The Mexican Open took place in the port of Acapulco the 5th and 6th of December. The annual competition features both men’s and women’s gymnastics and they compete individually as well as couples. Who will pair with who is determined by a draw at the beginning of the competition. There are two days of activities, on the first day men compete on three apparatus and women on two apparatus, on the second day they compete on the remaining apparatus.
On the women’s side the host country had two competitors Karla Retiz and Amaranta Torres. Karla Retiz recently caught attention as she had an element on bars, D value, named after her at Worlds in Nanning. In Acapulco she competed well with a simple but clean vault and steady bars and beam routines. Particularly on beam she was the fourth gymnast up and the first to not come off the beam, she had the second highest score on the apparatus. Unfortunately floor was not her friend and she fell twice. Karla finished 8th.
Amaranta Torres also competed well with a full twisting Yurchenko, a bars routine that included a Jeager and a Tkacheff and a beam routine that was going well until the acrobatic series, she fought hard to stay but ended up falling, she also went overtime. On floor she presented four passes to finish 6th.
Canadian Helody Cyrenne, competed a full twisting Yurchenko and a steady bars routine, unfortunately she came off the beam and went out of bounds on her last pass on floor. She finished 7th.
Angelina Kysla from Ukraine was present at the 2013 Mexican Open where she finished fifth and was awarded the prize of elegance in the form of a beautiful white Swarovski leotard worth $10,000. She wore it on the second day of competition in this year’s edition of the Mexican Open. She competed a full twisting Yurchenko that was a bit short on landing, a bars routine with nice lines and a Jeager release that earned her the second best score on the apparatus, a beam set that had some wobbles, but she stayed on, and a floor routine that was elegant. Her only problem of the day was that she bounced off a tumbling pass and was forced to put a hand down which made her lose a full point. But overall she had a very good performance so she repeated her 5th place finish of 2013.
New senior, Italy’s Enus Mariani competed a good full twisting Yurchenko, a steady bars routine that included a Jeager but unfortunately on her dismount, a double layout, she had to take three large steps forward in order to avoid a fall. On beam she fell off her acrobatic series but finished with a very strong floor routine that was praised for its choreography. Her score on floor was a tie in first with Marta Pihan-Kulesza. She finished fourth, just 0.05 away from the bronze medal.
Competing all-around at 39 years old, Oksana Chusovitina had the top score on vault, but fell off the bars and on beam she was going really strong until she missed a foot on her acrobatic series, however she closed strong on floor like only she can do it, for a third place finish. Last year, at the 2013 edition she also took bronze, let’s hope we can get to see her next year and hopefully with another bronze medal.
Emily Little made her comeback after a long absence from gymnastics following the Olympics in 2012. However she looks like if she hadn’t taken a break from the sport at all. She competed a DTY that was 0.05 behind Oksana’s top score on vault. She was solid on bars and stuck her double layout dismount. Beam saw her only major mistake with a fall in her acrobatic series. And on floor she competed four passes; the last one was a perfectly stuck double pike. Emily had already participated at the Mexican Open in its first edition back in 2011 where she finished fourth.
The Pink Panther, Poland’s Marta Pihan-Kulesza started with a simple vault that placed her sixth after the first rotation however after she took the top scores on the remaining three apparatus to become the absolute winner of the night. Like the silver and bronze medalists, Marta had already participated in the Mexican Open, she was present in 2012 where she placed 6th.
The champion of the 2013 edition, Roxana Popa, was in Acapulco ready to defend her title but was injured in the morning training of the first day of competition and was forced to withdraw.
On the men’s side, the first day of competition ended with, the defending champion of the 2013 edition, Jossimar Calvo, from Colombia, leading. He took the top scores on pommel horse and rings and Kenzo Kaneko from Japan took the top score on floor exercise. Kenzo was second at the end of the first day and sitting in third place was a huge fan favourite, and the winner of the first edition of the Mexican Open in 2011, Danell Leyva.
During the second day of competition Dannell excelled on his best event, the parallel bars, to move into second behind Jossimar who had gathered enough lead, after taking the top score on vault, to crown himself champion for the second time in a row of the Mexican Open. Kenzo Kaneko finished third and Andreas Bretschneider from Germany took fourth after falling on the floor and on the parallel bars, but he did take first place on the high bar with his amazing skill of double-twisting Kovacs.
In 5th place we had Semiankiv Maksym from Ukraine, in 6th Lucas Souza from Brazil, in 7th Paolo Ottavi from Italy, in 8th the home competitor, Kevin Cerda from Mexico, in 9th Roman Kulesza and in 10th Rayderly Zapata from Spain.
The winning couple featured Jossimar Calvo and Helody Cyrenne.
This year’s prize of elengance was awarded to Enus Mariani.
Here are the results:
All Around
Vault
Bars
Beam
Floor
videos on this youtube channel
**Article by: Isabel Iz **