ECh Sofia - Preview junior competition

Russia and Romania, Junior team favorites

At the first day of the Sofia Women European Artistic Gymnastic Championships , the junior women come into action. They compete in teams, a medal ceremony awards the best three at the and of the day. Gymnasts can qualify in this team competition for the individual all-around final on friday and the event finals on sunday.

The first subdivision of the team competition starts at 10.00 o’clock local time (EET) with some minor countries. The medal contenders for the team competition compete in the last subdivision. Tradition points out that Romania and Russia dominate the junior field, also this year they have the best team results so far. Contenders strive for the third place are numerous, based upon results of this year. Great-Britain, France, Italy and Germany also have a certain tradition in the junior women and showed this year very similar team results, whereas Belgium is an underdog. 

Each country can have 5 junior gymnasts in the team, of which 4 compete at each apparatus. The best 3 scores count for the results. Junior women are born in 1999 and 2000. 36 countries present gymnasts, 26 of them have a complete team.

Also in the individual all-around competition Russian and Romanian gymnasts outstand the field. Angelina Melnikova and Seda Tutkhalyan ar both individual favorites for Russia. Romania has Andreea Iridon and Laura Jurca. The gap with the rest of the field is thight: also Great-Brittain had a lot of gymnast who score 55 points or more: Tyesha Mattis and Amy Tinkler. 

It looks a promising competition. For most of the junior gymnasts this European championships are the first big international competition. How will they behave performing on a podium?  Can they cope with the stress? This juniors will turn seniors for the Rio de Janairo Olympic games in 2016. Will they make the national team?

Schedule of the day  - 14th of May 2014

Subdivision 1 - 10h00 : Israël, Hungary, Slovenia, Denmark, Azerbeijan, Belarus, Austria and Ireland.

Subdivision 2 - 12h10 : Georgia,  Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Norway, Spain, Lithuania, Cyprus, Finland, Belgium, Sweden and Slovakia.

Subdivision 3 - 15h20 : Iceland, Portugal, Latvia, Croatia, Czech republic, Turkey, Greece, Poland and Switzerland

Subdivision 4 - 17h30 : France, the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, Romania, Ukrain, Great-Britain and Italy

19h45 medal ceremony

In the first week of the European championships, the senior and junior women compete for several European titles. Junior women compete a team competition, an individual all-around competition and event finals on every apparatus. The senior women only have a team competition and individual event finals. 

14 may 2014 - Junior qualifications + team competition

15 may 2014 - Senior qualifications

16 may 2014 - Junior individual All-around competition

17 may 2014 - Senior team competition

18 may 2014 - Junior + senior apparatus finals

The men have their European championships in the consecutive week.