Enjoy the Last Few Moments

The qualification rounds have come to an end...unfortunately with Alex's 18th placing, she didn't make it to the top 10, which would have brought her to the finals.

I managed to watch two of the four routines on TV...since Germany didn't qualify at all for this Olympic sport, they hardly show any of it. Eurosport is only showing 1 hour of the 4 day competition. Luckily there are other channels which seem to appreciate the most beautiful Olympic sport.

Both routines that I had missed (once due to channel surfing, trying to find out where they televised the sport, and the second time since the network decided to cut halfway through the 3rd round and show 3 hours of news) didn't seem to go as perfectly as she would have liked...Alex placed 8th at the Good Luck Beijing competition and now 18th...I guess with all the nerves and pressure...To see the preliminary individual results, click here. Group preliminary results are shown here.

Anyways, what counts is that she actually made it to the Olympics, a childhood dream of hers, and now she can finally relax and enjoy the moment for a few more days.

HOOP score 16.550 (14th)

CLUBS score 16.175 (18th)

Sport Seneca Closing It's Doors

I've been hearing rumours. Now it seems that it's partly true.

The sport school where I've grown up, spent hours training, met some of my best friends, and practically lived 9 years of my in, is closing - partly. I went to Sport Seneca, a place for Elite athletes, from 91 - 99. It's separated into three different areas: skating, artistic gymnastics, and rhythmic gymnastics. I started out in skating, then moved to pre-elite gymnastics and then finally decided to stick to rhythmics.

While on Facebook, I kept reading how Seneca was closing, which I really couldn't believe since it was so successful. As a place for training Elite athletes, it brought up many athletes who participated in World and Olympic competitions, including myself. So I finally decided to do some research on my own and came up with the following article:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/russell/column_080225.html

http://www.intlgymnast.com/news/2008/feb/020708_seneca.html

I find it quite sad that the only reason being for the close, is lack of finances. There has always been a problem with funding rhythmic gymnastics in Canada, but for it to be a problem for Sport Seneca's artistic program is really unbelievable, after reading the following quote from IG News:

The coaching duo over the past three decades, including Olympians Monica Covacci, Luisa Portocarrero and Michelle Conway and world team members Koyuki Oka, Leah Homma, Lydia Williams and Elyse Hopfner-Hibbs.

I wish all the best to both Carol and Brian, and hope that someday, Sport Seneca will produce more World-class artistic gymnasts.