Melbourne World Cup has been probably the least attended competition of the Apparatus World Cup series this quad, especially on the women’s side, due to the geographic distance and expensive tickets. Last year, for example, even though it was already a part of the Olympic Qualifying series, only nine women competed in qualification on bars. However, now that there are only a few more chances to earn an Olympic spot, the roster for the competition is quite impressive (and would have been even more so, if Chinese gymnasts could attend).
As five of the eight World Cups in the series are over, some people have already got their 90 points, the maximum amount one can earn on an event. Among women, Fan Yilin has 90 points on bars and among men, Wen Hao has 90 points on pommel horse, Liu Yang – on rings, and Hidetaka Miyachi – on high bar. However, there are three more World Cups (including Melbourne), which means there is still a chance for someone else to earn 90 points on those events as well and trigger the tie-break procedures. On bars, for example, Anastasia Ilyankova will try to win a spot over Fan Yilin. Iliankova currently has 68 points and finished first in the qualification in Melbourne, scoring over 0.5 higher than the second place, Daria Spiridonova.
Anastasia Ilyankova Bars Qual 14.8 pic.twitter.com/L0mD77rxTl
— gymnastics (@komovasgold) February 20, 2020
Daria Spiridonova Bars Qual 14.266 pic.twitter.com/BdkCTBcVRJ
— gymnastics (@komovasgold) February 20, 2020
The original Russian plan was for Denis Abliazin and Maria Paseka to fight for the nominative spots via World Cups. However, Abliazin’s injuries mean he’s out of the running and Paseka has somewhat struggled at World Cups. She is currently ranked third with 59 points after Jade Carey (85 points) and Yu Linmin (60 points). As Carey is present in Melbourne and also plans on attending another World Cup, it seems that Paseka’s chances for a nominative spot are not very high (especially since she finished only 5th in the qualification, behind Carey, Shoko Miyata, Coline Devillard, and Ahtziri Sandoval) and the strategy to send both Iliankova and Spiridonova to try for a bars spot as well is the right one.
Maria Paseka Vault Quals 14.366 pic.twitter.com/316nVOdQ7F
— gymnastics (@komovasgold) February 20, 2020
Jade Carey Vault Qual 15.2 pic.twitter.com/5ARLxnLwdg
— gymnastics (@komovasgold) February 20, 2020
On the men’s side, Raderly Zapata, who withdrew from the World Championships in order to retain eligibility for a nominative spot, is trying to get a third win (he has accumulated 85 points already). He had some issues in qualification and finished fourth. Kirill Prokopev qualified to the floor final first with 15.000. So far, Prokopev only has 14 points from the 2019 Cottbus World Cup but he is clearly going for that floor spot as he is on the roster for Baku and Doha as well. Prokopev has been on the Russian national team for a while but is not a strong all-arounder and his best event – floor – is not one where the Russian team needs much help.
Iranian gymnasts who were originally refused Australian visas eventually were allowed to enter the country. Saeedreza Keikha is trying to win the pommel horse spot and he finished second in the qualification, behind Stephen Nedoroscik. Keikha is currently third in the series rankings with 63 points, behind Weng Hao (with the perfect 90 points) and Kaito Imbayashi (64 points), but neither of the two is present in Melbourne.
Eleftherios Petrounias missed the beginning of the World Cup series due to the shoulder surgery he underwent shortly after winning gold on rings at the 2018 Worlds. Even though he made the rings final at the 2019 Worlds and finished fourth there, the three medalists in that final were all from countries that did not qualify teams to the Olympics and the gymnasts did not qualify through the all-around qualification, so they took all three nominative spots in that final. Petrounias will now try to qualify through the three remaining World Cups and so far, he’s on track, scoring 15.058 in the qualification and placing first.
The qualification continues today with beam and floor for women and vault, pommel horse, and high bar for men.
There is no live stream or live scoring for the qualification, unfortunately.
The finals will take place on Saturday (2am ET, 11pm PT) and Sunday (11pm ET, 8pm PT) and are expected to be shown on the Olympic Channel, Kayo, and a number of channel in other countries.
Photo: Emily Chan for Gymnovosti
