The third Serie A competition took place in Rome this time, and it was very successful in terms of audience! In Italy, artistic gymnastics was popular when Yuri Chechi used to win gold on rings. Then the popularity went up again when the reality “Ginnaste Vite Parallele” started on MTV, but generally, gymnastics is considered a “minor sport”, where even the Serie A, the major level, is not even shown on tv. Therefore, when we discovered that this event was sold-out, with more than 10000 spectators in one of the largest arena in Italy, many people were shocked! I hope this is just the beginning, and that with a big signal like this, media will be more interested and invested in such a beautiful sport like ours.
Vanessa Ferrari was out again, which is somewhat worrying since it’s already April. Martina Rizzelli and Erika Fasana are still competing only on bars. After the scary fall in Jesolo and 10 days of rest, Carlotta Ferlito sat the competition, but she said she feels fine.
Top Gymnasts:
- Giorgia Campana is slowly and silently coming on top again, winning the ideal AA of the day. She still doesn’t have high difficulty scores, but she is steady and delivers. She has an easy FTY vault (14.10) and floor (13.40), but she’s consistent on Italy’s worst apparatus, bars (14.15), with some cool pirouettes like the Healy, and she also has a good scoring beam set (14.00) despite a very low landing double pike. I think she can be a strong contender for a spot in Rio if she can raise a bit her difficulty score on bars and if she keeps being consistent;
- Brixia’s Martina Rizzelli, Sofia Busato and Erika Fasana all did nice performances on their only apparatus. Erika made a good save on bars, where she added a half turn and a giant to avoid a fall, and hit both the Church and the Ray. She should correct the big form break she has on the Maloney, but considering bars is not her best event, she has made big improvements (14.20). Sofia Busato once again hit the best DTY of the field (15.00), while Martina unveiled her new 6.3 bars routine (13.50). It wasn’t her best attempt, since she lost more than a fall itself to avoid to fall, , but seeing her fighting and not giving up was very nice. She has time to stabilize that routine, but has she time to recover vault and floor? She has started to tumble again just some days ago and she still isn’t vaulting yet, which is a little worrying.
Other performances:
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Elisa Meneghini isn’t finding the steadiness she needs. Elisa could be a great asset to any team, but it looks like she doesn’t have the mental toughness to overcome her fears. After the disastrous she meet she had in the Stuttgart world cup, she competed the AA in Rome and fell on both beam and bars. Her Yurchenko 1 ½ had a big step on the landing (14.10), on beam she fell again on the layout 1/1, but nailed all the other skills (13.80) and on floor she landed the double layout with a low chest (14.20). It’s not over for her, but if she wants to be in Rio as a BB and FX specialist, she needs to hit her beam consistently;
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Same speech for Enus Mariani. Ironically, she’s quite stable on 3 events, but her main event, bars, is becoming more unstable every day, since in Rome she fell 2 times. Her FTY is ok, even if a little piked down, (14.00), beam is very secure, even if she lost a couple of connections, like the beautiful split+front aerial+scale and the sissonne+aerial cartwheel (14.40), and floor, which by the way looks too easy for her, is always a pleasure to watch despite some landing’ problems (13.95). She needs to add difficulty and hit bars, because that is her ticket to Euros and then, maybe, the Olympics;
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Tea Ugrin is still suffering of elbow pain. She competed watered down routines on beam (13.90) and floor (13.45), steady but just too basic. Lara Mori never falls, but the lack upgrades don’t allow her to rise above those gymnasts who made mistakes. She lost many connections on beam and didn’t go for the bhs+layout+layout (13.45), didn’t stick landings on floor (13.75), and her bars looked rushed and unpolished (13.65);
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Desireè Carofiglio hit a good Yurchenko 1 ½ on vault (14.25) and a good floor routine with a great Dowell (13.85), but fell on both beam (12.55) and bars (12.90). In the next few years, I bet she will be a great contender for the team, but she’s not there yet.
Juniors:
Martina Maggio fell on both beam and bars, and was a little short on vault, but nailed a sassy floor routine with a very high full-in. Giorgia Villa hit all 4 routines with some minor problems concerning the form, where she needs to improve in order to match her difficulty. Francesca Linari hit a very good beam routine but fell on floor. Martina Basile hit the Yurchenko 1 ½ and performed quite confidently on beam, while she was shakier on the other 2 events. The little Asia D’Amato, who competed in the Serie B, a minor league, performed for the first time a very well done DTY on vault. Asia is not eligible for Euros since she’s too young, like Giorgia, but she’s looking very promising for the next years!
The last competition of the Serie A is going to be in Turin on the 7th of May. That will be a big test to select the European’s team, the first big stage of a long season where the point of arrival are the Olympic Games.
Results: http://dati.federginnastica.it/articoli/allegato_9551.pdf
Stream of the entire competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrUm4rstTbU
Article: Giuly Holzer
Cover Photo: Nadia Boyce