Japanese team defends the title at the Intl. Junior Team Cup

A top level competition!As expected, the titleholder of last year's INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR TEAM CUP, the boys from JAPAN, defended the trophy and won the event also this year with a score of 249.900 points.

The team FRANCE I followed in second place with 247.800 in front of Switzerland (245.700). The competition included the incredible number of 25 teams from 17 different countries! Also the boys from Spain (4th place) and Nottinghamshire/ Great Britain (6th place) left strong impressions.

The best of the 3 participating German teams was the host club SC Berlin who ended up in 7th place.

impressive atmosphere and a talents competition on a very high level!

12th INTERNATIONAL JUNIOR TEAM CUP 2007
- Berlin, venue "Grosse Sporthalle", March 17th -

*MANNSCHAFTSWERTUNG / TEAM RESULTS

1. JAPAN                     249.900
2. FRANCE I                  247.800
3. SWITZERLAND       245.700

4. SPAIN                     244.750
5. FRANCE II             242.850
6. GREAT BRITAIN   238.450 (Nott's School of Gymn.)
7. SC BERLIN           237.850
>>... detailed team results

Cover boy Robin Michel from
the host SC Berlin
- best German gymnast
in his age group

Beste der Altersklassenwertungen / Individual ranking in the age groups:

*Age group '93 and younger:
1. Sam Oldham (GBR)       83.450
2. Mikita Kavaliou (BLR)    79.100
3. Luca Grossklaus (SUI) 77.900
>> ... detailed results

*Age group '91 - '92:
1. Rokas Guscinas (LTU) 81.750
2. Robin Michel (GER)        79.900
3. Yuto Murakami (JPN)      78.500
>> ... detailed results

*Age group '89 - '90:
1. Masataka Aoyama (JPN) 87.300
2. Lucas Fischer   (SUI)        85.250
3. Hiroyuki Imai   (JPN)          84.100
>> ... detailed results

Of course during the first competition of the year mistakes especially at elements which the gymnasts newly added to their routines still can happen and so also for the winners from JAPAN not everything went perfectly today. Nonetheless they were the team with the best technical abilities!

FRANCE seems to be on the upwind again with quite a few strong gymnasts on the junior level.

The team from SWITZERLAND presented the most solid competition which brought them a well-deserved 3rd place. However, the technical presentation of their routines wasn't the most attractive.

Spain reached the 4th place - and this is absolutely no surprise. Their gymnasts showed themselves athletically very well prepared and this helped them especially on rings where they were the second best team at this International Junior Team Cup behind the French team which with Samir Ait Said had the 2006 Junior European Champion on this apparatus in their team. In addition to their good performances on rings the Spanish gymnasts also gave convincing performnces on floor and vault where they received the highest team scores of this event!

Great Britain was represented by the 'Nottinghamshire School of Gymnastics'. The team showed a very good technical basis in their performances.

The hosts from Germany's SC Berlin struggled with quite a few insecurities during their routines in this competition. If they had made less mistakes a higher place in the ranking might have been possible.

The winners' podium: Japan in front of France and Switzerland

All in all:

This International Junior Team Cup is a very high level tournament - the entry field almost looks like a small Junior World Championships! Especially since it's a team competition quite a lot of possible future gymnastics stars can be seen at this event.

There is one thing left to be hoped for the organisers for next year. This high-level competition certainly deserves a few more people in the audience ranks. The next International Junior Team Cup is planned for March 2nd 2008 - this will be about 9 weeks before the Junior European Championships!

Eckhard Herholz/ Jens Milbradt/ Lisa Worthmann

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