Who is going to London? (Part 2)

CBG has decided what girls are going to the Worlds 2009. The list is:

Ethiene Franco
Khiuane Dias
Bruna Leal
Priscila Cobello

It is a surprising list, considering that two of the girls have never been to a World Championships or Olympic Games (Bruna Leal and Priscila Cobello). I wish all the luck to them and I expect the girls to give their best and represent Brazil well (and I am sure they will).

No comments yet about the Men's team, though Diego Hypólito was officially confirmed by CBG. Initially, Diego threatened not to take part in the competition if his coach was not named head coach for the Men's team. His presence in the competition was only confirmed after CBG named Renato the head coach. It will not be a surprise if the alternate for the Women's team is Daniele Hypólito, for obvious reasons.

In other news, while Jade Barbosa will not take part at the Worlds 2009, she is going to compete in an international event in Italy later this year. I am really looking forward to see her new routines!

Jade Barbosa is back to the permanent team!

Jade Barbosa is back! Jade took the 12th and last spot in the permanent national team! Congratulations to her! It is still uncertain if she will be able to compete at the Worlds next month, but even if she manages to compete there, she will not perform in the All-Around competition. Her floor routine has not changed much -- Tsukahara pike, double tuck, 1.5 twist + 1.0 front twist and double pike. She didn't perform using her new music, though.

In other awesome news, gymnast Janaína Santos took home FIVE gold medals (out of six) in the Junior National Championships. Janaína won every event but the Balance Beam. Here are the full results of the Women's Artistic competition.

Brazilian Junior National Championships

Team competition
1 - APCEF
2 - Serc
3 - Yashi

Women's All-Around - 14/15 years old
1 - Janaina da Silva - 53,800
2 - Harumi Freitas - 51,133
3 - Anna Carolina Cardoso - 50,000

Women's Vault
1 - Janaina da Silva (APCEF)– 14,525
2 - Letícia da Costa (Flamengo)– 14,475
3 - Harumi de Freitas (APCEF) – 13,300

Uneven Bars
1 - Janaina da Silva (APCEF) – 12,600
2 - Harumi de Freitas (APCEF) – 12,250
3 - Renata Pinheiros (GNU) – 10,850

Balance Beam
1 - Letícia da Costa (Flamengo) – 13,400
2 - Nadhine Ourives (APCEF) – 12,800
3 - Clarissa Maria de Almeida 0 (Yashi) – 12,700

Floor
1 - Janaina da Silva (APCEF) – 13,250
2 - Anna Caroline Cardoso (APCEF) – 12,850
3 - Harumi de Freitas (APCEF) – 12,800
3 - Renata Pinheiro (GNU) – 12,800

Congratulations, Janaína!

Jade Barbosa back to the permanent team?

Exciting news. This Friday, September 3, Jade will present her routines to CBG and they will decide if she joins the permanent team or not. If she makes it to the team, which seems a no brainer, she can actually be chosen to represent Brazil at the World Championships in October. I am not betting my money on that yet, but it is good to see that there is a slim possibility of Jade making it to the Worlds.

Also, it looks like the Nationals will take place in November, like the rumours suggested.

Who is going to London this year?

With the Brazilian National Championships taking place later this month, we can begin to speculate who is going to make it to the World Championships in October. After the Nationals, one "new" athlete will join the permanent team and CBG will be able to finally choose four girls to represent Brazil at the World Championships.

I would say Ethiene Franco is a lock for the team. Ethiene is not particularly strong in any specific apparatus, but her routines are solid and relatively difficult. This makes her a perfect candidate for being Brazil's best All-Arounder now that Jade Barbosa can not compete on every piece of apparatus anymore. As the team is now, I guess that the other three spots would probably be taken by Ana Claudia Silva, Khiuane Dias and Bruna Leal.

But there is one spot left on the team and both Jade and Daiane are going to compete at Nationals. Probably one of them will take the last spot and also make it to London as well. I bet on Daiane, since she is working hard to return to form. Earlier this year, she stated: "I want to go to London. (...) This is my objective, my dream". Good luck to her. If she makes it to London, Daiane is Brazil's best shot at a medal. The gymnast is a floor specialist and won the world title in 2003 at this apparatus. Can she make history again, six years later? We hope so. But first she has to secure her spot on the team.

At the men's side, Diego Hypólito is also a lock. I guess the other three spots will be taken by Artur Zanetti, Mosiah Rodrigues and Vitor Rosa. Sergio Eras will probably be the alternate. But this is just wild speculation and we still have a long way to go until October.

Jade will compete again... in less than one month!

So, it looks like Jade gave up giving up competing at the Nationals. Yesterday, Jade's coach Ricardo Pereira confirmed that Jade will take part in the Brazilian National Championships. She will not try to beat last year's All-Around champion Ana Claudia Silva, though, since she is only competing at the Balance Beam and Uneven Bars. Guess her floor routine will not be ready yet for the competition, but it is great news to see Jade coming back to competitions after nearly one year away from them. The National Championships will be held August 21-23 in Porto Alegre.

Two new gymnasts make it to the "permanent team"... only one spot left

In recent Olympic cycles, the Brazilian Gymnastics Confederation (CBG) decided to adopt a selection process where they test a handful of girls around the country and make some of them part of the "permanent team", that is, a small, restrict group of gymnasts who are going to represent Brazil in official competitions. In theory, the "permanent team" is composed by the best gymnasts of the country.

After the Beijing olympics, CBG decided to dismiss the old team in order to create a new one from scratch. In January this year they started to recruit new girls for the team. Until last week the girls recruited were Ethiene Franco, Bruna Leal, Khiuani Dias, Anna Carolina Cardoso, Janaina Silva, Ana Claudia Silva, Priscila Cobello, Nadhine Ourives and Daniele Hypolito. According to this article, this week CBG has added two more new gymnasts to the team: Harumi de Freitas and Leticia Costa. Since the team is restricted to 12 athletes, there is only one spot left. As you can see, there is no sign of olympians Daiane dos Santos, Jade Barbosa and Laís Souza. That probably means that only one of them will make it to the team.

Laís Souza is rumoured to retire soon thanks to ongoing problems with injuries, and I feel sorry for her because she is one of my favorite gymnasts. But I am seriously shocked by the fact that either Jade or Daiane would probably be left out. Either CBG has gone completely crazy or they are planning to remove one of the selected gymnasts from the team. Daniele Hypólito has been extremely criticized after a disastrous performance at the recent Universiade 2009. Is she also planning to retire? Or is CBG forcing her out of the team? We will find out soon.

Jade Barbosa's new floor routine

It is good to know that Jade Barbosa is recovering from her hand injury. The athlete has been training with just one hand not to stress even more her other hand, which is hurt. Until now, there have been rumors about Jade coming back to competition in August, during the Brazilian National Championships. This article (in Portuguese) from Brazilian newspaper O Globo, however, is more specific about her plans. According to the article, Jade is training a new floor routine, but she does not intend to show this routine this year since she is not planning to compete at Nationals anymore. She plans to focus on studying more so she can go to college next year to study Administration. However, she is not retiring yet. On the contrary: she asked DJ Marlboro to create a new music for her floor routine based on Funk carioca, a regional style of music that is very popular in Brazil. Here is a video containing a random work of DJ Malboro, so you can have an idea about what to expect to listen when Jade Barbosa performs her new floor routine next year. Everything else about the routine remains a mystery... until 2010, that is.