REWIND : WEEK FIVE 21/10 : 1985 World Championship

[RAFIKI]

Fascinating and I agree that these led to Glasgow's successful hosting of several competitions since. My Mum came with me once and for years after she would ask how Alisher was doing, or rather "that old gymnast's son with cancer". I remember the PBs breaking for Pegan. Quite something.

They really did pull in the stars. I remember walking past Khorkina (and Reeder) in the hall my first year and being completely starstruck. I also encountered Karpenko changing leotards in the toilets one year. The floor finals in particular I remember being high quality in 2002 and 2004. Looked up the names and these were the FX finalists:

2002
Oksana Chusovitina
Andreea Raducan
Zhang Nan
Elena Zamolodchikova
Nicola Willis
Suzanne Harmes
Natalia Ziganshina
Daniele Hypolito

2004
Catalina Ponor
Cheng Fei
Beth Tweddle
Alexandra Eremia
Daniele Hypolito
Zhang Nan
Elena Zamolodchikova
Anna Pavlova

Quality fields.


ETA Megan->Pegan

 

[RAFIKI]

Since we've turned this thread into a GGP memorial, here's two key MAG routines that will always stay with me:

The infamous PB break


Perfect 10


There was a HB EF that would give Paris a run for its money but I don't remember the year.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

It was so low budget in the early days you wouldn’t believe. I was a flag girl 98-01 and a runner 02-04. The first couple of years, our gym didn’t have any equipment for a week because it was all owned by the city council, who also ran the GP and were too cheap to pay Continental to come in and erect a competition set. That time when the P bars collapsed? Yeah it was probably because it was put up by the MAG junior group from City of Glasgow.

Still, it was an amazing achievement for a meet that was run on such a shoestring by a local council to attract the biggest stars in the sport. It was very well attended and supported by local people, and school children attended the qualification day for free. It’s success definitely lead to Glasgow hosting the World Cup final in 2000, and quite a number of gymnastics competitions since. It was an amazing experience as a child, getting to hang around with all these top gymnasts.

I remember one year, maybe 2002, rattling buckets around the Kelvin Hall to get people to donate money for Alisher Kurpanov’s cancer treatment. I met him years later, he was at university in Moscow and his mum was performing at one of Nemov’s gymnastics galas.

It was weirdly great, wasn't it? And I remember the bucket rattling too. Wasn't there, but saw it on telly.

 

[barbara_dewey]

One of the things that annoys me most about this meet is that I was living just over an hour from Montreal then, as in '76, but I DIDN'T GO TO EITHER MEET. Argh!!!!

 

[IratePanda]

Cuervos were put in the same box as front halfs. Completely different technique, one is way harder then the other, but WTC decided they're the same . Ridiculous. So the Cuervo name has been removed from WAG as a result.

Only a handful of WAG performed decent Cuervos. Most looked like flying egg beaters.