Australian Gymnasts To Grab Olympic Berths at the Test Event

Not since 1988 that Australia has been unsuccessful in qualifying a female gymnastics team to an Olympic Games – a situation which the latest batch of stars will prevent from happening this weekend.

The Australian women’s artistic gymnastics team will compete at the Aquece Rio Test event which will start this Saturday night (AEST). The Australian team needs to be included in the top four spot in order to acquire an Olympic berth.

The Australian artistic team has only accomplished to get into the top 14th spot at the previous World Championships, failing to acquire the Olympic qualification as it requires a top-eight finish.

Nevertheless, the result was good enough to receive an invite to the Rio test event, which will take place at the same venue as the Summer Olympic Games in August. Teams who finished at the top 9th to 16th has earned the invite for the test event.

Trying to preserve almost thirty years of tradition, Australian national team coach Peggy Liddick feels that the pressure is on, but she doesn’t want to put the burden on her young team.

"My superiors remind me of it every single day," Liddick told AAP of Australia's strong history at the Games.

"But it's not fair for me to put that undue pressure on the team.

"I'm really consciously trying not to coach by intimidation.

"It's a real delicate balance between going in confidently and doing our job and yet not having them be so afraid of not qualifying that they strangle their own performance."

Last week, Australia has participated at the Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships in good form, wherein they managed to acquire the third spot in the team event.

They finished the competition ahead of Japan – who took the sixth spot at the World Championships – winning them the bronze medal.

The former world champion Lauren Mitchell is still on the road to recovery from a knee injury and beam specialist Mary-Anne Monckton’s year ruined by a knee reconstruction, Liddick is preparing a brand new team to Rio.

Georgia-Rose Brown, Emma Nedov and Kiara Munteanu – who acquired the sixth spot in the all-around event last week in Seattle – are anticipated to partake in the all-around with Emily Little, Larissa Miller and Rianna Mizzen to complete the team.

Artistic gymnast Michael Mercieca and trampoline gymnast Blake Gaudry will also participate in the competition in hopes that they will acquire a qualification for the Olympic Games.

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Whitlock and Skinner Took Home Glasgow World Cup Titles

English Artistic gymnast Max Whitlock and U.S. artistic gymnast Mykayla Skinner have become victorious at the recently held Glasgow World Cup last weekend. The victory they achieved in the said competition will give them a leg up on their journey to Rio Olympics. 

MyKayla, a former member of the gold medal winning American team at the 2014 Nanning World Championships and an alternate to the USA team in the 2015 World Championships, performed a clean Amanar Vault to easily get ahead of the competition, taking the lead by more than a point after the first rotation.

Despite not achieving top scores on any other event, she did execute a new floor routine punctuated by her signature difficult tumbling, which involves a Moors (double-twisting double layout), the most challenging routine in the Women’s artistic gymnastics. The score she gained from the Amanar skill was proved impossible to be surpassed by her competitors, earning the American gymnast her first All-around World Cup competition title. 

While Skinner was ahead in position from the beginning, the silver medalist -- German artistic gymnast Elisabeth Seitz started slowly in the vault event, but regained her momentum on the Uneven bars, her best event, achieving the highest score of the day on the said apparatus. Seitz, who secured the 10th place at the all around event of the 2015 World Championships, remained consistent on the beam and floor to catch the silver medal.

Claudia Fragapane, an artistic gymnast competing for Great Britain, posted the highest scores on the beam and floor exercise to achieve the bronze medal. However, she lost the chance to win a shinier medal after committing a mistake on the uneven bars event.

“I feel really pleased overall, first competition of the year with a few improvements to make but happy with where I am at this stage. There’s still more I can add in and work on with a big year ahead so I’ll talk with my coach and continue to train hard. The crowd were brilliant and make it so much fun to compete.” Fragapane stated.

If MyKayla’s 1.2 pts margin of victory was already remarkable, the English artistic gymnast Max Whitlock’s margin of victory was even more impressive. In the men’s competition, Whitlock displayed his dominance after finishing more than two and a half points ahead of the silver medalist Arthur Nory Mariano, which means that Whitlock could’ve made a mistake twice and will still win the competition regardless. Just like MyKayla, the 23-year-old English gymnast set himself in a firm position by earning best marks early in the competition, while also avoiding mishaps in the other events to successfully grab the title. 

"I'm starting to really enjoy competing in Glasgow," said Whitlock, the first-ever male British gymnast to win a gold medal at the World Championships. “My target was to do clean routines across all six pieces in my first Glasgow World Cup so I’m really happy. There’s plenty more competitions coming up quickly now and we all know what’s at stake with Rio the final aim, so to start off this way with World Cup gold is a great feeling.”

British gymnast Daniel Purvis had a hard time in the Pommel event, but he still managed to earn the bronze medal due to his consistent performances on the other events.

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USA Gymnast Simone Biles Aims for Olympic Gold

Simone’s mother, Nellie Biles, always knew where to find Simone whenever her daughter is missing. If 6-year-old Simone wasn’t performing back flips on their backyard, she probably might be playing on the trampoline with her two older brothers. There was even a moment that Simone ventured into their front yard – and believing that her parents wasn’t watching through their office window – she climbed the 4-foot mailbox and performed back tuck onto the grass below.

“Simone was a daring girl; she would do anything,” her mother, Nellie says. “If her brothers told her she couldn’t do something or challenged her, she would prove to them that she could.”

Twelve years later, Simone Biles -- now 18 years old -- still have a prosperous career as a professional gymnast. In August, she has once again emerged as the top U.S. gymnast after winning a third-consecutive national gymnastics title. Following that event, she had also won her third consecutive world gymnastics championship title, making her the first female gymnast to win three consecutive world titles.

