Newcomers include the small, 14-year old French girl Sarah D'Auriol who finished 8th at CVI Munich; the Austrian vaulters Jasmin Gipperich and Kathi Faltin who finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in Munich; and Switzerland's Marion Graf, Sabrina Mettler and Angela Wildhaber, who often rub shoulders in the top five.
Individual Male
One vaulter has dominated the male individual vaulting scene for the past two years--Kai Vorberg from Germany with his horse Picasso. Whoever wants to be the new world champion in Aachen,will have to beat Kai first. He is not only the title holder, but he also has won all three major CVIs this year (Stadl-Paura, Wiesbaden and Munich).
Kai has one big opponent--Matthias Lang from France, double world champion (2000, 2002). Matthias retired in 2003 and had a one-year break before he made a comeback at the 2004 World Championships, where he went on to win silver, being defeated only by Kai. Chances are that it will be a duel between these two vaulters again in Aachen.
Other vaulters with chances for medals include: Petr Eim from Slovakia, who is talented and technically brilliant but is slightly disadvantaged by his small horse Catalin; Martin Ararat of Spain; and Gero Meyer and Tim Randy-Sia from Germany. Top five finishers might also include Nicolas Andreani of France, Stefan Czandl of Austria, Patrick Looser of Switzerland and the newcomer Lukas Klouda of the Czech Republic.
Teams
In the team competition three vaulters perform acrobatic and artistic movements together on the horse. It is also the only discipline where athletes of different age-groups compete together and within the same team. For example, in the American team the youngest vaulter is 10 while the eldest is 31 years old. This team, the FAME Vaulters from California, are a good bet for a medal. Devon Maitozo, individual world champion at the 1998 WEG in Rome, is also on the American team that won first place at CVI Munich in July.
However, the team competition is still very open. The titleholder is Germany, represented in 2004 by the club VV Ingelsberg. But this year RSV Neuss-Grimlinghausen will represent Germany. Yet they did not compete at any big CVI this year, so it is hard to tell how good they are in comparison to the other top teams. Slovakia, 2005 European Champions, will try to win a medal again, while Austria, 2005 European bronze medalists, will be dangerous. Austria has three good individual vaulters on their team, and they won gold last year with their junior team.
Visit EquiSearch.com for in-depth coverage by Nancy Jaffer of the vaulting competition August 24-27.
