Things are going slowly lately...

Today, I was supposed to be writing about the Nationals, but things did not go as planned by CBG. The delay of the competition was a cold news. To make things worse, there is still not a new date for the Nationals. The gymnasts who will compete at the World Championship in October are to be selected during the Nationals. The deadline for the submission of the names of the gymnasts is September 9. CBG does not have much time left and, at this rate, they should either transfer the location where the Nationals will take place or just pick the gymnasts they are planning to send to the Worlds anyway and pray they make the right decisions.

In other news, according to this article, Laís Souza and Daiane dos Santos decided not to take part in the 2009 World Championships. Not only that, but they are are not planning to compete at any other competition this year. They say in the article that their priorities are set at the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics, so they will take the time off to recover from injuries and tighten their routines.

It is good to hear that Laís is not exactly planning to retire as of yet. I just hope they can keep going until the next Olympics.

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.