Who Will Qualify to Worlds as a Specialist?

Rhys McClenaghan

Now that we know all of the teams and athletes that have qualified to this year’s world championships via the continental competitions held over the past couple of months, the only remaining piece of the puzzle is the athletes who will qualify to worlds through the world cup series, which concluded in April.

While the FIG hasn’t finalized the list of qualified athletes just yet, we’ve been tracking both the women’s rankings and the men’s rankings for each apparatus, and have a good idea of who we should expect to see in Antwerp.

As a reminder, the athletes are ranked on each apparatus using a point system that factors three of the four world cups into their overall series standings, and the top eight on each apparatus are eligible to qualify for worlds. This year, the majority of the standings were dominated by athletes who qualified individually or as part of teams, so not all apparatuses will field all eight spots based on the current standings. In this case, the FIG will likely redistribute points to exclude any qualified athletes, but for the purposes of this article, I’ll only include those who are currently ranked.

Women’s Vault Qualifiers

1. Oksana Chusovitina, Uzbekistan, 65
5. Darya Yassinskaya, Kazakhstan, 31
10. Agata Vostruchovaite, Lithuania, 26
14. Hillary Heron, Panama, 20
15. Nancy Taman, Egypt, 20
16. Nazanin Teymurova, Azerbaijan, 19
18. Bilge Tarhan, Türkiye, 18
25. Julie Erichsen, Norway, 10

A total of 44 gymnasts were ranked on vault, and while a significant number of the top competitors here qualified through other means, overall this is a very solid list of athletes who perform very well on this apparatus, even if not all of them are technically “vault specialists.”

Uneven Bars Qualifiers

2. Yelizaveta Hubareva, Ukraine, 52
16. Julie Erichsen, Norway, 15
19. Jana Mahmoud, Egypt, 14
33. Zarith Imaan Khalid, Malaysia, 7
37. Hillary Heron, Panama, 5
38. Magdalini Tsiori, Greece, 5

A total of 48 gymnasts were ranked on uneven bars, but with the majority of those qualifying elsewhere, it meant going to the very bottom of the rankings to find athletes who are eligible, and even then we’re only to come up with six out of the eight.

Additionally, none of these athletes are really “bars specialists” and just happened to qualify this way because they missed out on qualifying as all-arounders at continental meets, either because they weren’t able to do all four events at the time, or because they fell short of the cutoff. I’ve talked about this before, but with this same thing happening last year as well, I think the world cup series is proving that the FIG needs to return half of the world cup berths into all-around pools should they continue this qualification process going forward. WAG has traditionally been geared more toward all-around athletes than toward specialists, especially as the majority of apparatus medalists at major competitions tend to also be the strongest all-around athletes.

Balance Beam Qualifiers

21. Yelizaveta Hubareva, Ukraine, 16
24. Marie Rønbeck, Norway, 14
25. Marta Pihan-Kulesza, Poland, 12
26. Nazanin Teymurova, Azerbaijan, 12
33. Angel Wong Hiu Ying, Hong Kong, 8
39. Charlie Chan Cheuk Lam, Hong Kong, 5
40. Mariana Parente, Portugal, 4
42. Tina Zelcic, Croatia, 4

A total of 50 gymnasts were ranked on balance beam, and though the top 20 in the rankings here were all ineligible for world cup berths, we were still able to find eight athletes to fill the available spots. Again, I wouldn’t call most of these athletes “specialists” on this apparatus, but I was excited to see that two legends known largely for their beam work – Pihan-Kulesza and Wong – made the cut.

Women’s Floor Exercise Qualifiers 

3. Nazanin Teymurova, Azerbaijan, 32
20. Hillary Heron, Panama, 16
27. Elvira Katsali, Greece, 12
35. Tran Doan Quynh Nam, Vietnam, 7
48. Marie Rønbeck, Norway, 3
53. Darya Yassinskaya, Kazakhstan, 1

A total of 53 gymnasts were ranked on floor, and as with bars, we had to go all the way to the bottom of the rankings and were still unable to fill every spot, with just six of the ranked athletes eligible to qualify.

Also of note as we wrap up the women’s qualifiers is the trend of athletes who missed out as all-arounders qualifying on multiple apparatuses, including Teymurova and Heron on three events apiece. Both attempted to qualify as all-arounders at Euros and Pan Ams, respectively, but came slightly short of making it happen. It’s great that they were both able to find a way in, but since athletes who qualify via world cups are only eligible to compete the events on which they qualified, it means they will not have the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics in Antwerp.

Men’s Floor Exercise Qualifiers

3. Aurel Benovic, Croatia, 51
5. Eamon Montgomery, Ireland, 32
18. Dominick Cunningham, Ireland, 18
22. Filip Lidbeck, Sweden, 13
23. Kim Wanström, Sweden, 12
29. Neofytos Kyriakou, Cyprus, 8
31. Guilherme Campos, Portugal, 7
43. Enkhtuvshin Damdindorj, Mongolia, 3

A total of 49 gymnasts were ranked on floor, and though we had to go down to 43rd place to find eight eligible athletes, there were still two left over who can step in as reserves should it come to that. Generally, MAG is known for having a good number of true specialists in comparison to WAG, and some of the men ranked here are true specialists on this apparatus, but on some events we’re still seeing a good number of all-arounders get in this way if they were unable to qualify elsewhere.

