Tyson Bull has wrapped up the 49th edition of the FIG Artistic World Championships finishing 7th in the world after competing in the Men’s Horizontal Bar final, resulting in being awarded an Olympic quota spot for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Having qualified in 7th place during the first round of competition, Bull had to wait six days before returning to the competition floor for the final.
Putting on a great performance, despite a fall in his first World Championship final against an incredibly talented field of competitors, Bull scored 13.200 in front of a packed Hanns Martin Schleyer Halle in Stuttgart, Germany.
Supported by team-mates and fellow Australian athletes in the crowd, Bull was humbled by the experience.
“Every single one of us were just trying to stay cool, calm and collected but the atmosphere was just awesome.”
“I decided to take a risk and up my difficulty going into the final. It was an incredibly strong group of athletes competing and in a World Championship final, I wanted to go and put it all out there.”
“I’m a bit disappointed. Training leading into this final, it had gone as smooth as it could have but that’s the nature of the beast.”
“But honestly, it’s been an incredible experience.”
Bull, who returned to Australia earlier this year having graduated from the University of Illinios to train at the Gymnastics Australia National Training Centre at the Australian Institute of Sport, has made great progress in the past months with strong performances across the World Cup circuit and now at World Championships.
National Performance Director Andrew Logan said that Bull had an incredibly difficult task in front of him.
“As the second last competitor, knowing the score he had to achieve, he had to increase his difficulty score and Tyson handled the pressure very well,” said Logan.
“Overall, we are very happy with the results and have no doubt this experience will help in Tyson’s preparation for the Olympics in 2020.”
With his eyes fixed firmly on the Tokyo Olympics in July next year, Bull will be returning to Canberra in the coming days before returning to training and preparation for 2020.
Bull's Olympic quota spot goes along side fellow Australian Gymnast Georgia Godwin who secured her place for Tokyo during the Women's All Around Final.
