More videos from the 2000 International Gymnastics Challenge!
This really was a good competition, as it included several soon-to-be Olympians in near peak form.
It’s astonishing to believe that these two vaults from Dong and Yang occurred just TWO MONTHS before Sydney, where Dong made the event finals on vault and Yang delivered two of the greatest vaults of all time. Yang’s crash in particular here is one of the scariest I’ve ever seen:
2000 International Gymnastics Challenge Part 2 (Vault starts at 3:15)
YIKES!!! Dong’s vault wasn’t even close, and Yang’s was absolutely frightening. Check out what an incredible difference two months of training can make:
Dong Fangxiao Vault 2000 Olympics
Yang Yun Vault 2000 Olympics
Are those the same gymnasts? Hard to believe after watching the international challenge that Yang Yun was capable of vaulting like that!
This segment of the competition will show an AMAZING floor routine from 12-year-old Anna Pavlova, the best floor routine of Daniele Hypolito’s career, a couple passes from Daiane Dos Santos, and another look at Dong Fangxiao:
2000 International Gymnastics Challenge Part 3
I had not seen Anna Pavlova at this age before…what in incredible talent! She was clearly ready to take on the world at just 12 years old…unfortunately she didn’t get her shot until 2003 and 2004. And how about that whip, 2 ½ to front layout from Hypolito? I’ve never seen a girl do that tumbling pass, and that was awesome; so was the rest of her tumbling.
Finally, we’ll look at a disastrous routine from Shannon Miller, a great one from Yang Yun, and three spectacular men’s high bar routines:
2000 International Gymnastics Challenge Part 5
Wow…hard to believe that Shannon ALMOST made that 2000 team very shortly after this. Had she not gotten injured, my guess is they would have put her on! Of course she looked much better at the Olympic Trials, but what a disaster here. Remember that beam is the event that kept Yang Yun from winning the Olympic all-around title…I’m sure she would have taken this routine any day. And three exciting high bar routines in a row…awesome full-twisting Tcatchev, full-twisting Yaeger, and Kovacs-Kovacs combo!