Nervous wait for Lauren Mitchell
WA gymnast Lauren Mitchell was in a nervous waiting game tonight after Australia’s artistic gymnastic qualification at the North Greenwich Arena.
The four-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, who is aiming to win Australia’s first artistic gymnastic medal at an Olympics, conceded her hopes of featuring in the beam final had evaporated with a costly mid-routine wobble.
But the winner of world championship silver medals in beam and floor at the same venue in 2009 was more confident that her 14.833 on floor could place her in the August 7 final. She also refused to concede the team had no chance of contesting Tuesday’s finale after accumulating 166.721 in the early reckoning.
“I’m pretty happy with the way the team went,” Mitchell said. “I reckon we can make top eight. It will be close but I reckon we can do it.
“And personally, fingers crossed (I’ll be in) floor finals. I don’t think I will make beam finals with that routine.”
Where Mitchell held together her floor sequence, she almost fell from the beam but managed to regain her balance when it seemed gravity would have its way. The long pause was a major factor in the judges scoring her only 14.300.
“At podium training I had a few troubles on floor and even warming up today I had a few troubles and I’m just glad I stood on my feet,” she said. “And that was probably the best floor routine I could’ve done at the time, so I’m happy with that.”
Mitchell went into the Games under enormous pressure as Australia’s best hope of breaking its artistic gymnastic medal drought.
She admitted to feeling the pinch and worked closely with the team psychologist to eradicate the yips that had affected her during training.
The pressure increased tonight with Mitchell sweating on the results of other competitors, which will determine whether she and the team make finals.
“There’s still three sub-divisions and the American, the Russians, the Chinese, the Romanians – there’s a lot of strong competitors out there,” she said. “It will be close but hopefully the judges can see I put out a good floor and they want to see it again for finals.”
The top eight teams at the conclusion of today’s qualification, which is due to finish around 4am WA time on Monday, will compete in Tuesday’s team final.
Similarly, the top eight athletes on each individual apparatus go into finals, starting next Sunday.
The 24 gymnasts across all four apparatus qualify for the all-around final on Thursday.
