Brazilian WAG Team Already In Glasgow

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The Heat Is ON ! 

 

The Brazilian team is set and left yesterday for Europe, where they’ll begin acclimating themselves to the time zone and conditions they can expect in Glasgow, Scotland for the 2015 World Championships.
Sent to compete were
 Daniele Hypolito, 
Flavia Saraiva, 
Jade Barbosa, 
Leticia Costa, 
Lorrane Oliveira, and 
AThauany Araujo. Originally Julie Sinmon
was supposed to be part of this group, but is no longer able to compete due to a torn ACL sustained in training, according to the Brazilian Federation. Earlier this year, they also lost top-performing new senior Rebeca Andrade to a knee injury.
The women traveled first to Germany, where they’ll compete at the Länderkampf Kunstturnen meet in Dessau this weekend against the host team and Switzerland. Then they’ll continue on to France for further training before flying to Glasgow.
In the past week, the women were observed and evaluated in 2016 Olympic site Rio de Janeiro by renowned international professionals, such as judge Rubi Velazquez as well as FIG women’s technical committee president Nellie Kim, according to Brazilian women’s coordinator Georgette Vidor. This helped with the final selection process and gave the women insight into what they’d need to improve as they work on attaining their goal of making the team finals in Glasgow.
It’s a tough field this year, however, and while Brazil is one of the teams with a team finals shot, they have a lot of depth to contend with and would need to be at their very best to make it happen. Their chances would’ve been slightly greater without the injuries, but they still have a strong group, especially with leader Hypolito, the super talented and spunky young Saraiva, and the strong and consistent work from the rest of their team, including Barbosa, who recently put on a clinic on beam in Osijek to win gold there a few weeks ago.
The team competed very well in Belgium this past spring, finishing on top as a team in qualifications with a 221.35, a score that demolished last year’s Worlds qualification score of 211.727 by ten points. They did have Andrade in Belgium, contributing a 15.5 for her Amanar in addition to a 14.6 on bars and a 14.85 on floor; without her and Barbosa and with a few mistakes at the Pan Am Games in Toronto, their total counting with four scores on each event was 216.5, which would definitely not lead to a finals spot this year.
So let’s say we can expect something between these two scores at qualifications in Glasgow. It could happen, and they definitely have it in them to make it all the way, but again with the insane depth, the more realistic scenario is that they’ll end up at the test event next year. That’s when they’ll be a shoo-in for a spot, especially if Andrade is back and healthy enough to contribute her huge scores. If they could manage to scrape into the mix at the test event in 2012, it’ll be a picnic (relatively speaking) in 2016, especially as they’ll have home field advantage.
Overall, I’m excited to see what this team can do. I think they have super promising routines and huge potential on everything but bars, which is definitely their Achilles heel. They also have some great chances for individuals to wind up in event finals this year, especially with Saraiva and Hypolito in the all-around and then Saraiva on beam as well if she can hit her huge beam set in qualifications.