Phl gymnast lands 11th among 18 bets

NANJING – Ava Lorein Verdeflor couldn’t get near the medal podium in the all-around event of women’s gymnastics in the 2014 Youth Olympic Games here Wednesday evening.

But the 15-year-old Verdeflor, who hails from Plano, Texas, still found reason to smile following an 11th place finish at the 13,000-seat Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium.

This YOG is the biggest tournament so far for Verdeflor, who qualified here by finishing fifth among 22 entries in the recent Asian Championships in Uzbekistan.

Only nine gymnasts from Asia made it to Nanjing.

“I’m very proud of how I did. I was able to make it here and compete for the Philippines,” said Verdeflor after the all-around finals won by Seda Tutkhalyan of Russia.

“I was kind of disappointed because I could have done better,” said Verdeflor who had an all-around score of 49.800. The gold medalist was just too good with her 54.900.

Verdeflor, whose parents are both Filipinos, scored 12.450 in the bars, 12.850 in the beam, 11.600 on the floor and 12.900 with the vault.

She did much better on the beam than in last Monday’s qualifiers but on the floor made a couple of costly mistakes in her passing and tumbling runs.

Verdeflor was not trying to make an excuse but said she favored her right ankle during the floor exercise and the vault, which required a lot of running.

“My first tumbling pass on the floor I touched my hands. On the landing my ankles bothered me but I tried to finish the best I can,” she said.

Verdeflor is still in the finals of the uneven bars on Saturday.

Her Russian coach, five-time world sports acrobatics champion Yevgeny Marchenko, would like her to rest Thursday and just be back in the gym Friday before her next and last finals event.

But Verdeflor insisted on working out Thursday. She said there’s no time to rest yet.

“I can rest after,” she said.

Verdeflor finished 11th place among the 18 finalists here. Flavia Saraiva Lopes of Brazil bagged the silver at 54.700 while Elissa Downie of Great Britain settled for the bronze with 54.150.

While warming up for the vault, she took a hard fall that left the crowd gasping.

“But I tried not to let it bother me and pushed it through. Yes, I did, I did very well on my beam I’m proud of that. I’ll be training tomorrow and the day after until I compete again,” said Verdeflor, an enrollee at the World Olympic Gymastics Academy (WOGA) in Texas.

Marchenko, who coached American Carly Patterson to the women’s all-around gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics, also offered a smile to Filipino reporters.

“Could have been a little better if she didn’t fall in the floor. But she was incredible. She made me proud. She made one mistake and it was serious. But I’m very proud of her,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to the finals on the bar where she’s good,” said the coach, one of two Russians calling the shots at WOGA.

Zion Rose Nelson, a Fil-foreign runner based in Canada, finished fourth in her heat in the 400-meter race Wednesday evening at the main stadium.

Nelson clocked 56.22 behind Salwa Naser of Bahrain (53.95), Brittany Ellis of the United States (54.11) and Lyndra Sareena of France (54.42).

Nelson will race on Saturday for the Finals B of the 400-m where she is grouped with six others. Finals A is composed of the top qualifiers led by Australia’s Jessica Thornton (52.78).

“It was a tough competition,” said Nelson.

The Philippines will vie in archery Friday with Bianca Roxas-Chua Gotuaco and Gabriel Luis Manalo seeing action in the men’s and women’s recurve individual ranking starting at 9:30 a.m.