Brazilian Júlia Soares won, this Sunday (19), the gold medal at the DTB-Pokal, a traditional artistic gymnastics event held in Stuttgart (Germany). The 17-year-old from Paraná won the ground dispute, with a score of 13,300, performing with a song from the cartoon Aladdin and hitting the four acrobatics she performed.
Julinha had the same score as the North American Joscelyn Roberson, but ended up ahead for having a better performance score (8,000 to 7,700). Third place went to Canadian Aurelie Tran (12,833). The Brazilian also reached the beam final, finishing in fourth place, with 12,633 points. The podium was composed by the German Jessica Schlegel (13,433), the Belgian Maellyse Brassart (13,133) and the French Léa Franceries (12,733).
Among the men, Yuri Guimarães was a silver medalist in the jump. With an average of 14,416 after two attempts, the Brazilian was only behind the British Harry Hepworth (14,866). The Turkish Adem Asil, with 13,866, was third and completed the podium. In the ground decision, the São Paulo native was sixth, with 13,066 points.
The Stuttgart tournament served as training for this year’s World Championship, between September 30th and October 8th, in Antwerp (Belgium). The competition will be worth spots for the Olympics in Paris (France), next year. The delegation that competed in the DTB-Pokal did not have the country’s main names in artistic gymnastics, but was composed of young revelations of the modality.
“It is a competition at the beginning of the season in which we begin to prepare the gymnasts for the events of the year, mainly team events. It is a strong competition, with a high technical level, always with many gymnasts who stand out worldwide”, stated the coach of the selection, Cristiano Albino, to the Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation (CBG).
Bronze in rhythmic gymnastics
On Saturday (18), the Brazilian national team won an unprecedented bronze medal in the general event of the Athens (Greece) stage of the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup – the dispute is what is worth a medal at the Olympics. The country had already climbed to the podium in previous editions of the event, in 2013 and last year, but never overall.
The team formed by Giovana Silva, Maria Eduarda Arakaki, Nicole Pírcio, Sofia Madeira and Victoria Borges totaled 63,850 points, with a score of 35,000 in the presentation of five hoops, on Friday (17), and 28,850 in the mixed series (two balls and three ribbons). It was the first time that a team outside of Europe and Asia had won an overall medal at a World Cup stage. Israel’s team (65,450 points) won gold and Bulgaria’s (64,700) won silver.
“Right after our presentation at the arches, all the other teams started to watch us. They are watching us now. I think this is a victory for many entities, for many people. We had some problems to form this team, but we managed to overcome it. them, because we have 12 gymnasts training there in Aracaju”, celebrated coach Camila Ferezin, on the CBG website.
