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The women's competition saw 1991 world
and 1992 Olympic champion Oksana Chusovitina (UZB) put up
a strong showing by being the only gymnast to make all four
finals. At 25, Chusovitina shows no signs of fatigue and
even added new skills to her routines - handspring tucked
rudi on vault and a full-twisting double layout off bars.
"I am actually now benefiting from the excellent basic
training I got back in the Soviet Union," Chusovitina
said after the competition.
 Cottbus also marked the return of Svetlana
Khorkina. The svelte Russian had not competed since the
Sydney Olympics and was only entered for bars and beam in
Cottbus, making both finals. She won the semi-final on bars
with a hardly changed Olympic routine, but came to grief
in the winner's final, ironically on the stalder-Tkachev
combination that had given her so much trouble in Sydney.
When co-finalist Yelena Zamolodchikova fell as well, both
gymnasts could not hold back the giggles. On beam, Khorkina
attempted a RO-full-twisting back layout (piked down and
fell) and tossed a combination of ff-back tuck-rulfova.
Zamolodchikova took the vault title,
but failed to qualify to floor finals after a disastrous
routine in prelims (fall on her double-double, out of bounds
on a double pike, stumbled leap combinations). Team mate
Yekaterina Lobaznyuk delighted the crowd with her new routine
edging Dutch upstart Verona van de Leur in the winner's
final. Van de Leur could not repeat her triumph from the
Paris World Cup, where she won bars, because of a fall,
but her bars routine was the only routine of the entire
women's competition that started from a 10.
In the men's competition, Olympic champions
Gervasio Deferr (Spain) and Igor Vikhrovs (Latvia) had to
pull out with last minute injuries. In addition, the Russian
team, which had originally entered Alexei Nemov, Alexei
Bondarenko and Nikolai Kryukov, shrank to just Kryukov not
long before the competition.
 The star of the show was, in stead from
Slovenia. Not exactly a gymnastics powerhouse, nonetheless
rich in tradition (legends Leon Stukelj and Miroslav Cerar
are both Slovenian), in recent years Aljaz Pegan and Mitija
Petkovsek have put the country on the map. Pegan, who was
the last gymnast to compete after a eight hour qualification
round on Friday, was exquisite on high bar with his signature
skill and a nailed triple back dismount and also took the
gold on parallel bars.
Olympic champs Szilveszter Csollany
and Marius Urzica proved unbeatable on their speciality
events, both coming up with 10 start values under the new
code already. Chinese Lu Bin was stunning on vault with
a high piked Tsukahara double.
With so few of the top names retiring,
the new season began as the old one ended with the established
stars staking their claims.
...........
Umnitsa
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