Pommel Horse Qualifiers

2. Rhys McClenaghan, Ireland, 66
6. Shiao Yu-Jan, Taiwan, 41
7. Matvei Petrov, Albania, 38
9. Harutyun Merdinyan, Armenia, 26
18. Dmitrijs Mickevics, Latvia, 12
19. Radomir Sliz, Czechia, 11
20. Ahmad Abu Al Soud, Jordan, 11
22. Filip Ude, Croatia, 10

A total of 40 gymnasts were ranked on pommels, and I think this is an example of a fantastic group of specialists who all absolutely deserve to be at worlds to compete on this apparatus. All three medalists at last year’s world championships – champion McClenaghan, silver medalist Abu Al Soud, and bronze medalist Merdinyan – are represented here, while nearly everyone else has worlds final potential, and this is one of the cases where I’m glad there are eight berths available.

Still Rings Qualifiers

1. Nikita Simonov, Azerbaijan, 80
2. Mahdi Ahmad Kohani, Iran, 64
3. Artur Avetisyan, Armenia, 58
4. Vinzenz Höck, Austria, 42
6. Eleftherios Petrounias, Greece, 35
9. Vahagn Davtyan, Armenia, 30
10. Nguyen Van Khanh Phong, Vietnam, 30
11. Sokratis Pilakouris, Cyprus, 26

A total of 36 gymnasts were ranked on rings, and WHAT A LIST THIS ONE IS! Only going down to 11th place to find eight eligible athletes is incredible given the challenges to fill spots on other events, and so many of the specialists here are absolute legends on this apparatus, with all capable of qualifying to a major international final.

Men’s Vault Qualifiers

2. Shek Wai Hung, Hong Kong, 58
4. Mahdi Olfati, Iran, 53
5. Tseng Wei-Sheng, Taiwan, 34
6. Ondrej Kalny, Czechia, 31
9. Dominick Cunningham, Ireland, 26
10. Aurel Benovic, Croatia, 26
14. Trinh Hai Khang, Vietnam, 19
22. Juancho Miguel Besana, Philippines, 10

A total of 41 gymnasts were ranked on vault, and this is another list of excellent specialists I’m very happy to see make it. Even the all-arounders represented – like Cunningham – truly excel here, and could be considered specialists if they decided to drop other events, making this an impressive mix of talented guys who could all have the opportunity for success at worlds.

Parallel Bars Qualifiers

33. Ahmed Riadh Aliouat, Algeria, 6
40. David Rumbutis, Sweden, 3

A total of 47 gymnasts were ranked on p-bars, yet 45 of these athletes qualified individually or as part of a team, leaving only two lower-ranked athletes eligible to qualify to worlds. This is the most outrageous world cup berth situation, especially after looking at pommels, rings, and vault, and it makes me wonder if the FIG will be able to find eight eligible athletes even after redistributing all of the points?

High Bar Qualifiers

4. Tin Srbic, Croatia, 47
24. Ivan Dejanovic, Serbia, 10
27. Marios Georgiou, Cyprus, 8
29. Neofytos Kyriakou, Cyprus, 7
36. Karl Idesjö, Sweden, 5
38. Mohammadreza Hamidi, Iran, 3
41. Lin Guan-Yi, Taiwan, 3
44. Juancho Miguel Besana, Philippines, 2

A total of 47 gymnasts were ranked on high bar, and while many of the athletes who ended up qualifying aren’t necessarily known as being specialists on this apparatus, it’s still a relatively strong group overall.

Final Takeaways

Four MAG programs that didn’t qualify as teams will still be able to compete with the maximum number of individual athletes at worlds, including:

• Armenia – three specialists (Merdinyan on pommels, Avetisyan and Davtyan on rings), two all-arounders (Artur Davtyan and Gagik Khachikyan)
• Cyprus – three specialists (Kyriakou on floor and high bar, Pilakouris on rings, Georgiou on high bar), two all-arounders (Ilias Georgiou and Michalis Chari)
• Sweden – four specialists (Lidbeck and Wanström on floor, Rumbutis on p-bars, Idesjö on high bar), one all-arounder (Marcus Stenberg)
• Taiwan – three specialists (Shiao on pommels, Tseng on vault, Lin on high bar), two all-arounders (Yeh Cheng and Lee Chih-Kai)

While no WAG programs will max out on taking a total of five athletes to worlds, a couple of programs are bringing four, including:

• Egypt – two specialists (Taman on vault, Mahmoud on bars), two all-arounders (Jana Abdelsalam and Sandra Elsadek)
• Norway – two specialists (Erichsen on vault and bars, Rønbeck on beam and floor), two all-arounders (Maria Tronrud and Mari Kanter)

Article by Lauren Hopkins

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By: Lauren
Title: Who Will Qualify to Worlds as a Specialist?
Sourced From: thegymter.net/2023/06/23/who-will-qualify-to-worlds-as-a-specialist/
Published Date: Sat, 24 Jun 2023 00:21:24 +0000