Triple Full has two interesting new posts.
The first is called Meet China’s New Stars (Part 1)
WAG hopefuls for the 2012 Olympics. As we understand it, fifteen of the girls are newcomers to the national team, chosen from the sixty or so youngsters who participated in a December 2008 selection camp. The remaining five seem to be returning members — juniors who originally joined the National Team in 2006-07, returned to their provincial teams in the summer of 2008, and have now been invited back to Beijing. …
A complete roster has not been released yet, but recent Chinese news items confirm that the following six girls are among the lucky twenty-one: Tan Sixin and Zhang Yujiao (Shanghai); Chen Shihua (Guangdong); Zeng Siqi (Hunan); and Huang Ying and Zhang Qing (Hubei). …
Major cuteness alert: He Kexin and Zeng Siqi (photo courtesy of Ling Jie’s blog)
read the rest – Meet China’s New Stars (Part 1)
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The second post is titled Brazil Names a New National Team.
This Wednesday [today] Ukrainian coach Iryna Ilyashenko took her first decision as commander-in-chief of the Brazilian WAG team. After three days of work at the Center of Excellency in Curitiba, the coach selected the team that will serve as the basis for the next Olympic cycle.
Iryna selected nine of the twelve athletes she intends to use as the group that will seek to qualify for the London Olympics in 2012. Unofficially, three spots on the team will be kept for Daiane dos Santos, LaÃs Souza, and Jade Barbosa, who are recovering from injuries and did not take part in the selection camp.
In all, eighteen gymnasts took part in the tests that began on Monday in the capital of Paraná State. After analyzing such aspects as physical fitness and technical prowess, the coaches’ committee, headed by Iryna, opted for a group of nine official team members and five alternates.
Of the nine official team members, five were not part of the group that worked with Oleg Ostapenko in the last cycle. They are Anna Carolina Cardoso, Bruna Leal, Nadhine Ourives, Janaina Silva, and Priscila Cobello. Still on the team: Ethiene Franco, Khiuani Dias, Ana Claudia Silva, and Daniele Hypólito, all gymnasts who joined the team last year [or much longer ago in Hypólito’s case]. The alternates are Nicole Beltrame, Vitória Sampaio, Caroline Himovski, LetÃcia da Costa, and Nayara Sobrinho. …
They also give an update on the ongoing woes of Jade Barbosa.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 