The young stars of France were the talk of this weekend’s 2015 French Championships, where the country’s newest seniors breathed life back into a program overrun with injuries and setbacks for the veterans.

At the conclusion of the two-day competition, the French Gymnastics Federation named the team selected to compete at European Championships, to be held at home in Montpellier. First-year seniors Camille Bahl and Loan His join 16-year-old Louise Vanhille, who missed the majority of her first senior year in 2014 due to an elbow injury, and 2014 World Championships team member Claire Martin, the veteran of the team who turns 17 in May.

It may sound like a surprising bunch, but these four in addition to junior Marine Boyer truly were the highlights in Rouen this weekend. They stood out over former World and Olympic competitors like Youna Dufournet, Marine Brevet, Anne Kuhm, and Mira Boumejmajen, all of whom struggled to demonstrate finals-worthy routines.

Vanhille came out on top with a 55.500 in all-around qualifications, where His had a fall on beam and earned a 54.100 to qualify in 4th place. During finals, however, His was solid, earning a 55.700 to become the new senior champion, besting Vanhille by four tenths. The two look very strong across the board, and both also finished well in finals, with His picking up floor gold and Vanhille earning bars gold and floor silver.

There are truly no bad events in His’ repertoire. As a young senior, she’s still working on difficulty, but what she does show is clean. She works with an FTY on vault and lovely form on bars, where she hits tidy handstands and has an especially lovely Maloney to pak salto, van Leeuwen, big straddle Jaeger, bail to Ray, and full-in dismount.

She had a beam fall in qualifications, but came back with a mostly great set in all-around finals, including a punch front, bhs bhs loso, a great save on her side somi, and a double full dismount. And on floor, she performs well enough to give herself a successful all-around program, even if the overall difficulty is low and she’s clearly still working on landings. Though still, she had the highest score among her teammates, earning a 13.700 for gold in a mostly weak field.

Vanhille is very similar, in that she’s solid enough on all four events and doesn’t have a big standout routine, but she doesn’t really need one to perform well in the all-around. She definitely excels on bars, looking clean on her Chow to bail to Ray, big Jaeger, and double layout dismount. Her vault – an FTY – is also tidy enough to bring in a decent enough score.

On beam, she has some form issues, including bent legs on acro elements, but she works hard enough to make it through with no major issues. She shows promise on floor, where she had a piked full-in to start but then follows up with just a double tuck and double pike; again, there are minor form issues, but overall she hits well enough to make it a successful routine.

Bahl, who gained international attention at the Youth Olympic Games last summer, struggled in qualifications after multiple falls on bars and beam. She came back well enough in finals to place 4th with a 54.700, but vault was clearly her ticket to Montpellier. She easily won the title with a 14.400 average score after nailing a superb DTY in addition to an especially clean layout Tsuk. It’s not the biggest combination of difficulty in the world, but it’s a good start for her and she should end up in the final with no problem.

Though Martin couldn’t manage to hit her bar routine either day, her beam and floor are exquisite and should score well at Euros. She made the beam final at Euros last year, but fell when it counted, placing 7th. She looks a bit more confident there now, hitting an excellent bhs bhs loso in addition to looking absolutely fluid everywhere else, including on her Onodi, wolf to side aerial, and sissone to side somi (which it seems she’d like to connect into the front aerial that comes before this series). She finishes with a big double pike, and with a little work on that ring leap, this could be a big hit.

Her floor isn’t quite as difficult, but it’s still a must-watch routine, featuring clean tumbling in addition to dramatic (and very nicely-performed!) choreography and effortless dance elements, like her drool-worthy triple turn and her great attempt at a Mustafina turn, the elusive triple Y (it’s ALMOST there). This routine would be lucky to make it into a final even if hit really well because of its low difficulty tumbling, and that’s criminal. It’s a top notch set.

One of the biggest stories here at Championships was Boyer’s beam. The junior turns 16 next year, and though she had the highest all-around score in qualifications (a 55.500), she opted for just bars and beam in apparatus finals. Finals were combined for seniors and juniors, and yet Boyer walked away with bars silver and beam gold, posting a 14.800 with a 6.2 start value, the highest among any French gymnast on any event.

Her beam features a roundoff layout, switch to switch side, front aerial to split jump to side aerial (she missed the connection in finals due to a wobble, though has hit it before), a full L turn, wolf jump to side somi, and a big double pike dismount. It’s not perfect yet, but there’s so much to it that looks great already, by the time she’s a senior it’ll be fab.

Her bars are also pretty sweet, featuring a huge Jaeger, superb bail right to handstand into a Ray, and a ginormous full-in dismount. It’s an easy routine, but again, that untapped potential is fierce.

Now what about those who weren’t quite up to par? I think most are surprised with Dufournet being left off the Euros team. She was named alternate, and I don’t disagree with the decision. In qualifications, she posted just a 52.150 after counting multiple issues on beam (she has an awesome loso mount but had a big stumble on her double turn and did a layout timer as a dismount) and floor (stumbling her double tuck OOB and doing just a layout as her third pass) while only vaulting an FTY.

Bars is typically her bread and butter, so forget the rest – if Euros was going to be in the cards for her, it’d be on this event. She has a new routine, which in qualifications featured a toe full to Jaeger, Church to pak salto, Maloney to clear hip half, toe full, and double layout dismount, all of which she hit with no major problems, earning a 14.400.

In event finals, however, she went for a Ray to Gienger before the rest of her set, but caught her Gienger one-handed, which seemed to throw her off after causing her to take an extra swing. The Jaeger was no problem but she missed the Church, falling to her knees before rechalking, earning just a 12.800.

This routine obviously has tremendous potential, especially with that additional release combo, but I’d agree that she’s just not ready to bring it to an international final just yet. Hopefully she can take the next few months to really work on it – and work on adding dismounts on beam and floor – so she can be competitive once again in Glasgow.

Brevet was fine in her all-around performance, but there was just nothing exciting about her routines. It definitely makes more sense to bring His and Vanhille as the all-arounders; they only out-performed her by several tenths, but they have a much greater need for major international experience to make them even more competitive in the future, especially with this year’s World Championships determining their team status at next year’s Olympic Games.

Brevet turns 21 this year and has been competing internationally for eight years. The same goes for Dufournet, who is 21 now and was winning World medals when His and Vanhille were only ten. At a European Championships with only individual titles – no team final – at stake, it makes much more sense to bring the young ones who could potentially do great things for France both at Worlds this year and beyond.

While it seems insane that Dufournet’s name is not on the list, deep down the reasons are just and will hopefully motivate her and the other veterans to get in their best possible shape for the remainder of this quad if they want to remain threats.

Full results for the competition are here.

Article by Lauren Hopkins