The Ghent World Cup finals held today confirmed the world hierarchy established at the 2005 World Championships as World Champions Irina Karavaeva (RUS - women's trampoline individual), Wang Jiexu (CHN - men's tumbling), Anna Korobeynikova (RUS - women's tumbling), and Nikolai Kazak - Vladimir Kakorko (BLR - men's synchronized trampoline) will go home with a new gold medal hanging around their necks.  In addition, World silver medalist Yasuhiro Ueyama (JPN) won the men's trampoline individual event as World Champion Alexander Rusakov (RUS) was not in Ghent.  The only new faces were Jaime Moore and Claire Wright (GBR) in the women's synchro event. 

Link to the videos

In the women's individual event, Irina Karavaeva (RUS) won with a comfortable margin.  She obtained a score of 39.10 pts thanks to the best execution of the final (24.40 pts) and the highest difficulty (14.70 pts).  Her routine had very good height despite the difficulty.  This new gold medal is Karavaeva's 20th World Cup victory, including the past 5 bi-annual World Cup Finals.  To put her accomplishment in perspective: no other female athlete won more than 6. 

Olympic Champion Anna Dogonadze (GER - pictured on the right) was a logical silver medalist as she performed the 2nd best execution and 2nd highest difficulty of the final (14.00 pts).  She obtained a total of 37.90 pts for a superb routine.  Her traditional routine started with a half out triffis tuck and finished with a full in full out lay.  Former World Champion Karen Cockburn (CAN) won the bronze medal with a good 37.40 pt routine (13.80 pt tariff) starting with a half out triffis pike and finishing with a full in full out lay.  Her routine had good execution and good height but few travels too.  

2006 Ukrainian Champion Yulia Domchevska obtained a good 4th place with 37.00 pts thanks to a good execution and pretty good difficulty (13.50 pts).  Her routine did not feature any triffis but had a lot of twists.  Jamie Moore (GBR) took the 6th place of the final with 35.70 pts.  She had qualified to the final in 3rd place.  The beginning of her routine starting with a rudy out pike was clean but she then lacked a little rotation in some of her moves, and some of her openings were a little late. 

The final proved to be a little disappointing for the Chinese ladies as Luo Dan finished only 5th with 36.00 pts (13.60 pt degree of difficulty) whereas Wang Wenjuan crashed.  Luo's routine finished with a half in rudy out pike.  Wang started with a half out triffis pike, followed by a double back tuck with a big reverse traveling and a half out pike that caused her to land on the mat and then off the trampoline.  World silver medalist and former European Champion Natalia Chernova (RUS) could not confirm her good performance of the preliminaries.  Her first two skills were fantastic but her third move (a rudy out pike) significantly traveled forward.  She try to compensate with her half in rudy out pike, which lacked rotation, and then landed her half out pike on the mat.

In the men's individual trampoline competition, 2005 World silver medalist Yasuhiro Ueyama (JPN - pictured on the right) benefited from the absence of World Champion Alexander Rusakov (RUS), who beat him at the 2005 World Championships, the 2005 Ostend World Cup and the 2006 Pacific Alliance Championship.   In Ghent, Ueyama built a convincing domination based on perfect execution of a well seasoned routine (15.50 pt tariff).  He gave a recital of trampoline technique.  Ueyama obtained 40.80 pts.  He edged Flavio Cannone (ITA), who was already 2nd after the preliminaries.  Cannone won the 2nd individual World Cup medal of his career after the one won in Krasnodar in 2005.  Cannone competed the highest difficulty of the final with 15.90 pts, which he realized with very good execution.  He started with a front in full middle half out tuck followed by a half in half out triffis tuck and a half out triffis pike.  The best Italian trampolinist of all time obtained a total of 40.00 pts.

Lu  Chunlong (CHN), who has been hyped for almost a year by AcrobaticSports.com, signed his first international appearance by an amazing bronze medal.  Lu, who turned 17 only this month, which is the minimum age required to compete in a major FIG sanctioned competition, delivered a good routine with good execution and a solid degree of difficulty (15.70 pts).  Lu obtained 39.10 pts overall.  Lu displayed a very good height.  His amplitude was so high that any minor translated into a significant travel.  His three major travels came from his last three back moves, that all significantly went backwards.  Lu opened his routine with half out triffis pike, half in half out tuck, and half out triffis tuck.  This amazing performance by the 17-year-old confirmed that he could emerge as the new leader of the World Champion Chinese team and constitute a serious contender for the gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 

Former World Champion Henrik Stehlik (GER) had an good showing overall.  He had to reduce the difficulty of his routine down to 15.20 pts, but he nevertheless obtained 38.30 pts.  His routine ended up being pretty good but he had a significant travel on the half in rudy out tuck that came right after the opening in half out triffis pike.  Stehlik relocated himself back to the center of the net after that, but lost significant height.  Peter Jensen (DEN) competed a 15.60 pt routine that gave him the 5th place that he had already obtained in the past two finals of World Cups in which he competed.  Jensen obtained 38.30 pts like Stehlik, but was ranked lower than Stehlik as his tariff was higher than Stehlik's.  Jensen performed a very good routine with good execution thanks to great twisting qualities.  Unfortunately, he landed very close to the mat on his third skill.  2005 Krasnodar World Cup winner Adam Goetz (GER) took the 6th place with 37.90 pts.  Goetz delivered a good and powerful routine but that had a lot of traveling.  Goetz lacked rotation on the 4th move of his optional that came after three triffises.  He concluded his 15.80 pt routine by a miller lay. 

Shunsuke Nagasaki (JPN) struggled and could not complete his routine.  The beginning of Nagasaki's routine was fantastic but he struggled towards the end of his routine.  He finished with a simple back somersault.  Que Zhicheng (CHN) could only complete two moves.  Que lacked rotation on the half in half out triffis pike that came after his half out triffis pike opening, and had to stop, thus letting his hopes of a medal vanish.

Thanks to trampoline great Emmanuel Durand for the rectification.