Greece will be represented by 2 female gymnasts this year, veteran beam workerVasiliki Millousi and Evangelia Plyta.
Vasiliki Miloussi
At 29 Vasiliki Millousi will be the second eldest competitor in Antwerp behind Oksana Chusovitina. Vasiliki competes AA but is known mostly as a beam specialist. She has competed at 2 Olympic Games and numerous World and European Championships, she has is also well known on the Challenge Cup circuit.
Vasiliki began her gymnastics career back in 1989 and rose to the Greek National Team in 1999. Following this she competed at the 2000 Olympic Games.
Her first World Championships were in Hungary in 2002. She finished 14th in Beam qualification. She competed at Worlds again in 2006 and 2007, older and more experienced but did not make any event finals, ranking relatively low.
It was in 2009 at the WCh’s in London that her ranks improved, qualifying in thirteenth place on Beam and also competed at the 2010 WCh’s. The Tokyo Olympic Games saw her improve and achieved a qualifying rank of 12th on beam, still, this was not enough to qualify for the Olympic Games and Vasiliki saw herself headed to London to the Test Event. She won gold on beam, securing her place at the 2012 Olympic Games. She placed just outside the top 8 and also the top 11 in qualification, ranking 12th – of course this is going by the 2 per country rule. Her actual ranking was 18th.
Vasiliki is known for her elegant form and beautiful beam work. We’re hoping she qualifies to the beam final. Here she is training her new floor routine during podium training:
Evangelina Plyta
At just 16, Evangelina Plyta will make her WCh’s debut in Antwerp. She competed last year at the 2012 Junior Europeans. She competed on Beam (81st) and Floor (67th) as well as Bars. She qualified through to the Bars final in 6th place and also ranked 6th in the final. There is very little information about this gymnast available online so we’ll be looking out for her in Antwerp.
Image via Getty Images.
