While Azerbaijan now has almost a full senior MAG team of homegrown gymnasts, they still lack in difficulty to get closer to the team medal podium and are at risk of not making the top 24 teams at this year’s Worlds which is necessary in order to be able to compete as a team at 2019 Worlds. The Azerbaijani gymnastics federation was able to recruit two Russian gymnasts for their team – Nikita Simonov and Ivan Tikhonov. Neither was a top gymnast on the national team, so their chances to get international assignments in Azerbaijan are much greater. Simonov is pretty competitive on rings and last year he won silver on this event at the Osijek World Cup with 14.400. In Russia, in 2017 he was 4th on rings at nationals and 5th at the Russian Cup. Tikhonov is more of an all-arounder, he placed 7th in the all-around at the Russian Cup last year but he also has strong PH routine.
Both gymnasts are already training in Baku. They were removed from the Russian national team roster in June and this week the nationality changed has been approved by FIG. We are very likely to see them at Worlds this year but potentially Azerbaijan still has time to put them on the Euros team.
Another addition to the Azerbaijani team is an ex-Ukrainian junior Rustam Akhmad whose nationality change also got approved this week. He is also currently in Baku and participated in the national championships last month. Akhmad is from Odessa and had to train in horrible conditions in his home city. Last fall, his gym made the local news because both electricity and heating in the gym were shut down due to maintenance issues. Surely, the state-of-the-art gym in Baku will be a big step up for him. Unfortunately, while the Ukrainian MAG generally remains at the top, the sport still is not getting enough funding and many gyms are run-down.
