St. Louis – Defending World Champions Elena Bloujina and Levon Petrosyan of Russia swept the men and women’s Tumbling World Cup competition scoring 27.53 and 30.20 today at The Family Arena in St. Charles, Mo.

“I am very happy to have finished first,” said Bloujina, 22. “I plan on tumbling as long as my legs will carry me.”
Today’s Tumbling World Cup event included preliminaries and finals, with six women and 10 men participating in finals competition. It was the last in a series of four World Cup events contested over the course of two years. The championship final World Cup will be in December in Germany.

Chrystel Robert (France) placed second in the women’s competition scoring 26.83, while her teammate Melanie Avisse finished third with 26.50. Andrei Akinchin (Russia) placed second in the men’s competition scoring 29.07.

Randy Direen, (Colorado Springs, Colo.) the U.S. men’s tumbling national champion, finished third in the standings scoring 28.50.
“Being in front of the home crowd really pulled me through,” said Direen, 18. This is my best performance in a World Cup event so far.”
U.S. tumbler John Collier was fourth scoring 28.47. Chris Helton and Frankie Hartman finished 12th and 13th in preliminary competition. They scored 47.77 and 45.46 on their two preliminary passes.
2000 U.S. women’s tumbling national champion Amanda Lentz (Odessa, Texas) finished fourth scoring 26.43. Alisha Robinson participated in the preliminaries scoring 38.06 on her two tumbling passes.

Finals Results

Women
1 Bloujina, Elena RUS 27.53
2 Robert, Chrystel FRA 26.83
3 Avisse, Melaine FRA 26.50
4 Lentz, Amanda USA 26.43
5 Rakhmanova, Natalie RUS 25.13
6 N’Dour, Mariama FRA 20.13
Men
1 Petrosyan, Levon RUS 30.20
2 Akinchin, Andrei RUS 29.07
3 Direen, Randy USA 28.50
4 Collier, John USA 28.47
5 Dial, Matt CAN 27.90
6 Dechanet, Alexandre FRA 27.40
7 Fournials, Nicolas FRA 27.00
8 Mclauchlan, Mark AUS 25.73
9 Demers-Lajoie, Dan CAN 24.83
10 Divry, Nicolas FRA 22.40