Episode 4: Join our club and have a ball!

Hello Europe, hello world! Join our club and have a ball as we get ready for the European Championships of rhythmic gymnastics. Find out how Spain's M-Team lived their acro dream and hear from the Portuguese man who didn't crumble or stumble when it was his turn to tumble. All of that and more on this month's European gymnastics podcast. Welcome and hello to you listener. Spring is here and so is Blight Lawrence. Both of them things that only bring joy to gymnastics fans. Bye! How are you? I am well thank you. It's a very exciting time in the European gymnastics realm. It is isn't it? And it's spring and I love spring. You love spring, it's well don't you? I adore spring. It is the season of possibility. That's why I love it. Why do you love? That's very well put. Season of possibility. Yeah, I love spring. Well I'm a gardener and I just love the time when everything starts to grow. My wisteria has been blooming. Rose is a starting to come through and I love it and I also love this time of year when you can stroll around European cities in the spring. I know you're a big city person. I'm more of a countryside person. That's your thing isn't it? You love big European cities in the spring. There's so much to explore. I do love them. And one of those big European cities is going to be at the forefront of our minds when we go to Varna for the European Championships of rhythmic gymnastics in a matter of days. The gorgeous black sea coast backends. It's one of Europe's great beach towns but it's also a place where they take rhythmic gymnastics very seriously. Welcome to everyone who's new to the podcast by the way great to have you here and welcome back everyone who has been listening right the way from the start. So what's coming up today? More on the rhythmic gymnastics European Championships as I said in a bit. We've got a couple of fantastic interviews coming up centered around acrobatic gymnastics and tumbling but first blight Lawrence the news and we're going to play a famous piece of rhythmic gymnastics music. So can you tell us who it was that won a European title with this piece of music. Blithe. Here we go. Let's begin with artistic gymnastics where junior European champion Elena Cola of France made a splash in her senior international debut at the World Cup in Oceac. Cola won Florex her size gold and silver's on bars and balance beam. It was a very good meat to be a European champion. Additionally, Manila Esposito of Italy earned gold on beam. Over to rhythmic where Tysha Onofriciuk and Darya Varfolomev were the toast of the back who world cup. The two split the gold medals with Onofriciuk winning all around in hoop and Varfolomev scooping up everything else. Still on in a colva when three medals there as well. Elsewhere Sofia Raphael and Tara Dragash of Italy earned two golds a piece at the World Challenge Cup in Porta Mau which has been very busy hosting events late. The Spanish group earned all around at five balls gold and Germany surprised everybody including themselves by picking up the mixed apparatus title. Finally, Olympic silver medalist George Vila of Italy, Acrobatic World Games champion Misa Bouss of Belgium and French rhythmic team member Lily Ramonacho all announced their retirements this past month. All three will be much missed but we wish them the very best in their next chapters. Well done. It specially blired that was a really deliberately frantic piece of music that I chose for you and it just I think kind of lit the fire didn't it? Is this your way of telling me to pick up the pace of it? If anyone needs to be told to pick up the pace is me. Thank you. I'm not known for my conciseness when I commentate. Now Acrobatic Gymnastics is one of the showpiece sports of the world games. It's amazingly popular which is not hard to see why when you watch it. Blithe we both love Acro. Why do you love Acro? I call it the dinner theater of gymnastics. It is everything you love about the sport. You have well the Acrobatics. You don't have apparatus. Actually what happens in Acrobatic Gymnastics is there are various permutations of gymnasts using each other's bodies to do balances, throws, catches, twists, flips, all of these wonderful things and they do it to music. So they are on essentially a florexercise mat. There's a little bit of tumbling involved but mostly there is artistry, there is expression, there is musical interpretation. It is the bit of this sport that comes closest to theater performance all the time. And that was an appropriate after dinner speech to sum up the dinner theater of it. What you said dinner theater. The dinner theater. Exactly right. It is. It's a total package. I love it as a sport. And you're actually at the world games in Chengdu in China last year, commentating for the worldwide TV coverage when an amazing thing happened in the men's pair event. And it was the triumph of Spain's M team Danny Molina and Pepe Moreno. And they had been building to that world games for a long time. They came in as the reigning European champions. They had won in 2024 Spain's first ever world medal at the world championships in acrobatic gymnastics. And it was an intensely close final. There were only four teams. They were one of them. They went out and performed first, I believe. And then sat and watched to see if everybody else could top them and nobody could. And let's hear about it all from their point of view. You sat down with them and this is a super interview. Danny, how much time do you spend out of your day in a handstand? [laughs] [Music] I am very curious about your origin story as an