Denis Abliazin said in an interview during the Russian Championships broadcast that he will miss this year’s Worlds in order to try to qualify to the Olympics as an individual through World Cups. According to the current qualification rules, a gymnast can only qualify to the Olympics as a World Cup series event winner if they weren’t competing for the qualified team at Worlds. Since Russia will try to qualify as a team this year (they’ll need to place in the top-3), Abliazin will have to sit these Worlds out in order to have a chance to win a nominative spot. It’s not exactly a great situation for gymnasts like him – it means he won’t have a chance to compete for World medals this year (and also perhaps next year if Russian MAG doesn’t place top-3 this time) and he’ll miss out on prize money (Russia awards special stipends for World medalists), all for a chance to get a nominative Olympic spot. For the fans, it means that we won’t see one of the top gymnasts at Worlds. Hopefully, FIG will realize there is a problem with this rule and will find a way to change it for the next quad.
Abliazin also said that he’s still trying to polish his floor routine and figure out a way to go through it without any major mistakes (and without stepping out of bounds). His next competition will be a World Challenge Cup in Osijek and he hopes to present a cleaner routine there. He said to TASS:
“At the Russian Championships, I managed to do almost everything except for the floor routine. I just don’t have enough endurance there yet. I’ll keep working, the next competition is a World Cup in Croatia at the end of May, I’ll be preparing even harder for it. I’m still far from the shape I was in Rio and I don’t need to be in that shape yet. I think that by the Euros I will be in much better condition. For now, I just need to be in good enough shape to do my routines without effort”.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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