Valeri Alfosov, the head coach of the Russian MAG team, said to TASS that Denis Abliazin will not be on the team for the European Championships. Abliazin is a three-event specialist and plans on qualifying to the Tokyo Olympics as an individual since the new format forces all four gymnasts on the team to be all-arounders. Since Russia will try to qualify to the Olympics at this year’s World, Abliazin can’t be on the Worlds team if he wants to try qualifying via World Cups. There are no restrictions like that at Euros and there could be a place for him on the five-person team and a potential for several EF medals. However, it seems that the coaches want to test the Worlds team at Euros and decided to leave Abliazin at home.
Alfosov said:
“We’re not planning on putting Abliazin on the Russian team for the European Championships in Glasgow. It has to do with the changes in the Olympic qualification rules. In the new conditions, it’s optimal for Denis to earn his place in Tokyo through individual qualification, he will now be qualifying according to completely different criteria. In 2018 and 2019 he will have to compete at eight World Cups and the qualification to the next Olympics will be done according to three or four of his best finishes there”.
“As you know, Denis only competes on three events and if we put him on the team, someone will have to do parallel bars, pommel horse and high bar instead of him. But the Olympic team now consists of four and not five people and the three best scores count on each event. The price of a mistake rises significantly in this scenario. Suppose, one of the four gymnasts falls off the pommel horse and gets a minimum score. But Abliazin is not doing pommel horse and then the low score will be counted and our team will fall back in the rankings”.
“The new rules for the Olympic Games qualification developed by the International Olympic Committee caused a storm of discussions. The same Abliazin will now lose the opportunity to bring his country medals from World and European Championships on events: rings, vault and floor. Our federation wrote letters asking to adjust the new system of the Olympic qualification, saying that it’s inconvenient for the national federations. But everything stayed without changes”.
It is not clear why Alfosov said that IOC developed the new qualification rules as they were developed by the FIG. Additionally, the decision not to send Abliazin to Euros is fully on the Russian Gymnastics Federation as participation at Euros does not affect his eligibility for the Olympic Games in any way. Moreover, Russian team could actually earn an extra Olympic spot for Abliazin while including him on the 2018 Worlds team: additional spots are possible to earn via All-Around World Cups and Continental Championships.
Photo: Russian Gymnastics Federation
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