acrobatic pair. Why did you choose acrobatic? And why did you start working together? When I was little, I played football and I was one of the goalkeepers on the team. The other goalkeeper was going to the club. I am at now club dynamics. But that goalkeeper's mother saw me very restless and go because I basically couldn't stay still. I was always doing something like acrobatics jumping around anything but actually playing football. So she saw me and she said, "Hey, why don't you try acrobatics and see how it goes?" And well, from the first day I loved it and I still do it to this day. [Music] For me, when Danny comes to our club, I remember that day because every trainer was looking and being very nervous because, "Hey, hey, there's one kid doing acrobatics really good and he's his first day." And we all was like, "What's happening?" And I have the remember when I go to the floor that Danny was training, he was a really tiny, tiny boy but doing a hand-pensed like a senior and it was like very impressive to me and for everybody and for us was amazing because he said, "No, I only do, I only play football. I'm just looking for, if I like this, I will try to do gymnastics." No, you're not trying. You're doing really good gymnastics right now. So it was really funny and I remember that the first look of Danny in my head, it's always. At first, it was really hard for me to start both physically and mentally when it came to communicating with Pepe because well, in the end it was really difficult for me. I used to be very quiet, I kept everything to myself and didn't say anything because what I did was so easy. So when it came to doing such high-level difficulties with Pepe, I didn't really know what I was doing wrong. Even though obviously I was making mistakes but at the beginning, Pepe always helped me even before I started competing. I think Danny is a totally perfectionist. I think Danny is a total perfectionist who loves to do things 100%. He lives nothing and don't. There's never a moment when he says, "I'm going to relax." I think that's been fundamental to our growth because I have often felt I won't stay overwhelmed but I also supported by Danny to surpass my limits. I think this is a strength of this that has helped us both grow. And as a person, I think he's one of the most affectionate people I've ever made and I have a piece of him in my heart. He's part of my family, no matter how much we fight or yell at each other sometimes. Isn't it very hard for you to, like, with everything you have to do, the acrobatics, the lifts, the throws, the catches, there's all this stuff. And then on top of it all, you have to do facial expressions. Is this very difficult to do when you are concentrating so hard on all of the physical things that you need to do, the other physical things? Well, for me, facial expression, honestly, is what I find most difficult. It's what I found most difficult in my entire career. Everyone is always telling me, Danny, fix your face, express yourself more, or coaches Violeta and Guillermo, especially and Pepe too. Remember the career, graffiti, Danny, your face. Where does the inspiration for your routine come from? Well, the last balance routine was a really deep inspiration that it was a little for or last national coach. It was Pablo that he passed away a year ago. So in the indoor balance routine, we just try to communicate the feeling of or I don't know how to say it because it's a strange that feeling that or. The feeling of the loss we suffered and how we externalized it to be able to feel something real that made us feel the pain and at the same time that feeling of a strength that we wanted to transmit. That's our balance. He just loves gymnastics and I think he wants to just share his feeling with all of us. I stay with Pablo in 2017 in the Europeans and also in the last competitions we had. He always said that we need to be a family and we need to enjoy every moment in gymnastics. So that's a good way to think in a national team to be a part of a family. If you need to be part of a family, you just do it and fight to do it. And so that's why I fight. So a world medal in 2024. Then the European title in 2025. And after that came the big one, the world games. What was that experience like for you guys? Well, after the qualifying round it was pretty clear that we were going to make it to the finals. And once we got to the finals then obviously the goal was goal. We were going all out. I remember in the final we were the first to go and when we finished I was crying. The tears wouldn't stop. I just kept crying from the emotion and the joy and finally from the satisfaction of having finished the competition. I really just wanted to cry and jump around everywhere. And when we saw the score, we relaxed. It was a really good score. And then the other countries started going up and I think the second pair was a side by John. And we saw that they had scored a little lower than us. So we already had a medal. We already had at least bronze and honestly I was so nervous. And the tears kept coming. The other countries kept coming on but they were in beating us. But before all of this got started, your coach did something amazing, didn't he? No, see the screen. Our coach took out a piece of paper and wrote something on it and he said to us, this is the place you'll finish today. He wrote it down but he didn't show the paper to us. He just put it in his pocket and said, we'll all look at it later. And when everyone had finished, he said, okay, and he took out a piece of paper and showed it to us. It just said, gold medal. And I remember the moment so the