Elisabeth Seitz beamed all over her face, Emma Malewski could hardly bring herself to smile – the German European champions experienced ups and downs in the team competition at the European Championships in Antalya. Together with Sarah Voss (Cologne), Lea Quaas (Chemnitz) and Anna-Lena König (Karlsruhe), they took ninth place with 152.096 points and qualified for the autumn World Championships in Antwerp.
The starting places for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris will be allocated there. But while Seitz from Stuttgart was able to defend her title on her flagship device, uneven bars, after a brilliant performance on Saturday, Malewski from Chemnitz missed the final on her successful device, balance beam, with a shaky exercise.
“Ultimately we should be happy that we managed to qualify for the World Championships. That was the goal. We came here with high expectations, but we also knew that it would be difficult to top last year with the bronze medal”, said the German record champion Seitz.
Great Britain wins the European title
Eight months ago in Munich, the squad of the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) had won bronze at the European Championships at home, this time they went away empty-handed and also missed the goal they had set themselves for eighth place. Great Britain became European champion with 164.428 points ahead of defending champions Italy (161.629) and the Netherlands (158.896).
“The goal was eighth place, a place in the all-around final and a place in an apparatus final,” said national coach Gerben Wiersma, “we’re ninth, not eighth, but I’m happy that we qualified for the World Cup. ” Sarah Voss from Cologne reached the all-around final on Friday as 20th. And Seitz competes again on Saturday as third in the preliminary competition for a medal.
“Today the worm was in there”
The balance beam was fatal for the quintet, where all gymnasts fell short of expectations with three descents, among other things. “Today was the worm in there,” said Emma Malewski, summing up her entire competition drastically: “All in all, it was really shitty.”
In particular, the expectations of her as the defending champion on beam made things difficult for her. “It’s really a pressure that you don’t want to have. You put a lot of pressure on yourself and think about what other people think. I tried to hide it, it didn’t work so well,” she said 19 year olds too.
The experienced Elisabeth Seitz was completely different. “I’m really happy that my bar exercise went through. I was pretty nervous before that. The title calmed me down a bit because I thought I had it and nobody could take it from me anymore,” said the 29-year-old.