Sarah Voss

It’s been a rough week for the German women’s team after Elisabeth Seitz announced that she would no longer be able to represent the program at world championships.

The team was already facing a tough battle for an Olympics berth, so losing a core member with the experience and skill of Seitz was a massive blow, especially with no alternates who can come close to replacing her score on bars. After finishing 12th in the team qualification rankings a year ago, with Seitz contributing scores on vault and bars, whether Germany can land in the top 12 without her is a daunting prospect.

However, one person the team was missing a year ago was Sarah Voss, who was forced to take a step back after Euros, where she had to compete with an injury and didn’t have enough time to recover before Liverpool. Losing Voss last year was basically just as crucial as losing Seitz this year, especially with the consistency she can provide on beam in addition to her strengths as a top all-arounder. But now, Voss is back, and she proved herself incredibly capable of stepping into Seitz’s shoes as the team’s leader at a friendly meet in Heidelberg on Saturday.

Voss had the second-best all-around score of the competition to lead the Germans to an important win over Romania, a very young team on the rise and likely to be one of the teams likely to get the upset for one of the nine open spots for Paris. Romania had a lot of falls here – more on that later – but it was important to see the Germans look ready to take advantage of those mistakes to win with a 161.600, six points more than they were able to bring in at worlds last year.

As the top German competitor, Voss hit solid routines on all four events, putting up a 13.9 on beam with just a few minor bobbles throughout, a 13.4 for her clean and flared Yurchenko full on vault, and a 13.2 on floor, where she hit a double tuck with a bit of a wild landing, but was otherwise pretty strong, giving her top three finishes on each of these events. On bars, she had a pretty rough handstand day, swaying back on a few – including a huge arch in her toe full – and showing some leg separations throughout, but seeing her fight was impressive, and she still managed a 12.6 with the mistakes, bringing her to a 53.100 total.

Also competing all four events were Emma Malewski in third with a 52.500, Karina Schönmaier in fourth with a 52.200, Pauline Schäfer in fifth with a 52.000, Lea Marie Quaas in sixth with a 51.600, and Anna-Lena König in 11th with a 50.400, while Meolie Jauch competed vault and bars, with her 14.0 on the latter the best of the day.

Malewski was somewhat hit or miss, showing a lot of form issues on bars, but still reaching a 14.0 there – second to Jauch on a tie-break – with her increase in difficulty. Her beam was also really nicely done, though unfortunately she had a bit of a slow and cowboyed double tuck on floor, landing on her hands and knees to finish her competition on a low note. Schäfer, who also missed out on worlds last season and affected the country’s overall ranking, had a similar day, and though she didn’t fall at any time, her form and landings on floor were a bit weak, as was the landing on her tucked toe front half dismount on bars, though her beam was excellent to earn a 13.7.

While Voss, Malewski, and Schäfer are all locks for Germany’s worlds team, the other three all-arounders will be fighting for the final two spots along with Jauch, and I don’t think any of them really showed why they should or shouldn’t be included, aside from König with her fall on beam. They’re pretty close to one another in terms of their potential, but I think Schönmaier and Quaas have generally been more consistent this season, and I think Quaas is necessary on floor, an overall weak event for the team.

Jauch is interesting, because she has a fantastic bars set capable of surpassing a 14.0 which could add several tenths to the team, but she hasn’t competed beam and floor since last summer, and I don’t know if Germany can or should risk someone who is essentially a one-event specialist with the Olympics on the line.

Something important to keep in mind is that Germany did have seven gymnasts competing here, and on most events, they went seven-up three-count, which obviously won’t be the case at worlds where the number of gymnasts competing on each apparatus in qualifications is only four. They’ll still be able to drop the lowest score on each apparatus, but they won’t be able to drop their four lowest scores as they did here, so while this meet should give the team a big confidence boost and will help them determine final four-person lineups, I think when considering their potential, it’ll make sense to be a bit more conservative scoring-wise.

With all things considered, I’m still on the fence about whether Germany will make it to Paris, but it’s less about Seitz missing out and more because the competition is going to be so tough. Voss and Schäfer returning while the younger generation comes back with more experience actually shows the potential this team has to outperform last year’s, but I think in comparison to other teams on the rise – like Romania, Mexico, Hungary, Spain, and South Korea, all of which also have the potential to hit around or above a 155 – they’ll need to really be on and hitting in qualifications. At Euros earlier this year, where Seitz competed but Schäfer did not, Germany only posted a 152.096 after bombing beam, nearly 10 points lower than their score here, so like many teams, the potential to make it is there, but so is the potential to miss.

One of the teams I mentioned that has what it takes to beat Germany is Romania. Having missed out on qualifying a team to worlds entirely in 2022, simply getting a team to Antwerp is a huge improvement, thanks largely to a number of first-year seniors stepping up. This competition was a tough one for the Romanians, who had about 10 falls throughout the meet, though obviously the six-up three-count format helped them a lot here, as they were able to drop a number of the weakest routines and still come out with a 157.100.

