Qualification Day 1

After sleeping roughly 6 hours, it was time to wake up, and head for Wembley Arena (but not without accidentally locking Amir's room mate in - fortunately she got help from people passing by in the street -- oopsie, didn't know she was still in the apartment!)

After making a pit stop at St Pancras to take some photos of the Olympic Rings and stuff, we headed for Wembley Arena. My God, what an atmosphere, and despite Rhythmic Gymnastics remains a minority sport, the venue was for 95% sold out. Ramona and I had to live feed the scores and opinions via twitter for Gympower (so @Gympower1), and we had lots of fun, even if our seats were a bit far away. There were two/three lines of seats reserved for Dutch visitors, and so, we could explain what Rhythmic is all about to guys from we think roughly 30 years old. Those guys came here by a yacht/boat and they were only seeking different sports they have never been to. They were surprised to learn that Ramona used to be a top gymnast too =P.

Unfortunately, the battery of my phone went dead, so I couldn't complete my live reports, so I quickly switched to Ramona's iPhone for some flash reports. We had much fun, and the atmosphere was great (below more in-detail about Rhythmics).

Later, I wanted to meet Cameron (AUS), Jon (GBR) and Tom (USA) and many others, but I forgot to mention this to Ramona, so we headed for Wembley Park Station already. I was so mad about my phone not working, so I couldn't inform the others about it :(. Better luck tomorrow!

We stumbled on Oksana Chusovitina outside the venue and later on Helena Asmus, former German champion and Olympic athlete of Sydney 2000, who recognized Ramona immediately. It was so fun to see each other again after so many years. We then went to Bond Street and Oxford Street to do some shopping, and a bit of lunch (since yes, foodstuffs and drinks are insanely expensive at the venue, and you are NOT allowed to bring any food or drinks -- very strict!).

After a while, we were fatigued and then we went back home via Holborn to Turnpike Lane. We're about to eat some dinner and go to bed. Tomorrow day 2 from our Olympic Trip!

Cheers,

Justin

-----

Today the first qualification day of Rhythmic Gymnastics at the Olympics commenced. The atmosphere was absolutely brilliant, with many British supporters. Never seen so much vibe and support for a team that actually lacks difficulty, although they performed clean.

After one rotation, we stumbled on many surprises: reigning Olympic champion Kanaeva dropped her hoop, Charkashyna was a bit nervous, Trofimova didn't quite finish all of her technical elements. Son Yeon-Jae and Deng Senyue surprised us all, and we didn't really like Mitrosz' scoring.

After one rotation
Rk NOC Name Score Apparatus
1 RUS Daria Dmitrieva 28.800 Ball
2 RUS Evgeniya Kanaeva 28.100 Hoop
3 KOR Son Yeon-Jae 28.075 Hoop
4 BLR Liubou Charkashyna 28.050 Hoop
5 BUL Silviya Miteva 27.700 Hoop
6 BLR Melitina Staniouta 27.500 Hoop
7 ISR Neta Rivkin 27.450 Hoop
8 AZE Aliya Garayeva 27.450 Hoop
9 KAZ Anna Alyabyeva 27.325 Hoop
10 UKR Alina Maksymenko 27.300 Hoop
11 POL Joanna Mitrosz 27.250 Ball
12 FRA Delphine Ledoux 27.150 Ball
13 CHN Deng Senyue 26.800 Ball
14 UKR Anna Rizatdinova 26.800 Ball
15 ESP Carolina Rodriguez 26.625 Ball
16 GER Jana Berezko-Marggrander 26.300 Hoop
17 CYP Chrystalleni Trikomiti 26.250 Ball
18 AUT Carolina Weber 25.950 Ball
19 ITA Julietta Cantaluppi 25.200 Hoop
20 UZB Ulyana Trofimova 24.650 Hoop
21 GBR Francesca Jones 24.550 Ball
22 USA Julie Zetlin 24.450 Ball
23 EGY Yasmin Rostom 23.775 Ball
24 AUS Janine Murray 23.100 Ball

With Son on third it could be a big surprise. But the biggest surprise remained that Dimitrieva was in a royal lead of Kanaeva. Second rotation was quite excellent. Rivkin made a big error and dropped from 7th to 14th. It will be tough to get back in the top 10!

1 RUS Daria Dmitrieva 57.800
2 RUS Evgeniya Kanaeva 57.625
3 BLR Liubou Charkashyna 56.450
4 KOR Son Yeon-Jae 55.900
5 AZE Aliya Garayeva 55.800
6 BUL Silviya Miteva 55.500
7 UKR Alina Maksymenko 55.425
8 POL Joanna Mitrosz 54.675
9 FRA Delphine Ledoux 54.250
10 BLR Melitina Staniouta 54.200
11 UKR Anna Rizatdinova 54.150
12 CHN Deng Senyue 53.950
13 KAZ Anna Alyabyeva 53.900
14 ISR Neta Rivkin 53.650
15 ESP Carolina Rodriguez 53.525
16 GER Jana Berezko-Marggrander 52.875
17 CYP Chrystalleni Trikomiti 52.550
18 ITA Julietta Cantaluppi 51.875
19 AUT Carolina Weber 51.875
20 UZB Ulyana Trofimova 49.275
21 GBR Francesca Jones 48.750
22 USA Julie Zetlin 48.200
23 EGY Yasmin Rostom 47.700
24 AUS Janine Murray 47.450

Next, group competition came along, with many good groups. Belarus opened again, with a solid performance. Canada had some errors, and scores 0.1 lower than the heavily cheered Brits, who performed a clean, yet simple routine. Of course, firework was to be expected from Spain, Russia and Italy! It was an amazing an exciting competition!

Results after one rotation (5 Balls):

1 RUS Russia 28.375
2 ITA Italy 28.100
3 BLR Belarus 27.900
4 BUL Bulgaria 27.250
5 ESP Spain 27.150
6 UKR Ukraine 27.050
7 JPN Japan 26.725
8 ISR Israel 26.500
9 GRE Greece 25.875
10 GER Germany 24.500
11 GBR Great Britain 24.150
12 CAN Canada 24.050