14 months after tearing the ACL and meniscus in her left knee at a friendly meet in France, Giulia Steingruber made her official comeback last weekend at Swiss nationals in Romont. In front of a packed sports hall crammed with family, friends and gymnastics fans, she gave a solid performance which resulted in a respectable all around score of 53.100, with one fall on uneven bars.
Starting on balance beam, she looked confident and secure on every skill and scored 13.350, the highest score in the competition. Moving to floor, she showed some impressive tumbling, including a double layout and tucked full-in, as well as her classic leaps and jumps and a new turn. While there were some issues with landings and getting the turn all the way around, it was a very promising performance and scored a 13.050. Next up was vault, where she did a huge Rudi for a score of 14.600. As she hasn’t got a second vault ready at this point, she could not take the national vault title (which went to amateur gymnast Alicia Onomor), but her individual vault score was the highest of the day. The last piece, uneven bars, went well until the over-rotated double front dismount, which caused a fall.
Steingruber’s final score still placed her over three points ahead of the silver medallist, Stefanie Siegenthaler, and showed that she still has great potential in the all around competition, especially given that she is not yet back to full difficulty on most events. Having recently been named to the Swiss women’s team for the World Championships in Stuttgart, her main aim now is to qualify to Tokyo 2020. We wish her the best of luck!
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