Category: Gymnastics

I watched 4 training sessions over 13 hours. Four of these 8 will qualify a full team to the Rio Olympics:

Australia
Belgium
Brazil
France
Germany
Romania
South Korea
Switzerland

4for4.info crunched numbers concluding that the teams with the top scoring potential are Brazil, Germany, Romania and France.

After watching training (crunching no numbers) I’d concur that Brazil could score highest. They have Rebeca Andrade back. Home court advantage. And 3-4 DTYs on Vault.

Winning teams most often have a mix of newcomers and experienced veterans. Like Brazil.

Romania MUST qualify a full team. How could you have an Olympics without Romania?

If they hit Bars reasonably well first rotation, first flight of 4, ROM will qualify.

France impressed me. They looked well prepared. As did Germany and Belgium.

Many assume Australia has had too many injuries to get through. Don’t underestimate Aussies. 🙂

Those 4 teams are fighting for two qualifying spots, in my opinion. E score may end up being more important than D score this time. The first rule of Test Meet = Don’t Fall.

Individual competitors

There are between 31-33 AA Olympic spots available not counting those who’ve qualified with a team, Continental and Tripartite selections.

Oksana Chusovitina should be given automatic qualification. In her 7th Olympics, Chuso will be one of the bigger news stories in Rio. 🙂

That leaves 30-32 spots for the top AA gymnasts from this Test Event.

Jessica López (Venezuela) looks very likely to qualify to her 3rd Olympics here, for example.

(Gymnasts who earn a spot at the Olympics then must convince their National Olympic Associations to send them. Canada – for example – only very reluctantly sent Kyle Shewfelt to the 2000 Olympics because he wasn’t good enough. He won a Gold medal 4 years later.)

Click PLAY or watch the FIG Olympic selection process on YouTube.

In addition we have many top gymnasts here for the experience: China (Zhang Jin, Gong Kangyi), Great Britain: (Gabby Jupp, Becky Downie), Canada (Isabela Onyshko, Victoria-Kayen Woo), etc. Their teams have already qualified.

Last word. Dipa’s Handspring double front looked quite good in podium training. Not scary. Perhaps the best we’ve seen on to competition mats since Produnova.

related – D-Day for gymnasts at final qualifier for Rio 2016 Olympic Games

Courtney took the Bronze medal on Vault at Pac Rim.

Then directly flew to Brazil.

Courtney: ”It’s great to be here in Rio competing with some of the best athletes in the world”.

… Without a team place for New Zealand the only opportunity to gain an individual place for Rio is through the Olympic test event, but she needs to be on her game.

… the biggest hurdle is still the New Zealand Olympic Committee criteria as McGregor qualified easily through to the test event and the estimated score needed to gain that FIG quota place for Rio is approx 51.00.

McGregor has bettered this at the worlds and at the Pacific Rim championships scored 53.55, her best ever internationally. However it is not the all around score NZOC are looking for – they require a top 16 finish.

She competes on Sunday in Rio and will not know until mid May whether she has achieved her Olympic dream.

Meanwhile, a college scholarship awaits her at Boise State University in Idaho. She signed her letter of intent last year and intends to do summer school in May.

Stuff – Christchurch gymnast Courtney McGregor wins bronze before Olympic test event

So far, so good.

Coach Mary Wright yesterday reported Courtney ahead of their projected training goals after 3 sessions in Rio.

Podium training for Courtney today.

UPDATE – For you every-4-years Gymnastics fans, Courtney does not actually compete Pommels. 🙂

Thanks Avril.

Not many have predicted Australia to qualify a full team to the Olympics.

They’ve had problems. Injuries. Two competitions back-to-back.

But I doubt any team trains harder than the Aussies. They are fierce. These girls could do it.

Georgia Rose-Brown (173cm) should be nominated for some sort of Elegance award. She’s stunning.

Women’s competition starts Sunday.

Schedule.

I’ll be tweeting LIVE @GymCoaching.

FIG mini-site | Olympic site

Final places for the 2016 Olympic Games in play at the Test Event April 16-22 in Rio