Ghent, Belgium, is currently hosting the first World Cup event of 2006.  In addition, the international Partena Cup of Flanders is taking place, where athletes from all over the world are gathering to compete in trampoline, tumbling and double mini-trampoline.

Today was simply a day for the athletes to train and warm up.  The German and the British teams appeared very sharp so far.  Olympic Champion Anna Dogonadze (GER) and former World Champion Henrik Stehlik (GER) performed very strong routines.  German internationals Adam Goetz and Martin Gromowski executed very well mastered routines too.  Claire Wright (GBR) was practicing half out triffis tuck followed by half in half out pike that were near perfection.  Jessica Simon (GER) was also performing these same moves. 

The whole Chinese team was very strong.  Ye Shuai (CHN) was performing very high difficulty routines.  In an interview with AcrobaticSports, Swiss Head Coach Robert Raymond confided that the Chinese were very impressive and more and more so.  He was jokingly wondering how they were doing to jump so high.  Raymond also mentioned that this World Cup was viewed as a preparation for the European Championships where the objective of the Swiss team will be to win a medal.  The Swiss team led by Michel Boillet and Ludovic Martin will try new routines at this World Cup.

The Russians appeared very strong.  Alexander Leven (RUS) and Dimitri Ushakov (RUS) could shine tomorrow. 

Tumbler Melanie Avisse (FRA - pictured on the right) will compete in a World Cup for the first time since coming back from a 3-year retirement.  In an interview with AcrobaticSports, she specified that her retirement three years ago was due to physical concerns, more precisely with her Achilles' heel.  However, she missed tumbling, and with encouragements from Marlene Bayet, Didier Semmola and Gael Manry, she decided to come back.  Her schedule is pretty tiring as she works in Creteil near Paris from Monday through Thursday, and then travels to Rennes to train there for the week-end.  Her objective is the European Championships, where she regards World Champion Anna Korobeynikova (RUS) as the favorite.  Korobeynikova appeared in great shape during the trainings. 

Freshly naturalized French tumbler Yahia Icheboudene (pictured on the left) appeared excited to compete for the first time at a World Cup for France.  He had competed at two World Cups in the past but only as guest.  His salto pass will include a double back lay into a double back lay into a double back pike.  His twisting pass will include a full in back lay into a full in full out lay.  Icheboudene intends to improve his twisting pass before the European Championships.  He mentioned to AcrobaticSports  that World Champion Wang Jiexu (CHN), World silver medalist Cheng Yang (CHN) and World bronze medalist Jozef Wadecki (POL) appeared as the three best tumblers with a significant margin.  All were very impressive in training. 

Trampoline French Champion Mickael Jala appeared very relax.  He took a nap before training as he had a pretty tiring travel.  His target is to qualify for the individual final and the synchro final with Sebastien Laifa.  He will compete a new compulsory and a new optional.   French Head Coach Franck Bardy mentioned to AcrobaticSports that the objective of the French team at this World Cup was to bounce back from below average results at the 2005 Worlds.  He hopes that his athletes will do as well as they did during the trials for the European Championships, which were very satisfactory.  Bardy stated that the World Cup would be useful to compare the level of his athletes to the other European competitors in order to better assert their chances for the European Championships.

Tomorrow will see the first preliminaries of the World Cup, first in individual trampoline from 2 pm to 6 pm.  The World Cup preliminaries in synchro and tumbling are scheduled from 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm.

Cup of Flanders DMT preliminaries will take place on Saturday morning.  The finals of the World Cup are scheduled for Saturday afternoon from 3 pm to 5.30 pm.  The synchro and tumbling preliminaries of the Cup of Flanders will follow.

Sunday will see the DMT and trampoline preliminaries for the Cup of Flanders followed by the finals of the Cup of Flanders from 4 pm to 6.30 pm. 

160 athletes from 23 countries will compete in the World Cup competition, including 100% of the 2005 World Championship trampoline finalists.  Overall, approximately 700 competitors from 28 countries are competing. 

Link to the official website of the Partena Cup of Flanders