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Golden Gift award
Elvire Teza - Lands hard on her stomach
and fails to do the hip circle on her Teza skill on beam,
but she ends up receiving a 9.675. Even she was surprised!
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Excessive Enthusiasm award
Valeri Belenki - Hugs a
member of the German entourage so hard that she falls on
a table and breaks a wine glass!! No one was hurt, but all
the Germans thought it was really funny! I should
have taken a picture of that one! Hee!
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A Little Bit Too Full of Himself award
Alexei Nemov - Continues with his smug
and somewhat arrogant demeanor. I don't mind it when he's
hanging out, but he does it during his routines too! I don't
think the judges dug that.
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Bondy
and Nemov lose a hard fought team competition.
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Crisci
concentrates her energy into her beam
routine!
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"This Place Makes Hearst
Castle Look Like a Tool Shed" award
The Hermitage. Opulence
on an incredible scale! After seeing this, its no wonder
the people revolted!
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"Best dressed athlete"
award
Ioannis Melissanidis (GRE).
He wins again!
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Worst Street Traffic award
Moscow hands down! Traffic
there makes Los Angeles look normal!
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The "Maybe You Can Learn Something From This"
award
Gezar Pozar, who was spotted in the audience
at the Kirov ballet.
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The "She
Must Be Working Out Again" award
Dina Kochetkova, who is
in much better shape now and was seen a few times in training
warm ups. Hopefully this means she may compete in some capacity
in the future.
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No freeways
and lots of cars in the streets of Moscow
meant traffic for miles. Literally!
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The "Feeble Marketing" award
Meet organizers, who had no T-shirts or
programs for sale to the public, but available for the gymnasts
and press. The thing is, it doesn't cost that much to print
a few hundred extra shirts and programs to sell, and the
profits would easily cover the costs of printing(especially
since the shirt was just a two color job!) I guess they
still have to get a grip on the concept of capitalism in
Russia.
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The "Using My Gymn Skills
for My Next Career" award
Elena Grosheva, who performed
an aerobics number during the opening ceremonies. Cool!
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Funnest gymnasts award
Great Britain. The junior gals would sit
in the elevators and people watch everyone who walked in.
Senior Annika Reeder and teammate were in the process of
ditching their friend in the hotel, at which time I got
her autograph. During the party, they took over when the
band stopped and pretended to be the Spice Girls. Then they
started singing the song to 'Titanic' and were joined by
all the other girls. Ugh, but fun!
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The "Foot in the Mouth"
award
Octavian Belu - One wonders
what his thoughts were after the ROM Jr. and Sr. gals did
so well? Especially after his caustic comments about them
in Paris!
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Great Britain and Adrienn Varga!
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The "Close Call" award
Eugenia Kuznetsova and
Elena Dolgopolova. Both get into an orange Lada at the stadium
parking lot along with their coach and driver. As the car
backs out, they are almost struck by a red Volkswagen traveling
at high speed! Whew!!
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Adrienn
Varga looks very stylish for the post
competition festivities!
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Georgi
Grebenkov was the most promising Russian
Junior.
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The Montezuma's Revenge award
The water in St. Petersburg.
I was dubious of the reports I received prior to the trip,
but if you fill a bathtub full of water, it really IS yellow!!
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The Coolest New Move award
Eugenia Kuznetsova, who
had split leg giants and a split leg layout somersault dismount
on UB!
Viktoria Karpenko. While
her back tucked somersault with a half twist on beam is
not new, it still blows me away.
Ioannis Melissanidis' yurchenko
double tuck vault. Impressive!
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The Fashion Risk award
Boris Pilkin - Wearing a tweed jacket with
Reebok warmups and sneakers.
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The "Best
local support" award
Anna Kovaleva, Jr. women's
AA - She had a bunch of friends and fans cheering her along.
Cool!
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