TEAM ITALY - NEW SENIORS FOR 2020
Generally speaking, there isn’t much depth in Italy among the 2004-born gymnasts and I don’t really see any of the ones I’m listing making an impact on the Tokyo team, but hopefully they will all stick around and will have their chance to shine next quad, especially the ones with beam and floor potential!
- Camilla Campagnaro debuted in the national team at Jesolo 2018, where she competed individually. During her early years, beam used to be her standout event, but while growing she became more of a “power gymnast” who showed potential on vault and floor. She debuted her DTY at nats 2018, a skill that was both the key to her making Jr Worlds but also a curse cause she tore her ACL on it at nats in 2019. This prevented her from going to Jr Mediterranean Champs this year, thus drawing an early close on her jr career. Now that she’s transitioning into the senior ranks, she has a very steep road ahead with the recovery and the strong 03s but I know she’s very hard working, so I really hope she’ll be more competitive next quad.
- Giulia Cotroneo first competed with the national team at Combs la Ville in 2016 in the Espoir category. She made a bunch of friendly meet teams ever since but between 2018-2019 she got mildly injured several times so lately she has kind of faded off the radars, sadly. She has plenty of BB/FX potential. Her twisting form is (was?) to die for, and she even trained a really nice 3.5 twist for a while. On beam, she’s very clean with decent D and last time I checked she was training a tuck full. All of this means nothing if she can’t stay healthy tho, plus I think the growth spurt of doomTM still hasn’t hit her so there’s that to take into account as well :’)))
- Alessia Federici is absolutely gorgeous and artistic and everything I love in a gymnast, so of course she hasn’t been healthy for more than a few months at a time in her whole career. Probably the better known out of the 2004 Italians, she used to train in Milan with Desy’s coaches before moving to Brixia. Her dance skills are gorgeous and she has lovely lines, toe point and back flexibility. She even has inbars on UB and they look good, even tho she rarely hits :’) Beam and floor are her standouts for sure but she hasn’t been able to increase her D because of injuries. In 2018 she “helped” team Italy win Jr Euros TF (not really, cause she only competed on beam and she fell so her score didn’t count but hey she still got the medal). I still hope that the planets and stars will align again at some point for her to stay healthy and make some teams next quad.
- Micol Minotti is unexpectedly the most successful (currently) out of these girls. She hasn’t been entirely immune to injuries but nothing truly major so far and she has overcome them quite quickly, which made it possible for her to work on a LOT of upgrades in a short amount of time. Training at CSB (Grisetti’s club), she can swing bars, even tho this is not her best event. She’s been training all types of tkachevs existing, including a Nabs (lol) which is good so she can get a feel for all of them. She’s also working on a double front dismount. On beam a tuck full is in the works and a double pike dismount. On floor she’s also working on increasing her D (she opened with a double pike last year) with a full-in (both tuck and pike) and she’s also chucking some DLOs into the pit because why not. I won’t be surprised if they’ll push a DTY on her at some point. I just hope it will look better than Grisetti’s.
(These are the 2004-born gymnasts currently with a valid FIG license, pics from their respective IGs, sorry if some watermarks were cut, they were already cut)