routine to a 6.7 difficulty, rewarded by the judges with 15.775, the highest score in the whole competition. In the same register, the floor exercise routine was packed with difficult tumbling (piked full in, 2 ½ +2 tucked forward saltos, double full forward, double pike), wonderful choreography and great presentation.

She also showed great potential on vault (FTY  and round-off half on tuck front), her weakest event being the uneven bars, though she made good form progress comparing with her last competitions. Larisa also had a less common dismount on bars (piked full in), very nicely performed during the event finals. However, what really amazed us were her “coaching” skills. She continuously cheered for her colleagues during their routines, almost as if she was going through every little move with them. Who knows, maybe after winning the Olympic gold, Larisa will also become a very successful coach?!!

The second best gymnast of the meet definitely was Diana Bulimar. She charmed us with both her difficult gymnastics and her charisma – including, of course, the most beautiful smile! Didi had the public with her especially on floor, but also on beam, the event where she seemed to need it the most. Diana won the event final on bars and shared the gold medal on beam with Larisa Iordache.

All the other little gymnasts from the hopes’ competition made a good impression. Andreea Tufa – last year’s 3^rd category national champion, little Maria Balea – the darling of the competition (3^rd place on vault), Ana Maria Baicu (3^rd on bars and beam – beautiful double turn on beam), Beatrice Margarit (3^rd on floor – nice tumbler) and Tatiana Geamparoiu.

Consequently, our little hopes gave us trust, together with their coaches (Daniel Nistor, Cristi and Lacramioara Moldovan, Ramona Micu), showing us that Romania still has something to say in the world gymnastics. We just hope that the ones involved in this sport, the ones who can and should support and encourage Romanian gymnastics will do all in their power for these lovely little girls to become the tomorrow champions. There is so much talent!!!

Anna, Fangymnastics friend