pain my heart, like my coach, be lifting me. This whole moment was so beautiful and I can even describe it in words. If I was something super bonito, I can't describe it with words. That's so beautiful. Did you keep this piece of paper? Yeah, we give it a, I think Danny Howard. Spain's M team, thank you to friends of the podcast Maria for translating an Albert for dubbing Pepe and Lucho for dubbing Danny. Okay, the European Championships of rhythmic gymnastics, air and when are they? Varna Bulgaria from the 27th to the 31st of May. Mark your calendars. I just want to point out I do know where and when they are because I ask in a way that people must be confused and I just want to reassure anyone who's going to be listening to my commentary that I am better prepared than I sounded by that question, which was a deliberate set up for you. It was a set up. It was a set up. Well, thank you. It's a sort of podcast spot. The Palace of Culture and Sports, that's going to be hosting it. An absolutely gorgeous venue. 27th to 31st of May. So we've got live streaming on gymTV.online on the 27th, 28th and 29th. Then there's live worldwide TV coverage, including on Eurovision Sports. That's the 30th and 31st of May. So 30th is Senior Individual and Group All Around. 31st is all Senior Apparatus Finals, but we'll also be commentating lots of the qualification on the live stream in the days leading up to it. 27th is Junior Individual Qualifications and Team. 28th Senior Individual Qualifications and Junior Apparatus Finals. 29th Senior Individual Qualifications. We cannot wait. And I just want to say, if you are looking for a mid-length piece to get you in the mood for these European championships, may I suggest that you watch the documentary "Chasing Perfection" inside the cross-battle, which is on the European Gymnastics YouTube channel. It was released about two weeks ago ahead of the European Cup in Bacchus. Yes, and you know the European Cup's very well done. You are the European Cup commentator for European Gymnastics, and it's a different format. It's a head-to-head competition in which gymnasts perform with the same piece of apparatus and whoever gets the better score goes forward. It's a very different format for the rhythmic. And a great documentary as well to have a look at. And that will really get you set up for these European Championships, "Chasing Perfection" inside the cross-battle. Now, let's get across, Tallinn 2025, which was last year's European Championships, the dawn of the one and only. She is the one and only now, Taisia Onofriciuk, who won her first major international all-around titles. Dillian and Ecoleva, second, third place to Daliya Vafolomayev. Stilliden came out and annihilated the apparatus finals. And those of you who recognize that music from the news piece, you will know it was… Her ball routine from Tallinn. When she won the gold medal with, I think, one of the most stunning apparatus victories we've seen at the European Championships. It's on the YouTube channel, so find it. You won't regret it. Her whole performance in that day of apparatus finals was an absolute tour de force. That's a good word for it. Except that wasn't a word, it was a phrase. But it was a good phrase. Three good words. Yes, yes. Thank you. You got me out of trouble there. Yes, she won all but ribbon, which Daliya Vafolomayev took. So, what does all of that mean them for this year? What it means is we're going to have a very close competition, I think. We have really a big four. You talked about Ono Fricciuk, you talked about Vafolomayev, the Olympic champion, of course. There's Nikolava, and there's also Sophia Raphaelie, who has looked very good in World Cup competitions this year. And of course, she is the reigning world champion with the hoop. And it's going to be exciting to see who amongst the sort of newer generation can push up and challenge them. I'm looking at people like Tara Dragash of Italy, Polina Karaka of Ukraine, maybe potentially Daniela Munitz of Israel, who did win the European Cup Cross Battle. Yes, that was a big statement, wasn't it from her? Huge. Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? Taisio ono Fricciuk has won two of the three world cup all around titles this season. Is it one of the rare examples of the World and Olympic champion, Daliya Vafolomayev, not being the favorite? Or am I falling in, are you looking at me, I can tell? Am I falling into the classic Daliya Vafolomayev trap here because she turns up for the big ones, doesn't she? That's exactly it. Often Vafolomayev has a slightly slow start to her international season. But then yes, you get to the European Championships and then the World Championships after that. And she sort of transforms into the very best version of herself. Now you can't count out the Bulgarians on home soil as well. Their individuals and their group, especially after Bulgaria, missed out on any group medals at the last European Championships. They'll be throwing everything they have at this. It was a very uncharacteristic performance from them 12 months ago in Tallinn. But we should say that that was after the Olympic break. And the Bulgarians have been building back notably at the European Cup where they rose up and won the cross battle. It was a Bulgaria is back kind of moment. Yes, it was, wasn't it? Huge. Well look, Bulgaria loves rhythmic gymnastics. Vana is a hugely special place for the sport. It hosted the 2021 European Championships. It's hosted the World Championships. So so many memories are tied up in this place. And we're lucky to have three greats of Bulgarian rhythmic gymnastics to