After being back with the national gymnastics team, the two coaches say that “Deva remains to be Deva”, but the preparation will still be taking place at Izvorani.

It is 10 o’clock. The sun is already burning. 10 gymnasts come one by one in the arena at the Olympic Sports Complex in Izvorani. Inside, it is cool. Mariana Bitang and Octavian Belu are already waiting for them, together with their other coaches from the national gymnastics team.

“Now we will do a check/train session, and in the evening, competition simulation”, the two coaches announce. This means that the girls will compete on the apparatus with breaks to a minimum of 15 minutes between them. Belu can be found at the vault area, and Bitang in the beam and floor one.

One gymnast stands out. Taller, more elegant, with blond hair, long, caught in a pony tail. It is Sandra Izbasa, the Olympic floor exercise champion. She came back to the team in spring, after a year break because of ACL and fractured hand problem.

Indications and routines
After the warm-up exercises, the girls are on the vault. Raluca Haidu and Larisa Iordache are there; “Come on Pitic!”, Mariana Bitang encourages her from behind. Amelia Racea and Diana Chelaru go on the beam. Cerasela Patrascu and Ana Porgras are getting ready for floor.

The routines are starting. Fixed elements, pirouettes, vaults, tumbling, element combination, everything gets repeated as well as the indications of the coaches. Mariana Bitang can be heard first.

– The leg is too far apart, Ama! Don’t you understand that it’s too far apart? Amelia starts again from scratch.

– That was a bit better. Press more on the legs! Dana, you go to the next one. She then looks at Cerasela. For 3 years she hasn’t worked on floor.

– I was to see a double piked…like that…turn it more into a 90 degrees angle more clearly. She looks at Amelia again.

– What Ama, what is it? Are you stepping on your feet? With the knees, don’t land with your heels.

On the other side, Belu works with the girls on vault.
– Up, like that, bravo Izbasa! Did you see the landing? It was good! Larisa Iordache vaults too.

– You must prepare your vault….good, but the legs are hardly getting together

A girl falls from the uneven bars. Her hands slipped off the bar. “What is happening there? Are you careful?!”, says Bitang. “The new bandages for the hands aren’t good. They don’t last”, the gymnast explains. “Take them off and put the old ones on”, the coach commands. At 11:40 the training stops.

“We only missed a day”
It has been 3 months since B&B returned to the national gymnastics team. They were absent 5 years. Was it difficult for them?
“It’s not hard when you get back at your soul job, the one you do with great ambition. The only thing I miss now is the free time I had before”, Bitang answers, practically admitting that they moved to Izvorani, where they even stay during the weekends. “These girls are children and need to be looked after oftentimes.”

“When I returned in the gym I had the sensation that I was away for only one day. The job that you use to enjoy doing can never be forgotten, nothing can be forgotten in those 25 years of hard work”, says Octavian Bellu. Both of them agree that there is a lot of work and the most important thing is that after 3 month all the girls are up for it, without any major medical problems. “None of them are in casts, the girls are now getting ready to undergo a much more intense style of work”, says Bellu.

In the opinion of the two coaches, in the team there isn’t any gymnast who is more talented or less talented than any other generation. “For us it is important to see if they have an Olympic perspective. And I think that they all do because then none of them would be here.”

They preferred Izvorani
Between the B&B from 2005 and B&B from nowadays, there is a difference. A geographical difference. They don’t train at Deva, but instead, at Izvorani.

– The team will be moved at Izvorani? You will quit training at Deva?
– Deva will remain Deva, now, the junior team is on camp here and we will not quit Deva. There will be preparation stages at Deva and Izvorani, but until after the World Championships, the girls will train here.

– Do the gymnasts like Izvorani?
– They accommodated very quickly with the apparatus, the arena, which looks better than the one in Deva because it is newer. But we will sometimes go back to disrupt the monotony.

“We don’t have a doctor or a medical assistant here because nobody accepts to stay here for 600 lei here per month.”

Program until the World Championships:
– Ghent World Cup
– Romanian Nationals
– Meet in Switzerland

Source: GSP

Claudiu