04. March 2006  
Berlin / Germany  
Artistic Gymnastics

Expected Japanese victory in Berlin GYM family Event 2006

In a very high-quality entry field at the '11th INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR-TEAM-CUP' in Berlin the favourites from Japan clearly won the team competition with a score of 255.40. 10 points behind the winning team followed the club KTV Chemnitz/ GER (245.250) on rank 2 and the 3rd place was reached by the team from Switzerland (244.60), closely behind them followed the teams from Spain, Berlin/ GER and Belarus.
Sergio Munoz from Spain won the individual all-around ranking in the age-group 17/18 years with the remarkable score of 85.00. The individual all-around ranking in the age-group 15/16 years was won by Lukas Fischer from Switzerland (80.80) and Reece Pearson from Great Britain (83.75) was the best in the all-around ranking of the youngest gymnasts (14 years and younger)…

11th INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR TEAM CUP 2006 – a true international highlight!
... see also GYMmedia-preview

The winners in the same venue in 1969:
Akinori Nakayama in front of Matthias Brehme and Klaus Köste, in the background Shigeru Kasamatsu and coaching- legend Yukio Endo

37 years later:
Again Japanese 'Ultra Shi' in Berlin...

The junior gymnasts Yusuke Tanaka, Takuya Inatera, Yusuke Saito and Kazuaki Koizumi from the 2004 team Olympic Champion Japan now also presented great performances at the International Junior Team Cup.
Although these gymnasts are only from the “second row” of Japan’s juniors they presented a fireworks of gymnastics with a lot of great routines.

Germany’s junior head coach Jens Milbradt mentioned 'The strength of the Japanese team here in Berlin was based on the good balance of content, execution, stuck landings of the dismounts, everything was top!” In addition to this he also recognized the remarkable progress of the teams from Spain, Switzerland and Belarus.

Max Finzel: ... fortunately not a serious injury!

Ronny Ziesmer, who just has been appointed as ambassador for the World-Cup “Tournament of Masters” which will take place in Cottbus/ Germany at the end of March, greeted the gymnasts and figuratively “invited” them to compete at the Tournament of Masters in Cottbus in future years.

A lot of former gymnasts like Olympic Champion Maxi Gnauck, former World Champion Sylvio Kroll and many more national team members could be spotted in the audience. Also another athlete, former pairs figure skater Alexander König, came to watch this event and commented it with “Wow, these were absolutely World-class performances here and I’m really happy that I came to watch this event today!'
In addition to the guests unfortunately only about 120 paying visitors came to watch this junior event of men’s artistic gymnastics.

Sergio MUNOZ (ESP):
85 points!