Daria Bijak surprised herself by successfully defending her German national all-around championship title on Sept. 2.
She'd just had surgery in July to repair a knee meniscus torn in a training accident in June and thought she wasn't totally ready.
"I didn't expect it; no, not at all," she said of winning her country's all-around title for the second straight year, plus the uneven bars title the next day. "I couldn't be as much practice, training, as much as I want, because of my injury."
For the same reason — plus the fatigue and stress of moving from Cologne, Germany, to the University of Utah on Aug. 19, starting school and training for the Utah gymnastics team, returning to Germany for the championships, flying back to Utah and re-injuring an elbow last Thursday at the Dumke Center — Bijak doesn't really expect to repeat next month what she accomplished last fall in Melbourne, Australia.
Bijak took eighth place in the all-around at the 2005 World Championships.
She will make her fourth-straight World Championships appearance Oct. 13-21 in Aarhus, Denmark.
"For the next worlds, I think I have no expectations. I would be so happy if I would be in the all-around final, but I don't know," said Bijak. "I don't think that I can do better because the time from the surgery to the competition is just too short."
"It's so tough," said Utah coach Greg Marsden, "because of the new code (updated scoring requirements), trying to make the changes. The last code was a little kinder to her.
"But I don't think anybody would have predicted, including her, that she would have finished eighth in the last one, so I don't think anyone would predict that she would do that well again in this one with the new requirements and what her limitations are right now. I don't think you can go in expecting that."
Marsden said much of her purpose next month, other than to do her best for her country, is to gauge what it will be like for her to continue pointing toward the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He calls that her "ultimate goal."
"In the back of her mind, she wants to go and hit her routines in Denmark. I don't think she's extremely concerned at this worlds about where she places."
Next year, she will have some home advantage should she continue internationally. The 2007 World Championships are in Germany, "And they'll be the qualifying worlds for the Olympics," said Marsden.
Gymnasts in Germany haven't had much opportunity to train beyond high school if they want to further their education, so when 2006 Ute senior Gritt Hofmann of Berlin suggested that Bijak consider coming to Utah, she did, and she became the Utes' third German import (also Angelika Schatton, 1997-2000).
She'd actually spent about two months studying university mathematics last year when Marsden offered the scholarship, but Bijak really hopes to eventually become a movie actress. "This is my biggest dream since I'm a kid," she said. It was furthered by encouragement from teachers in a high school class called "English Theater."
She's had luck following advice. Her kindergarten teacher told her to try gymnastics. "I did my practice and competitions, and I always won. That's why I kept doing it," she said.
"Here I have the opportunity to study and do gymnastics. I have been here in 2003, so I knew Greg and Megan (Marsden, assistant coach), and they asked me to come here, and I said yes," Bijak said.
The German team trained at the Dumke Center for 10 days prior to the 2003 World Championships in Anaheim, Calif., where Bijak placed 20th all-around. (In the 2002 worlds in Hungary, she was 16th on beam.)
"I like it, but it's hard because everything is different, and my family and friends are not here," she said. She makes friends easily enough, "But it's not the same." She has a "serious" boyfriend in Germany and is close to her mother and older brother. Her parents separated 11 years ago.
While Utah's team is training next to her in the Dumke Center, Bijak's regimen is different. They're working on strength and conditioning; she's practicing full routines.
"It's always harder to do your own practice than being in the group, but I don't feel like I'm not in the team," she said.
Ute coaches are good, but they don't yet know each other really well, Bijak added, so she misses her club coach.
Marsden keeps in touch with her German coach, and now that Bijak is here for a month or so, he'll gradually do more actual coaching.
After all, there is a Ute season coming up in January, and the U. hosts the 2007 NCAA Championships, making it an important season for them.
"I don't know what to expect," Bijak said of college gymnastics. "Just looking to experience something new."
E-mail: lham@desnews.com