guide us through it. We welcome Elizabeth Pysieva, Stephanie Kiriakova and Boreana Kelleyn to be our voices of Vana. It feels like a fitting conclusion to Bulgaria's hosting of these championships. It's a hugely successful hosting. These gymnasts know Vana so well. Some of them call it home, but for all of them it's a place where they train. In preparation for major competitions, will this time they trained and competed here? Hello, my name is Elizabeth Pysieva, a Bulgarian formal rhythmic gymnast, participated in Olympic Games at 10 2004 and Beijing 2008. It's more popular than football right now in Bulgaria. It's really. It's always very popular, but right now because it's a lot of results. It's really like in the heart of everyone. For me, it's a very vivid memory. The World Cup 2004, actually, before the Olympic Games in Athens. I had a very good competition and even now I have goosebumps when I remember. The public was so amazing. It's also incredibly very responsible because you feel very big. Of course, a pressure you want to show at home that you're doing good, you're doing your best, you're performing on your best because everyone, of course, expects like fans. And of course, the sports people, the rhythmic gymnast, it's so big in Bulgaria that everyone, it's like a burning thing, expecting like how they're doing like the. Even the taxi drivers, they're listening and they're asking, "How are girls doing?" But they're more than good today. Hello everyone, this is Stefanie Kiriakova from Bulgaria. I'm a European World Olympic Champion in Ritmin Gymnastics from Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games with the Bulgarian group team. The European Championship in Varna was just maybe two months before the Olympics. And that was the last competition in front of Bulgarian audience. So we were just hoping for the best and to do a very very strong competition before the Olympics. But we did a very big mistake in the qualifications, in the mixed routine. And I remember we were just very very broken and sad. We were without metal. So that was a very hard first day of the competition. And the president of the Federation, Ms. Rayava, said that she wanted to see us after the competition. And we just knew maybe she's gonna go hard on us. And we were prepared for that because we felt like that was a big fail in front of the Bulgarian audience. Everyone. But what happened was she invited us at this very nice hotel to have a nice dinner and some wine. So we were in shock. Like she was in a very good mood. Like we were celebrating something. But at the same time we were in a big shock like what's happening. But she just managed to relax everything in us. We had to do each of us including the coaches had to do a toast for something that we want in the future. And that we believe it will happen. So it was like so magical. We were watching the sea from Varna. And it was like celebrating the Olympics even before they happened. And it was very things like that don't happen in rhythmic gymnastics. I mean you're always on the gas pedal. And when you fail it's not a good thing. So this was very exciting for us. And I remember that helped us a lot in the next day. At the next day at the finals we did some of our strongest routines like ever. It was just everything was brilliant. And I just remember that was a very very important moment for us. Looking at the sea at Varna was just a place and a time for dreaming. Yes I believe that night we dreamed about the gold medal and everything. And just being together and in a good mood made us believe that everything is possible. It was just a very important moment. I'm Varna Kalein. I'm ex-Rhythmic gymnast now, a vice-llympic champion from the Olympic Games in Paris. Such effervescent creative, elegant, impassioned gymnastic. From Pollyanna Kalein to bring to a close this all around final. Well we know from that reaction. It's silver! I think this was the first step of me achieving like big results in the big sport. This was my first round medal from European championship later. I did it again in the Delaviv European championship next year. But it was like my first step in the big gymnastics. So I think it played a big role in my career. As a Bulgarian, rhythmic gymnastics for me, like this sport gives me a lot of proud. I'm proud to be Bulgarian, I'm proud to be a rhythmic gymnast and to compete for this country. For me and for Bulgaria I believe rhythmic gymnastics is a huge thing. rhythmic gymnastics means for Bulgarian people a golden legacy. 3 Bulgarian greats with 3 great stories. Back to the present day and the groups in Vana, which I think is a harder picture maybe to be clear on because this is the start of a new three-year cycle of group apparatus. So it might make the results from last year's year, which was a one-year cycle of apparatus combinations. A bit harder to hang your hat on. Now if you're Spain you'll be hoping that that is not the case. Yes, that's true. Yes. But I think there is more than one team that is not sorry to see the five ribbons go away. Yeah, well maybe so. Yes, that was a tricky combination wasn't it? But Spain, yes, you're quite right. They were amazing last year. All three gold medals. And then we had six different nations winning the six remaining silver and bronze medals, which was amazing. So it's made it all as clear as mud, frankly, for this year, hasn't it? Just like we like it. Yeah. Spain in Israel, nonetheless. Oh, Spain and Israel have proven themselves as competitors any time of the year. Yeah, they've been good in the World Cup and World Challenge Cup this season. You can't leave out