Helen Kevric is sitting in a corner. Her legs stretched out, her water bottle in her hand, her upper body rising and falling. A few more minutes and then she will run to the chalk pot and rub her hands with magnesia. She will stand between the two bars of the uneven bars and look up at the ceiling until it starts. Second Olympic qualification, Rüsselsheim, uneven bars apparatus.
Shortly before, Elisabeth Seitz had been sitting in the same corner. Her legs were drawn up to her body and her eyes were closed. She performed on the parallel bars, scoring 14,600 points.
Now Kevric whirls around the bars. The other gymnasts call from the side, “Go, Helen, go,” when she is in a handstand, “Yes, hold, hold.” She flies between the bars and he does. And she shows something that she hadn’t shown two weeks before, the Hindorff piked, a flight section of the highest difficulty, in combination with the Pak salto. 14,800 points, difficulty rating 6.4.
Only one ticket left
At the other end of the hall, Elisabeth Seitz has put on a T-shirt with the Olympic rings on it. She is now almost certain that it will not be she who will see the Olympic rings in Paris, but Helen Kevric. On Sunday, one day after the second Olympic qualification in Rüsselsheim, the German Gymnastics Association (DTB) will announce that Kevric has been nominated for the last ticket. The final Olympic nomination is the responsibility of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).
It would be too easy to say that Helen Kevric has won this battle of “young” versus “old”; too many other factors come into play. One of them: In September 2022, Elisabeth Seitz, 30, seriously injured her Achilles tendon. But what can be said for sure is that Helen Kevric not only has strong muscles, but also strong nerves.
Kevric is sixteen years old, no longer a child, but not yet an adult either. She trains at MTV Stuttgart under Giacomo Camiciotti and Marie-Luise Mai. In the spring she suffered from foot problems and had to cancel several starts. There had been an “arthroscopic procedure”, said a statement from the DTB after consultation with Kevric’s father. Two weeks ago at the German Championships in Frankfurt, Kevric said that his foot was doing well. But despite the technically flawless performance, the question remains: when is too much? And at what age should you do how much?
Difficult elements
In Rüsselsheim, Kevric starts on the floor. The hall becomes silent before her body flies through the air. Tsukahara, a double back somersault with a twist, her body spins in the air for a few seconds, another difficult element. The gymnasts affectionately call it “Tsuki”. In the end, she wins the all-around competition with 55.532 points.
After the exercises, Kevric seems relaxed, her eyes are open, and the tension has gone from her muscles. “I did everything I could to get it right – and I did it,” she says. She had already practiced this variation on the uneven bars before her first qualification at the German championships, but didn’t feel confident enough to show it.
Back in Stuttgart: She practiced the other exercise at least twice a day, and the new element individually as well. It was the most difficult element she had learned so far. “I had a lot of good repetitions in training,” she said. She focused on those in the competition. Kevric has improved again compared to the German championships.
Pressure? Yes, there was pressure. She stood up to it. And the Olympic Games, isn’t that a bit early? “In the middle of it I thought, oh, maybe it’s a bit early, but I’m actually ready.” And now? “I’m continuing to train normally, just a bit harder.”
Kevric’s life follows a pattern: train hard, show what he has learned in competition. But the unexpected can always happen. On Saturday, Lukas Dauser injured himself during his exercise on the rings. He had to be taken to hospital in Mainz with a muscle injury to his upper arm, the DTB announced a day later. Nevertheless, on Sunday the association nominated him for the Olympic Games alongside Pascal Brendel, Nils Dunkel, Timo Eder and Andreas Toba. Dauser has a good chance of winning a medal on the parallel bars in Paris. Now he wants to get fit again as quickly as possible with the help of doctors, physiotherapists and the coaching team.
And Elisabeth Seitz? She is set to be a substitute gymnast, a thankless role. In Rüsselsheim she was still in the hall when the equipment was already stowed away in the boxes. Children called out “Eli, Eli” – and she signed autographs.
