Normally the apparatus finals are held the day after the All Around competition of the
National Championships, but because of the new working order, they were removed to the next week.
It was really weird to have a week of training before the finals, and it felt like a new competition
instead of as an addition to the nationals.
The nationals had been very late too this year, so most gymnast were, like me, pretty tired.
In the morning the finals for category 3A took place. The youngest category, 4A, doesn't have apparatus finals. I didn't see the finals for 3A, I only know that Fleurine Menijn took all the gold medals in this category. All bronze medals went to Pax, three for Michelle Tjon and Tessa Rietbergen got thirth on her routine without apparatus.
After competiting a whole weekend in the beautiful Sports center in Deventer, well.. let's say we had to get used to the sports hall in Almere. Already from the outside the hall looked pretty low but inside they had made it even lower by placing a large... something... under the roof, alsmost all over the floor. Also there were competitions for groups of D- and E-level (these groups can consist of more than ten gymnasts!) so there wasn't much space to warm up.
In the competition for juniors, all gold medals went to Pax! Valerya won ball, clubs and ribbon, and Roxanne was obvisiously
the best with rope. Christel competed in clubs and ribbon and got a nice 4th place on the last apparatus.
In the senior competition, Tessa competed with ball, Maaike did hoop, clubs and ribbon and I did all four routines. Maaike got
4th on ribbon and 5th on hoop and clubs. Tessa had come in the final as the sixth gymnast, but she did a perfect routine and became
4th with only 0.2 points between her and the number three, Sanne Kouters! I got 2nd three times, and with ball I even got first! It was
a very nice surpise, although the difference between me and Anna could hardly have been smaller (0.117).
As this was the last competition of this year, the winner of the competition for club of this year would be announced. For each gymnast
that competes for the club, the club get points according to the place, category and kind of competition she took part in.
Like last year, SV Pax ended as the best Dutch Club! Although it was not really unexpected (except for the year 2001, we've been the best since
1995) everybody was very happy with this result and we hope to repeat it next year!