Six Qatari gymnasts, four male and two female, will join an interesting international line-up that includes top Dutch gymnast Yuri van Gelder, a former world champion on Still Rings who is set to return to Doha after a five year break to defend his title against the Olympic Champion ZANETTI Arthur. The Olympic Champion in the Pommel Horse BERKI Krisztian from HUN will have also a strong competitors as the Multiple World medallist on Pommel Horse, Prashanth Sallathurai lines up for Australia, while China registers former Parallel Bars World Champion Wang Guanyin and Liao Qiuhua, who will defend his title on Still Rings at Aspire Dome.
Romania’s delegation includes London Olympian and Vault specialist Flavius Koczi as well as Youth Olympic Champion on Still Rings Andrei Vasile Muntean.
On the women’s side, we will see Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar, who helped Romania to their Olympic Bronze medal in London, Beijing Olympic Vault Champion Hong Un Jong (PRK), 2011 World Bronze medallist on Vault Thi Ha Thanh Phan of Vietnam and Switzerland’s Giulia Steingruber, who won the titles on Vault and Uneven Bars at the FIG World Cup in La Roche sur Yon (FRA).
As usual from the Qatari, the tournament, which is also held here since 2008 in the Aspire Dome, well prepared, included a small delay due to computer glitches.
China, UK, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands and Romania prove the organizers and their clients against their reference, albeit with quite differentiated offerings and profiles.
The upcoming Olympic hosts Brazil falls – as it did in Cottbus last weekend – on with a young and numerically strong line-up.
Otherwise this Challenge Cup is here especially for those countries meaning that want to promote the national artistic gymnastics, along with Brazil as including Vietnam (- there especially on floor and vault) or even Turkey.
Some countries use this spring event, also preparing for upcoming major competitions in their area (so the Mediterranean, like Egypt), to the formation of the team profile, but also to the expression of the individual performances.
The question remains why do just young gymnasts the long journey here, to maybe start just incomprehensibly on a device: you should rather use such occasions to stamp out their competition skills through more fights, like the example here do model the British, the go to all 6 devices!
For Results here
