"Big names stay away from Olympic gymnastics test event (Eastday.com)"
http://www.gymchat.com/messageboards/viewtopic.php?t=11819
Getting ready for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Conservative on the competitions:
Men's:
[quote]Big names like triple world champion Bubbly Johnson, two-time world individual all-around titlist Yang Wei and Japan's renowned gymnast Hiroyuki Tomita are all absent from the roster of Beijing Olympic gymnastics try-out slated for Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.[/quote]
[quote]Host China spared the entire men's squad for Stuttgart World Championships from the tournament. The world men's team winners, composed of Yang Wei, Huang Xu, Xiao Qin, Chen Yibing, Zou Kai and Liang Fuliang, were all arranged to take early "winter training" instead of competition in the Invitational.
China dispatched a back-up squad consisting of Lu Bin, Feng Zhe, Guo Weiyang, Yan Mingyong, Lv Bo and Liang Mingsheng. Like what China did, Japan held off Hiroyuki Tomita, 2005 all-around world champion, and Hisashi Mizutori, the triple bronze medallist in Stuttgart. The only high-profile athletes in Beijing came from high-flying Germany and South Korea.
Fabian Hambuechen from Germany injected vigor to the tournament. He ignited the enthusiasm of his home crowd by collecting a medal of every color at the Stuttgart worlds. Hambuechen inspired the German team to a bronze, secured silver in the all-round competition and rotated and released stylishly for the horizontal bar gold.
South Korea brought all their top contestants as Kim Dae-eun, who finished first in parallel bars in Stuttgart, and underscored Athens Olympics all-around bronze medallist Yang Tae-young.[/quote]
Women's:
[quote]It's a similar scenario in women's events. US took back their ace Bubbly Johnson, the triple world champion in floor, all-around and women's team. Johnson's world championships' teammates Nastia Liukin and Alicia Sacramone also said no to the trial.[/quote]
[quote]The United States just sent Chellsie Memmel, the 2005 world all-around champion, here with hopes of a return for the 2008 Olympics.
Memmel and fellow American Bridget Sloan, a member of this year's world championship team, will compete in individual and all-around events.
Romania's double Olympic champion Catalina Ponor and rising star Steliana Nistor didn't come to Beijing.
It's China, who faltered to one gold from three last year in the world championships, that presented a decent line-up. China pitched women squad spearheaded by Cheng Fei, who won her third successive vault title in Stuttgart.
The other three gymnasts all have experiences from world championships. Pang Panpan and Zhou Zhuoru are members from the 2006 world women's team champions, while the teenager Jiang Yuyuan impressed everybody in this year's world championships.
Chinese women team experienced some humiliating errors at the Stuttgart worlds, so they would like to take advantage of the Olympic test run to pull everything back on track.[/quote]
China's women's team use competition to prove they can perform.
Competition takes time away from practice. Especially also travel time, working on routines for competition vs. for practice, hard pounding vs. pit and tumble track and mat tumbling.
[quote]It's not strange for most of the notable gymnasts being absent. Everything came to surface with the gymnastic worlds just wrapping up, so the leading national teams would prefer to make full use the last few months on Olympic preparations rather than being interrupted by competitions.[/quote]
