Romania Wins the 2008 European Championships
Sunday April 6, 2008
 Anna Pavlova Photo © Ezra Shaw / Getty Images |
Despite a knee injury to Patrascu that kept her out of team finals, Romania beat out second place Russia by almost two points. Russia was led by Ksenia Semenova, who later picked up the bars and beam titles in event finals, and Anna Pavlova, a veteran from the 2004 Olympics.
It’s exciting to see Pavlova back in top form after being off the radar for the past few years. In my opinion she was robbed of the all-around bronze medal at the Athens Olympics, and I’d love to see her win a few medals in Beijing. She’s got great skills to match her impeccable form, and showed off an impressive floor routine and an Amanar vault in Clermont-Ferrand.
The performance of the Romanian team was also interesting, and showed that despite the relatively weak team showing at the last two Worlds (third in 2007, fourth in 2006), they may well be a threat this summer.
Romania is the defending Olympic champion, and always seems to peak right in time for the Olympic year, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that the team looks much better this year than last. Though Romania doesn't match Russia, the US, and China in terms of artistry and technique, that doesn’t seem to matter under the current Code of Points. What do you think? Where will Romania end up this year at the Olympics?
More Videos from the Competition:
Team Finals, Part 1
Team Finals, Part 2-8
Full Competition Results
Comments
As the title of this article says, Romania did get the team gold at the Europeans this year (2008) beating rival Russia and the bronze in 2008 Olympics (again ahead of Russia). But according to this article, Romania doesn’t match Russia, US, and China in neither artistry nor technique. That was a rather inaccurate and biased statement. That would put Romania on fourth place in general, which doesn’t reflect reality. If artistry or technique cannot be credited to them, then what can – to back up the outstanding results they got throughout gymnastics history? How did they get gold in Europeans 2008, gold in the past two consecutive Olympics?(not to count the silver and bronze throughout world championships or Olympics including this last one). In my opinion, Russia has best artistry overall, best elegance,second is Romania and then US and China. As about technique, China has the best at least lately. US definitely improved in the past 8 years in both artistry and technique, although their style is not that of classical gymnastics. And China improved their artistry in the past few years. So, let’s give the Romanians what they deserve OR be more specific about when, or who, or how, instead of attributing their success to whatever we can find convenient: new code of points, order in the competition, favor from the judges or other ridiculous things.