However, despite all the success that has come across her way, the 4’8 ft teen gymnast is still far from the end of her journey. Next summer, Biles will fly to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she will compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics to win another all-around gymnastics title. Being able to do so would fulfill her childhood dream and would solidify her place as the most successful gymnast in the U.S. sports history.

When Simone Biles was young, she had an unexpected opportunity to show off her skills in public.

Due to a bad weather, Simone’s daycare cancelled their field trip to a farm, and they visited a local gymnastics gym instead. After watching the athletes perform gymnastics stunts, Simone fearlessly (and flawlessly) started to imitate the older athletes she had been watching.

The coaches that were watching was impressed with Simone’s ability, and just a week later, her gymnastics career officially began.

“At a very young age, Simone had endless energy from the time she woke up to when she would go to bed,” Nellie says. “She loved life, period.”

Biles have adapted quickly to the gym. At the beginning, Simone Biles had been training for 16 hours per week, and each year she progressively added hours to her training schedule. Even as her training has increased in difficulty, she has still maintained her lively and bubbly attitude, focusing on all of the positives that would arise from all of her hard work in the gym. 

“At times the lifestyle was overwhelming,” Biles said. “But I knew that’s what I needed to do to get better and achieve my goals.”

Years later, the American artistic gymnast has improved and grew physically stronger. Soon enough, she was already performing some of the most difficult skills in gymnastics. 

Biles’s skill level was pretty outstanding, already making a quite good impression on two gymnastics legends – Former Olympic all-around champion Mary Lou Retton and Former Olympian Shannon Miller. Retton said that Biles was “the most talented gymnast” she had ever witnessed, recognizing her as “unbeatable.”. Miller agreed and said, “Simone is the one everyone is trying to catch up with,”. “She takes these very intricate, demanding skills and makes them look so incredibly easy.”

“Simone is able to go seamlessly from the power event, like vault or floor,” Miller said. “And then stay on that four-inch wide beam and be completely steady.”

“The skills Simone is performing are mind-boggling,” says Miller. “Every four years, we think this is it. You can’t add another flip, you can’t add another twist, and then they do. Simone is spearheading that right now.”

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China Takes Over the Odense World Trampoline Championships

China proved their dominance in the 2015 World Championships in Odense, Denmark after taking home the available World titles in Men’s and Women’s Individual Trampoline finals, allowing them to move forward to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next year.

Men’s Trampoline: Gao Lei dominated the World Championships

The 2016 Rio Summer Olympics is just nine months away from now, and the Trampoline Gymnastics has found its new prince – Gao Lei. He finally escaped the shadows of his teammates Dong Dong, the defending Olympic champion, and Tu Xiao, the former World Champion, as he claimed his first World individual title last Sunday, making himself the new Olympic favorite.

To prove her superiority in the sport, Gao had to defeat his compatriots first before being allowed to take on the world. At the World Championships in Odense, Gao had already won a major battle after surpassing his teammates, Dong and Tu, in the qualification rounds. In the individual event finals, the 23-year-old Chinese gymnast flawlessly performed a routine that comprises of six triple saltos, earning himself a World gold medal. 

After turning his third-place finish in the 2014 World Championships into a second-place finish this year, Belarusian gymnast Uladzilau Hancharou proved himself to be a worthy opponent for the Olympics next year. Hancharou, a 19-year old gymnast who will turn 20 tomorrow (December 2), finished just 0.035 points ahead of the bronze medalist Andrey Yudin. The battle for the world titles was very tight, with the fourth and fifth placer Masaki Ito and Dmitry Ushakov both less than half of a point behind the silver medalist Hancharou.

Women's Trampoline: Li Dan makes a podium comeback

China’s 27-year-old trampoline gymnast Li Dan has got through the highs and lows of a long international career and is once again a World Champion, five years after claiming her 2010 World Championships individual gold medal

The Chinese gymnast endured the pressure of having to perform last in the Women’s individual event finals, but still managed to execute a wonderful performance that showcased her remarkable talent, something she rarely does in an international competition. Li Dan’s magnificent and complicated routine was enough to surpass her teammate, Liu Lingling – the former World Champion – who executed a less complicated yet dazzling routine. 

Meanwhile, Belarusian gymnast Tatsiana Piatrenia kicked the reigning Olympic champion Rosannagh Maclennan out of the podium to win her first-ever individual World title since 12 years ago.

China’s Olympic Champions Dethroned

Neither Dong Dong, the Olympic Champion in the 2012 Summer Games nor He Wenna, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist, has been able to make it past the semi-final round of the Odense Championships, which was a surprise for Chinese gymnast Dong, who has always been on top of the podium at every international competition since 2007.

Dong, considered as the most successful trampoline athlete since the legendary Olympic trampoline champion Alexander Moskalenko, was overshadowed by the remarkable displays of his younger teammates, who advanced to the two-per-country finals ahead of him.

Meanwhile, He Wenna, has failed to finish her performance after hitting the trampoline padding.

First countries qualify for the Rio Olympic Games

In the Men’s competition, Japan, Russia and China have successfully earned two Olympic places in Odense for the Rio Olympic Games next year, while Belarus and France earned one Olympic spot each. In the Women’s competition, China, Great Britain and Belarus each earned two Olympic berth for their country.

Numerous other countries will fight for an Olympic spot at the Olympic Test Event in Rio de Janeiro next April. In total, 16 men and 16 women will participate in the Trampoline portion of the Olympic Games.

The biggest sporting event on the globe, the 2016 Rio Olympic Games will take place in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on August 5-21, 2016. 

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