Gymnasts during a training session at Aspire Dome yesterday.
Doha: Olympic champion Eleftherios Petrounias (GRE) and three-time Olympian Vanessa Ferrari (ITA) are among those aiming to clinch tickets to this summer’s Tokyo Games at the Artistic Gymnastics Apparatus World Cup, which gets underway at Aspire Dome, today.
The final major event in Artistic Gymnastics before the Olympic Games, Doha is the eighth and final stop on the 2018-2021 FIG Apparatus World Cup series, where top-ranked specialists on each apparatus have one last chance to lock down their places at the Games. The event will conclude on June 26.
The pressure is on for Petrounias, who did not qualify for Tokyo 2020 at the 2019 World Championships, leaving the Apparatus World Cup series as his only viable path to the Games.
“I have to do the fight of my life,” the 30-year-old wrote on Instagram this week.
“I have mixed emotions about it; there’s a lot of stress and scary pressure, but mainly anticipation for the fight.”
2006 World All-Around champion Ferrari is in a similar position, battling team-mate Lara Mori (ITA) for the Olympic qualification spot for Women’s Floor Exercise.
“The Doha World Cup is upon us - this will be a very important month,” Ferrari commented on Instagram on 1 June, accompanied by a photo of herself in a dramatic pose on Floor. Olympic qualifiers will be finalised following the event in Doha.
To those already qualified to the Games, including 2019 World Still Rings champion Ibrahim Colak (TUR) and seven-time Olympian Oksana Chusovitina (UZB), the competition offers one last chance for routine refinement before Tokyo.
And for athletes not aiming to land berths, Doha presents another opportunity to compete internationally ahead of the other big event in Japan this year: October’s Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu.
A total 26 countries have registered for this year's event that was postponed last year due to the pandemic.
For the first time ever in its history since 2008, the high-profile competition will be held without fans due to the strict COVID-19 protocols in place.
The event was earlier scheduled from March 10-13.
