As much of the sports world goes dark in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the International Olympic Committee looks to be the outlier. It has insisted for weeks, and continues to do so, that it plans to go ahead with the Olympics and Paralympics as scheduled.
“The International Olympic Committee confirms its full commitment to the success of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020,” IOC president Thomas Bach said Thursday …
… there are still 19 weeks until the Tokyo Olympics …
There’s no telling what conditions will be like in July. Or even late May, which is when the IOC would have to make the call …
Category: Olympics
Stuttgart World Cup cancelled
Here’s the FIG announcement.
We can anticipate the Tokyo World Cup being cancelled, as well.
FIG Olympic qualification process under review
As expected, if some of the top contenders cannot compete the qualifying World Cups, alternative ways to qualify to Tokyo should be considered.
Adding MORE athletes would be wonderful. I suspect this will end up not being the way the remaining spots are decided.
11-year-old qualifies to Olympics
At just 11 years old, Syrian table tennis whiz Hend Zaza is poised to be the youngest competitor at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Unsurprisingly, she will go down in history as one of the youngest Olympians of all time. …
Morgan, Angelina, Chen Yile – episode 8
Click PLAY or watch a teaser on YouTube.
https://twitter.com/gymnastics/status/1235699703465078784
You can watch the entire episode here.
I often have trouble getting those videos to play.
Russia withdraws from World Cups – FIG must respond
Nikita Nagornyy and Lilia Akhaimova who were supposed to represent Russia at the American Cup on March, 7 have announced on their Instagram accounts that Russia will withdraw from the competition due to coronavirus fears. …
Earlier, Angelina Melnikova was not allowed by the national team to participate in a Serie A competition in Italy. …
Valentina Rodionenko officially confirmed that Russian gymnasts also withdrew from the Tokyo World Cup. …
Chinese gymnasts were not allowed into Australia to compete the Melbourne World Cup. Iranian gymnasts did get in.
Certainly the World Cup Olympic qualification system is blown out of the water. FIG must revisit the qualification system and make a decision on alternatives.
https://twitter.com/russiangymstan/status/1233356796791836677
https://twitter.com/LubaBaladzhaeva/status/1233379596118171651
USA MAG international assignments
If you (like me) are still confused about American assignments following Winter Cup, those were decided by MPC on Saturday, February 22st.
In the minutes the stated objective of the AA World Cups is to “earn +1 for Olympic Games with top 3 finish cumulative results from American Cup, Stuttgart, Birmingham and Tokyo Cup.”
Motion: Assign Shane Wiskus to Wild Card position at American Cup (with Sam Mikulak)
… Assign Yul Moldauer to Stuttgart AA World Cup.
Assign Brody Malone to Birmingham World Cup.
Assign Sam Mikulak to Tokyo Cup.
Read the minutes.
That decision was unanimous.
Apparently there were no updated, published documents giving direction to the committee, a big oversight on the part of USAG MPC.
Poor planning.
Very poor communication.
Fixing this should be job #1 for new USAG Men’s Vice President Jason Woodnick.
As USAG has declined to comment on the issue publicly, the best coverage I’ve heard was by Kensley Behel on GymCastic podcast episode 413.
Kensley attended Winter Cup and has been in direct communication with USAG.
Urara Ashikawa – Beam
Ashikawa is the first gymnast to get a second world cup beam win in the 2018-2020 series! One more win and the series is hers.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
U.S. Men’s National Team named
USAG named those who will contend for the 2020 Olympic team.
I was wrong on that. As Dave points out:
The US National Team will be reformed at the National Championships this summer, and that will be the group that moves on to Olympic Trials.
Winter Cup AA champions were based on night 1 results only this year.
1. Sam Mikulak
2. Shane Wiskus
3. Brody Malone
Senior Apparatus winners:
FX: Gage Dyer
PH: Alec Yoder
SR: Alex Diab
VT: Yul Moldauer
PB: Sam Mikulak
HB: Colin Van Wicklen
Click PLAY or watch Sam on YouTube.
Melbourne World Cup FINALS day 2
Beam
G Urara Ashikawa JPN 13.3
S Ondine Achampong GBR 13.166
B Anastasia Bachynska UKR 12.933
Coach Denis Vachon said Ashikawa did 7-8 perfect routines in warm-up.
Floor
G Jade Carey USA 14.366
S Vanessa Ferrari ITA 13.7
B Lara Mori ITA 12.9
Click PLAY or watch Jade’s Floor on Twitter.
Click PLAY or watch Vanessa on Twitter. Now age-29, she looks in fantastic shape.
Vault
G Shin Jeahwan KOR 14.866
S Jorge Vega Lopez GUA 14.783
B Andrey Medvedev ISR 14.55
P Bars
G Vladislav Poliashov RUS 15.2
S Yusuke Tanaka JPN 15.166
B Dinh Phuong Thanh 14.933
Click PLAY or watch it on Twitter.
H Bar
G Epke Zonderland NED 14.9
S Milad Karimi KAZ 14.5
B Mitchell Morgans AUS 14.233
Miyachi, Epke’s main competitor for the Olympic spot, fell.
Reports are that Miyachi congratulated Epke on winning the spot. And will not contend in Baku or Doha.
Click PLAY or watch Epke on Twitter.
Read Blythe’s LIVE blog.
Read Lauren’s LIVE blog.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 