Translation from Portuguese by Patricia Franco.
After recovering from his surgery in 2017, Diego Hypolito returned to the National training center in Rio de Janeiro for two weeks of training. He told Globo.com that this year he won’t be on the Worlds team due to the changes in the qualification process. He is an event specialist, so he has a good chance to qualify through the World Cups. Only gymnasts who were not the part of the team can qualify by winning an event title at the World Cup series. The first World Cup of the 2018-2019 qualifying series will be in Cottbus in the fall of 2018.
“My goal isn´t Worlds anymore, I’m not going to compete at Worlds because there is now a new qualification [process] for specialists and that is what I have in mind. The goals for 2018 are big, I am going to compete in the World Cup series and get the Olympic qualification”.
“I think I will have good results at World Cup this year, especially in Cottbus, in order to get an specialist place, what is my big goal. That is will make me have to improve my tecnical level and my conditioning.”
Hypolito doesn’t yet know when he’s going to compete for the first time this year, it depends on the Brazilian federation.
“Since last year, I am 100% back to training. I competed in the Brazilian apparatus championships in October and in the Open Games, I think a month later, I was already much better. I am very proud this year I was able to keep up with the training pace of all the new ones, who are younger than me. I am always trying to keep up with the same running and conditioning and always trying to improve. They say to me that I am like a museum to them because I am always there. An Olympic medal does not make me better than anyone, the reality is that I have to train much more if I want a medal in Tokio”.
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