After Nanning’s Worlds, I’m quite surprised by the fact that despite coming in a great 5th place Italy still is one the most underrated countries in gymnastics.
Everybody was talking about Great Britain aiming to the podium, Japan having a great team, Germany finally having some good all arounders, while the only Italian gymnasts sometimes taken in consideration was Vanessa Ferrari. Also some predictions put Italy in 8th in team finals, but Italians managed to give a nice performance, which led to their second highest placing in the contemporary era. For these reasons, I’d like to talk about the Italian team in Nanning.
Team Finals
After a good qualification round, Italy managed to qualify for the team final in 5th position starting on beam in the final.
Lavinia Marongiu, the rookie of the team at her fist international competition, started the competition with a steady performance (5.6 13.833), then the first mistake came from Giorgia Campana, who fell and earned almost a point less compared to the qualifications (5.7/ 12.933). Vanessa Ferrari kept the focus and performed to her standard, just some messy legs here and there ( 5.8 14.30).
The team went to floor where an energetic routine from Lara Mori (5.5 / 13.80), a dramatic one from Erika Fasana, with a stuck double double, ( 5.9 14.20) and a great one from Vanessa Ferrari, who added a brand new split jump after the double layout (6.4 /4.666) brought the team up with the second highest score of the final on floor, only behind the USA.
Vault, which in the past used to be a not so good event for Italy, was indeed quite nice, with three DTYs, where the very good ones scored the same (5.8 14.90), by Erika’s and Vanessa’s, and the third one from Martina Rizzelli was not the best attempt, with messy legs and an ugly landing OOB ( 5.8 14.10). At this point Italy was surprisingly in third place, but the team had to finish on their worst apparatus, bars. Lara Mori had her best routine ever ( 5.6 13.825) and Vanessa also hit the set (5.8 14.066). But sadly low D scores,not perfect executions and an empty swing from Giorgia Campana (5.6 13.50) made the team falling into 5 mistakes, but without errors from Giorgia and a better performed DTY, Italy had the possibility to surpass both Romania and Russia and to win the bronze medal.
All Around
Vanessa Ferrari and Erika Fasana then competed in the individual final, qualifying from 6th th and 15 th place respectively. Vanessa once again impressed many people, showing one of her best performance in a World final. Compared to last year, she added the DTY that looked better than in the past years (5.8 14.866), hit both bars and beam (13.7/5.7 – 13.90/5.8) and on floor she decided to add again the full in to back tuck as third pass (14.70/6.4), which brought her to reconfirm the 6th place of the qualifications.
Erika started on beam (13.466/5.5)and had a rough floor, with a fall and a OOB, (12.733/5.6). She then had some problems on vault too, landing over the line (14.5/5.8) and finished the competition on bars (13.3/5.7) and earning the 17th place.
Floor Final
Again Vanessa and Erika qualified into the floor final. Too bad Vanessa wasn’t as precise as she usally is, making a huge step after the double layout , another one after the double double, and failing to do the full-in back tuck combination (6.3 14.666). Yes, she came in 5th but very close to the podium, less than 1 tenth behind bronze. Kudos to her for being still able to do full difficulty at her age, still being able to perform the double double nine years after she debuted it, still making finals despite being 7 or 8 years older than most of her competitors. She is remarkable.
Some Conclusions
Erika performed her best (double double, double layout, double piked) and ,in my opinion, was a little underscored. She lost the Memmel, but she almost stuck all her passes and had had an interesting choreography (13.90/5.7) and still, coming 7th.
Remembering this team lost Elisa Meneghini just a few days before the competition, one of the team’s best gymnasts for four apparatuses, the gymnasts did an awesome job, showing people they don’t give up easily.
Lara Mori, who was the reserve, finally showed she can be trusted and all her scores were counted towards the team total. She was a pleasant surprise on bars, which used to be her worst apparatus but suddenly became one of her assets.
Erika, aside from achieving an AA final presence, redeemed herself of her past experiences and finally seems one of the rocks of the team. She also made the floor final when no other Italian gymnast with the exception of Ferrari had made it in the past.
Lavinia Marongiu opened all the rotations during qualifications and was quite impressive how steady she was despite being so inexpericenced. She came from nowhere and surprisingly made the world team,she’s one to watch for the future.
Martina Rizzelli was maybe the only gymnast I would have expected more from. She should be a bars specialist having won the bars title at the EYOF, but falls and low difficulty aren’t helping her. Also on vault her DTY has deteriorated a lot, scoring low. I hope this is just the beginning for her and she will soon become more competitive. Otherwise the other girls showed that you need a bit more to make it into a major team in the future.
Vanessa, well what else is there to add about her. Always competitive, always adding difficulty, she’s a champion. I just hope she will learn to be nicer to her competitors (?).
Article by: Giuly Holzer
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<strong>Photo Cover: Nadia Boyce</strong>
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