The 17-year-old Karina Schönmaier only joined the field of 24 gymnasts in the all-around final on the day of the competition and was allowed to perform on the big international stage.
Immediately after the competition, Karina Schönmaier still couldn’t really understand what had happened to her today: “To be honest, it’s very unrealistic that I was just there.” Little did she know early in the morning that she would be competing in the all-around in Liverpool that evening. As the second successor, the Bremen woman bought the ticket for her first participation in the World Championships through cancellations by other gymnasts at the very last second.
“I’ve definitely prepared for it,” says Schönmaier, who had already prepared mentally for perhaps being able to compete in the final. At dinner she found out that she was allowed to do gymnastics. “I wasn’t all that well prepared, but when I stood there I actually felt really good and thought: Now we can start. I’m well prepared, I can do it.”
First to the balance beam
In her first major international final, she then started a bit shakily on the balance beam. As the first gymnast in her group, Schönmaier had to climb onto the 10 centimeter wide beam, where she swayed several times, but stayed on top and performed a clean dismount.
There was no sign of nervousness on the ground
On the floor, the 17-year-old, as the last gymnast in her squad, had all the attention of the almost sold-out Liverpool Arena for herself. She performed her floor exercise cleanly, although the difficulty was in the low point range. However, Karina Schönmaier received a decent 7.866 points for her execution, and she was satisfied with a total of 12.566 points.
After a safe and solid performance on the vault, the 17-year-old finally went to the uneven bars. She didn’t take any risks there, showed a relatively easy dismount with the double somersault, but didn’t make any mistakes on the last apparatus either and finished her competition in 22nd place big falls. Of course it can always be better”, Schönmaier summed up afterwards.
Lukas Dauser and Elisabeth Seitz with finals
Schönmaier was the first German finalist. Lukas Dauser starts in the men’s all-around final on Friday, before he can even go for a medal in the parallel bars final on Sunday. Stuttgart’s Elisabeth “Eli” Seitz is in her tenth World Cup participation on Saturday in the final on uneven bars.
