A. Olympic qualification news
Yesterday, the FIG finally proclaimed the inevitable. With Germany and Great Britain unable to host their intended all-around Olympic qualifiers, that series has officially been canceled. (Though Tokyo is still planning to hold its event in May, which also serves as the gymnastics test event.)
Given the cancellation, the Olympic spots that would have gone to the top three teams at the end the all-around series instead have been awarded to the top three teams from qualification at 2019 worlds. For the women, that’s the USA, Russia, and China. For the men, that’s Russia, China, and Japan. Those nations have now all achieved a +1 Olympic spot to be bestowed upon any athlete they choose.
So here’s where we stand now with the women:
| WOMEN – Qualified Team (4 athletes) | Individual Spot #1 | Individual Spot #2 |
| United States | ✓ (Any athlete) | ✓ (Jade Carey)* |
| Russia | ✓ (Any athlete) | |
| China | ✓ (Any athlete) | ✓ (Fan Yilin)* |
| France | ||
| Canada | ||
| Netherlands | ||
| Great Britain | ||
| Italy | ✓ (Vanessa Ferrari OR Lara Mori)* | |
| Germany | ||
| Belgium | ||
| Japan | ✓ (Urara Ashikawa)* | |
| Spain |
The men’s apparatus world cup spots are still much more up in the air than the women’s—with many more what-ifs and intra-country tiebreak scenarios in play—so I’m going to wait to make that chart until we see what happens in Doha.
Continue reading Things Are Happening – February 11, 2021