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Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics Recaps: 2 August (Day 14)

Individual All-Around Preliminaries/Round 2

VITRICHENKO, SEREBRYANSKAYA Run Away With Preliminary Rounds

Teammates Elena VITRICHENKO and Ekaterina SEREBRYANSKAYA of Ukraine were the only two competitors to score over 39 points after the four qualifying rotations of the rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around event at the Georgia Coliseum.

VITRICHENKO scored an even 9.800 on every event to total 39.200 points. SEREBRYANSKAYA's scores included a 9.832 with the clubs and 9.799 with the rope. She stands in second at 39.113. Amina ZARIPOVA of the Russian Federation stands in third at 38.748. Maria PETROVA, one of the favorites for a medal in this competition, withstood a 9.183 with the ball to finish the preliminaries in sixth place at 38.382. The surprise of the first day of competition with her third-place standing, Tatiana OGRYZKO of Belarus fell to ninth on Friday after scoring just 8.766 with the rope.

However, scores are thrown out for Saturday's semifinals, so PETROVA, OGRYZKO and the rest of the top 20 from the preliminaries will all have an equal chance of challenging VITRICHENKO, SEREBRYANSKAYA and ZARIPOVA.

Top Three after Preliminaries: 1. Elena VITRICHENKO (UKR) 39.200; 2. Ekaterina SEREBRYANSKAYA (UKR), 39.113; 3. Amina ZARIPOVA (RUS), 38.748.

"I take every competition as it is," said Magdalena BRZESKA (GER), who qualified for the semifinals in 15th place. "It doesn't matter if it's the world championships or the Olympics, I concentrate on everything. Today, the ball was not so good for me. I hope tomorrow will be better. Clubs I was happy with. They are difficult to catch."


Group Competition Finals

Spain Wins Gold In First-Ever Group Competition

Including in its music "America" from West Side Story, the team from Spain won the first-ever rhythmic gymnastics group competition in Olympic Games history. After placing second to Bulgaria in the group preliminary round on Thursday, Spain earned the gold medal by scoring slightly more execution points than second-place Bulgaria.

Spain's two-event score was 38.933. In winning the silver medal, Bulgaria scored 38.866. The Russian Federation won the bronze medal with a score of 38.432.

The members of the Spanish team are Marta BALDO, Nuria CABANILLAS, Estela GIMINEZ, Loren GURENDEZ, Tania LAMARCA and Estabaliz MARTINEZ.

Rhythmic gymnastics is judged for both composition and execution, and, in this event, it was composition that won the medals. Both Spain and Bulgaria earned perfect scores in composition for both their hoop routines and their ball and ribbon performances. The only difference between them in the final standings was that Spain scored 9.483 in execution in the hoop event; Bulgaria scored 9.416.

Group Medal Winners: Gold - ESP, 38.933; Silver - BUL, 38.866; Bronze - RUS, 38.432.

See Story.


This is an official publication of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games Sports Publications Department.


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Olympic Factoid
The Mother Nature was kind to Olympic athletes and spectators. The average high temperature during the Games was 89 degrees with an average low of 72 degrees. Highest temperature registered (20 July) - 99 degrees. Lowest high temperature registered is 79 degrees (28 July).