Ukraine as well. Yes. The reigning World Champions with the mixed apparatus. A huge moment for them and they'll be looking to carry that on. They've got a lot of veterans on their team. Well, it's one of life's great pleasures isn't it? Watching a Ukrainian group do rhythmic gymnastics with just big music, big choreography, big themes, big style. So much style. They give out a kind of vibe as much as they tell a story. Now, before we go, let's step away from rhythmic for a moment and look back to last month's European Championships of trampoline in Portugal, which was an amazing competition. But one, where one particular man did something breathtaking, blithe, who was that man? What did that man do? We are, of course, talking about Portugal's Vasco Pesu. Who did wait for it? A quad twisting double layout words that I cannot believe that I am saying all in that order. I can't believe you are dentured. If it's a template for right now. Correctly when he did it. I give myself a few extra tents for execution on that. It was one of those where you could see what he did into the pass actually. He begins with a Miller, which is is actually a triple twisting double. layout and that invented by the great trampoline gymnast Wayne Miller back in the 1960s. Anyway, I digress. Vasco did a Miller through to what they call a killer in tumbling. That is the quad twisting double layout. I've heard it also called Miller Plus, but he says that he in his contemporaries call it a killer. Miller through to killer. My head hurts. I know. It's okay. Miller to a killer. It was a thriller. And one of the things that we like to do on the podcast is dig deep technically to find out the anatomy of a skill, if you will. So here is Vasco Pessel in his own words. He's not afraid to take risks. Miller laid out. It's great. Challenge Lake down. Challenge accepted. Vasco Pessel. He looks like he can't believe and he just did that. The moment that I landed, it was unreal. The main thought that came to my mind was, oh my god, I can't believe that I made it because I wasn't supposed to do it. The reaction was mainly because I couldn't believe that I actually landed it. I started doing this skill, the killer in 2023. But I never thought that I could have included in a with a Miller transition. And ever since I started practicing and doing it during trainings, I thought, okay, this is possible. This is possible. And in 2024, that's when I first landed it at the Quimber World Cup that year in a place second. And this was probably the biggest moment of my life. Because I never thought that that could be possible for me. Going to this European to this year's European championships, I wasn't I was not feeling very confident with my killer dismount. I was planning to do Miller to triple pike on the final two. But I still continue to practice my killer dismount. Because I had a feeling that at some point I was probably going to need it. During the final one, I was supposed to do Miller stuff to triple suck. Because I really wanted to do the Miller straight to triple pike during final two. But after Magnus and after Telfig, the after they did their passes, I thought, okay, maybe this wasn't enough to being able to finish in the top four. So my coaches said you need to do the triple pike. And I did Miller such triple pike. And I was able to to meditate into the top four. But I was since I did the triple pike on the final one. I wasted that skill and I wasn't able to do it again. So I had two options. I could like settle for bronze and doing Miller's search of triple suck. Or I can just go all in and risk it all and do a Miller to killer pass. I stepped on to the runway, I salute it and I decided, okay, let's see how the transition goes. I think it's way harder to control a transition coming out of three twists. Because you need to have the power and the special awareness in a way you are in the air. And where is in what is the right timing to hit the track? You don't need to be perfect. But you need to be just right. It needs to be good enough to do a plausible and competitive skill at the end. And I decided mid pass, okay, I'm going for it. I cannot see anything during a killer this mile. But I know where I am 100% of the time. That's why I during the killer, I thought I was going to let on my face. But I decided to go through with it. Because I knew that that was the possibility. There's a small chance that I could lend it. Even though I thought to myself, okay, this is going to be a major fall. I landed with my feet and my arm was so close to the mat. I really was scared that the judges were going to do like count it as a crush. But I didn't touch it. That's why I screamed a lot because I knew that I didn't touch it. I would do it again. I would still do it. And even if it meant it up with the silver medal, because that's my favorite pass of all time. It means something. It means different. It hits different. Sadly, that's all we've got time for in this episode. But we are off to Varna next week for the European Championships of Rhythmic Gymnastics. So if you see us there, come up and say hello. Throw tomatoes at the commentary position. Yes, please do. Blime will duck. They'll hit me. That's what you'll be aiming for. I'm sure get in touch with us on social media. How can people do that, Blime? By going to the European Gymnastics social media channels. It's that simple and it's that much fun having your company. We really appreciate you listening to the podcast and we look forward to seeing you in Varna, seeing you around and having your company for the next episode of the European Gymnastics Podcast. [MUSIC]