Blendea returns; Munteanu triumphant

The junior friendly between Romania and France concluded today. Quite the domination- Romania won the team competition, gold and bronze in the all-around and the vast majority of event finals medals. Andreea Munteanu of the glorious leaps added 5 gold medals to her already full cabinet- Team, AA, vault, floor and beam. This enormous ball of talent unleashed two brand new upgrades; a DTY and a triple full beam dismount. She also added a turn combination, though it is currently worthless she's obviously paving the way for something more valuable there. Sadly she fell off bars on the first day and had a very costly error the next, but her huge strides forward on every other apparatus will hopefully allow her to focus on bars and get them more consistent and worthy of such a solid all-arounder.

Madalina Blendea returned to competition for the first time in a year. Her difficulty level was cautious, though it paid off as she hit all 4 events while her teammates splatted all around her. The low difficulty also explains how she only managed fourth in the AA despite falls from the medal winners. Nevertheless, this was a strong competition from her, with beam and floor in particular a delight to watch. Her lines on bars are still beautiful, and her swing on transitions has improved. Her leaps need some work but what a great return for her!

Andreea Iridon suffered falls from bars and beam but redeemed herself on her best event in event finals- claiming gold on bars- facing strong opposition from Madalina Blendea and French bars wunderkind Louise Vanhille. Her beam has beautiful composition, really lovely to watch. Her leaps are superb on floor, like Andreea Munteanu she should be able to pull off the harder turning leaps like the Gogean (who judged at this meet!) with no question of doubt. Unfortunately, she has a lot of troubles with vault and only did a layout yurchenko (piked a bit!) at this meet. Normally she does a very scary FTY. Unless a miracle happens, she cannot really be any kind of top all-arounder sadly. But a fabulous gymnast with lovely original work especially on beam.

Poor Diana Teodoru suffered a fall on floor and three off beam- and began crying during her routine. She did manage to stay on bars and there is a good bit of potential in her work. Would love to see her mentally as well as physically improve..and change her floor routine. I'm all for the use of traditional music for gymnasts but this music is just too fast and frantic to benefit her. Silvia Zarzu and Laura Jurca had quite a mixed meet. Silvia has not competed in a while and counted a fall though looks like floor will be her major selling point. This is not enough in itself especially in Romania so if she bucked up on vault that would help her chances tremendously.

Thank you to Maryline for travelling to capture these videos! Particularly the very elusive Madalina Blendea. Videos after the jump..