In the weekend of June 12th and 13th the Dutch National Championships were held in Deventer, in the same hall as normally Alfred Vogel Grand Prix is organized. Trying to get more people watching, the federation had mixed up championships of several categories.
Saterday June 12th
Category 2B, 1B, 3A and 2A individual, category 1A group
The day started very early for us, since the 1A group of Pax had to be in Deventer at half past
eigth (that means leaving home at seven). In the morning the competition for 2B individual and 1A
groups would take place. In category 2B Kimberley Borchers participated for SV Pax. Although she was
suffering a injury on her foot, she showed to belong in the final and ended on a eight place.
For the 1A groups this was an important competition, since the winner of the AA would qualify for
Deventer Masters Grand Prix (former Alfred Vogel Grand Prix). The group of Pax (Maaike, Melanie, Tessa,
Roxanne, Valerya and I) and the group of GTV de Badhoeve had the best chances to win. After a very high mark
for De Badhoeve on hoop/ball we knew that it was going to be very hard to win but it got very exciting after all
for we scored better on ribbon.
In the end Badhoeve beated us with the very small difference of not even 0.2 points on two exercises... It's really a pity for
us as we really wanted to go to the Grand Prix where we had so much fun last year, but of course for the other girls it's
really cool.
In the afternoon we could take revange and we did by easily winning both apparatus finals with over one point difference on
each routine. Onfortunately this didn't convince the Federation to send for example two groups to Deventer...
The individuals of category 3A and 2A had their competition today too. In 3A SV Pax had the most gymnasts of all clubs; Michelle
Tjon, Tessa Rietbergen and Demi Aarts were participating. Michelle had suffered an injury most of the year but still had good chances
for a medal. With a good competition she won bronze, after Fleurine Menijn and Daniëlle Bubberman. Demi did very good and ended on 5th
place, followed by Tessa who had had some bad luck unfortunately.
In junior category Pax had three gymnasts also: Roxanne Mooijekind, Valerya Boeravkina and Christel Grimbergen. For Valerya and
Roxanne it was a very hard day, since they had participated in the 1A group competition too. They still managed to do a good competition and
Valerya finally won the gold medal! Linda de Geus got 2nd and Sharai Echteld got 3rd. Roxanne unfortunetely had to take the 4th place.
Christel did a good competition, especially her ribbon was very good and with this apparatus she ended 4th. All around Christel ended 6th. It's only
her first year as a junior so this is a very good result.
Sunday June 13th
Category 1B, 4A, 1A individual, category 2A, 2B, 3B group
The second day of the National Championships started with the smallest gymnasts; category 4A. Patty Groeskamp (Pax) had been
winning all competitions this year so she was hugely favourite for the titel. She did a good competition and ended first as
expected, with a diffence on number 2, Alysia Bogdanova, of more than 6 points. The other gymnast from Pax, Chelsey Borchers
ended on a nice 5th place.
The next competition was for the group 3B. Elise van Casteren, Tessa Rietbergen, Demi Aarts and Nicole Tjan (Pax) had won
both previous competitions and with an almost perfect ball routine they beated the groups of OBQ and became the new Dutch Champion
in their category.
The group of 2A (Christel Grimbergen, Michelle Tjon, Valerya Boeravkina, Martine Tromp, Kimberley Borchers
and Roxanne Mooijekind)had been 2nd on the last competitions after de Badhoeve, but they had a very good chance for
gold anyway. Their routine was very very good too and with a difference of 1.050 they were obvisiously the best.
In senior category individual, 40% of the gymnasts came from Pax; Maaike Hoogstede, Melanie Kap, Tessa Blommesteyn and I.
Maaike had been winning bronze two times in the precompetitions but unfortunately this time she had to take 5th place. Tessa and Melanie
ended 8th and 10th. I had two goals for this competition; ending with 5 points or less difference with Anna Pobokova and qualify for all
4 apparatus finals. My competition went very good, especially my clubs routine and I reached both goals! I ended 2nd, Anna 1st of course and
bronze was surprisingly for Evelien van Rheenen.
Barny Thierolf had come to the competition both days to take photos, and after the competition
Roxanne and I went to take photos with his mobile photostudio. I can't wait to see how they've become, Roxanne had such a cool photo with her leg
far over 180 degrees, as Barny said, it was almost like Anna Bessonova!
In the evening the Dutch sport journal showed about two minutes of the competition. They pretended that it had been exciting who was going to win
After three rounds I had done clubs and Anna ribbon so I was leading. In the last routine I had a small drop of the ribbon and they acted like that
caused me winning silver instead of gold ... ;P The next days I repeatedly had to explain to people from school that, No, I didn't had a real chance for gold.
It was nice that they covered RG anyway, and surprising how many people had seen it as it had been on television at half past twelve in the evening.
After all it had been a very succesfull weekend for Pax, with one bronze, two silver and six gold medals!