Polish legend Marta Pihan-Kulesza will, unfortunately, miss the upcoming World Championships in Stuttgart. A multiple World Cup medalist, she represented Poland at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. Pihan-Kulesza retired in 2016, at the age of 28, when she was not selected to represent Poland at the Rio test event and, thus, could not qualify to the Olympics. However, she decided to come back to gymnastics in 2018, after having a baby.
Pihan-Kulesza competed at the 2018 and 2019 European Championships and even went back to her iconic Pink Panther routine. She was the ambassador of the 2019 Euros that took place in her hometown, Szczecin.
Poland qualified a full team to the 2019 Worlds, after finishing 22nd in 2018. However, they lost Katarzyna Jurkowska-Kowalska, who abruptly retired in December of 2018, and Wiktoria Lopuszanska, who was originally on the roster for Euros and got injured shortly before. Poland originally registered to send only one female gymnast to the 2019 Worlds, despite being eligible to send a full team. Later, they registered two gymnasts, Gabriela Janik and Marta Pihan-Kulesza. However, this week, Pihan-Kulesza has announced on Facebook that she will miss Worlds as the federation decided she did not meet the qualifying criteria.
Pihan-Kulesza won bronze on floor at the Cottbus World Cup last year and made the floor final at the Doha World Cup this year. At the last Euros, she got 48.232 in qualification, after quite a bad day. With clean routines, she can improve this score by more than a point and that could potentially be enough for her to qualify to Tokyo through the all-around competition at Worlds. She said her plan now is to earn a nominative spot through World Cups. This will be a tough task, as she is currently in 4th place, after Jade Carey, Vanessa Ferrari, and Lara Mori. While Carey is very likely to qualify a spot on vault, Ferrari and Mori are both missing Worlds and going for that one spot.
Pihan-Kulesza wrote on Facebook:
“My dear ones. I don’t have good news for you. The Polish Gymnastics Fedearion has decided not to send me to World Championships in Stuttgart. I didn’t meet the “criteria”, but I also didn’t get their trust. I’ve fought for a long time and I’m a bit tired. I apologize to all the supporters I have disappointed. Not to dwell on it, I also have one piece of great news: THIS IS NOT THE END OF MY FIGHT FOR THE TOKYO OLYMPICS!!!”
“I have a chance to qualify via the World Cup series, which will conclude in March next year. Thus, this is the goal towards which I will use the funds gathered in the fundraiser “Family Dreams of Tokyo” (https://wspieram.to/rodzinnieprzezstuttgartdotokio ) . If someone wants to contribute or to share, there’s a couple of days left. However if someone, given the situation, wishes to withdraw their funds – please let me know. Keep your fingers crossed 🦁 We keep fighting 💪🏻”
Translation from Polish by Anna Kosieradzka of Gimnastycy.pl
Did her husband Roman retire? He’s not on the men’s roster, either 🙁
Sad news. Love her floor