I give the Romanians a little grace here, because they had just competed a week earlier in Bucharest at the RomGym Trophy, a combination of their national championships along with an international friendly meet, which the Romanians won with a 159.850. Though the score difference isn’t huge, their performance quality was a bit higher last week, so I’m going to chalk this competition up to them being a bit tired, though we still saw some great work here and there, especially from Ana Barbosu, the veteran of the team at 17.

Barbosu did have a fall on bars here, though looked really nice overall and has a solid level of difficulty, so she was still able to manage a 13.1. She was also stunning on beam to earn the top score of 14.0, and on floor she opened with her exciting new pass – an arabian stepout through to triple full to punch front – to come up with a 13.3, second-best at this competition behind teammate Sabrina Voinea, who had a rough day on bars and beam with multiple falls on the latter, but won vault with a 13.7 and floor with a 13.6, and still managed to score a 50.100 in the all-around.

These two are of course the stars of the team, but the others are all pretty talented as well, with Lilia Cosman pretty balanced across all four events to generally make her a great all-around contributor, though she struggled with falls here. Another strong all-arounder is Amalia Ghigoarta, though she’s limited to bars and beam right now, and she had multiple falls on bars at this competition, including on her dismount. Andreea Preda has done some good work this season and has some potential on bars, and Ella Oprea has stepped up as a strong contender for the team over the past couple of weeks, especially on beam and floor, so the team has some depth right now, and I think it’s actually pretty promising that the lowest all-around score on a day with double-digit falls was Cosman’s 48.700. Trust me, it could be a lot worse.

As with Germany, I’m still going back and forth about Romania’s ability to reach the top 12 at worlds. They have the talent and the scores to make the team final, but they also have meets like this that could destroy them in a setting like worlds, where again only one score can be dropped instead of three. Here, they got away with counting scores on bars in the 12-13 range, but realistically at worlds both Voinea and Ghigoarta would be in the qualifications lineup – Voinea to make the all-around final and Ghigoarta as the team’s specialist – so instead of a 38 on the event, they’d be closer to a 37 dropping Ghigoarta’s score but counting Voinea’s, and the same goes for lineups on other events where expected worlds competitors had mistakes here. In this sense, the team’s 157.100 loses a few points, and scores that low likely won’t stand up for Olympic berths. Unlike Germany, which may or may not qualify a team depending on the strengths of their competitors, Romania absolutely can qualify a team regardless of how other teams look, but could cause their own downfall if they compete in Antwerp like they did here.

Three other teams competed here, with France winning bronze with a 153.700, followed by Switzerland in fourth with a 148.500, and Great Britain in fifth with a 148.200. None of these performances really reflect on their worlds and Olympic qualification situations, however, as Switzerland won’t have a full team in Antwerp, while the others didn’t send top squads.

France did have two worlds team members in Heidelberg, however, as both Djenna Laroui and Morgane Osyssek were named to the country’s six-person squad, with one expected to take the fifth spot on the team while the other will fill the alternate role. Here, Osyssek was France’s top performer with a 51.300 in the all-around to finish seventh, while Laroui was ninth with a 50.600, but I think the deciding factor could be Laroui’s bars. She earned a 13.6 there, third best on this day and the top for France, and since team member Marine Boyer doesn’t often compete on this apparatus – and has lower scoring potential when she does – it seems like Laroui would best fill that gap, compared to Osyssek, whose best events are the same as Boyer’s.

The team here also included Célia Serber in 10th with a 50.500, Lucie Henna in 20th with a 48.700, Sheyen Petit in 21st with a 47.700, and Taïs Boura with hit routines on vault and bars. Most of them had pretty nice performances throughout, with Serber’s bars set a standout, earning a 13.3.

The British federation sent its developmental squad, which included Shanna-Kae Grant in 12th with a 50.300, Grace Davies in 17th with a 49.000, Emily Roper in 18th with a 48.900, and Mali Morgan in 23rd with a 46.500. I got to see a bit of Davis, who had some impressive skills on bars – including a really strong double layout – and a promising beam set, falling on her double pike dismount, but showing some good connections throughout, as well as a nice, high relevé in all of her choreography moments. Grant was also a standout on floor, earning a 12.7 after hitting a strong arabian double front, double full, and double tuck.

Most notably representing the Swiss team was Lena Bickel, this year’s national champion who is set to compete individually at worlds after qualifying through Euros. Bickel was great on vault, earning a second-best 13.4, and on floor, performing a 2½ to front tuck and double pike really well to earn a 13.0, and her dance was also fantastic. Actually, pretty much everyone on the Swiss team performed their well-choreographed routines very expressively, which was so much fun to watch, even when athletes didn’t have the most difficult tumbling, or struggled in other ways.

Bickel scored a 51.000 in the all-around to finish eighth, while the other all-arounders for the team included Anny Wu In 15th with a 49.300 and Daria Hartmann in 22nd with a 47.300. Also competing here were Chiara Giubellini on every event but bars and Martina Eisenegger on every event but vault.

Full results are available here, and if you want to see the action, you can watch on SportDeutschland.tv for a €3.50 fee (though I’ll warn you in advance, the stream is four hours long and 75% athletes sitting around waiting for scores).

Article by Lauren Hopkins