Women's Artistic

Sunday was a tough day for Australia at the World Championships, where the Women’s Artistic team fell agonisingly short of qualifying for next year’s Games, finishing 13th – just one position and a mere 1.076 points short of the 12th place required for automatic entry to the Games.

Godwin’s individual All-Around score of 53.331 was good enough for her to earn a spot in the Stuttgart final on Thursday.

Head Coach Mihai Brestyan was disappointed with the team’s result and reflected on the Stuttgart event.

“Obviously we are all very disappointed on missing out on earning a team place at the Olympics next year, especially by just one position,” Brestyan said.

“The main aim for all of the athletes, coaches and the rest of the support team was to finish in the top 12 and unfortunately we had a couple of mistakes and were not able to achieve that.

“There has been improvement from the last world championships, with the team finishing five points better than last year and only missing out by one place. 

“It does not change the result but the big improvement in the score is at least something.” 

The WAG Team of Godwin, Georgia-Rose Brown, Emma Nedov, Kate McDonald and Talia Folino competed in the first session of the two-day qualification process and then had to wait 36 hours to see if their score of 157.945 was good enough to claim the needed top 12 position.

Positively, the team’s performance was a five-point increase from the 2018 World Championships and Godwin was pleased to qualify for the Stuttgart All-Around final.

Opportunities still exist for Australia to qualify further individual Olympic quota positions at the through the World Cup series and the Oceania Continental Championships in April.

Georgia Godwin’s WAG All-Around Final will be broadcast live on Fox Sports and Kayo from 1am AEDT Friday.

Men's Artistic

Gymnastics Australia’s Tyson Bull has claimed a place in the Horizontal Bar final and has earnt an Olympic quota spot allocation by qualifying seventh in a field of 199 gymnasts at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.

Read the recap HERE.

Trampoline

Australia has won silver and bronze at the Trampoline World Cup in Valladolid, Spain. 2018 Youth Olympic Games silver medallist Jessica Pickering teamed up with Lauren Sampson to win silver in the Synchro Women's Final with a score of 47.560. Ukraine's Maryna Kyiko and Svitlana Malkova won gold with a total of 49.270.

On the Tumbling track with two strong passes, Blake Grainger won bronze with a score of 71.600 in the Men's Tumbling Final, behind Russians Vadim Afanasev (78.200) and Denmark's Rasmus Steffensen (75.600). Aussie teammate Ethan McGuinness finished fifth on 70.800

Rhythmic

Australia was represented by three of its National Squad members in Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva, Lidiia Iakovleva and Ashari Gill in the 37th FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan last month.

Overall, the team had great success and displayed some incredible routines receiving some of Australia’s best ever international scores. For Iakovleva, her Clubs routine was one of the highlights for Team Australia. 

“My favourite moment of the World Championships was definitely completing my Clubs routine and receiving a personal best of 17.700.

“This was the highest score any individual Australian Rhythmic gymnast has received at a World Championship or FIG Competition under the new Code of Points.

“As my expectations were only to surpass the mark of 16.000, I was delighted to receive such score and this allowed me to end the 2019 on a real high note, providing me with great confidences in my skills and ability and to further improve and achieve better personal best results in coming years.”

On the first day of competition, Hoop was the first apparatus that saw Kiroi-Bogatreva receive 15.250 and Iakovleva with 14.600 the following day saw Team Australia only improve their performances. Kiroi-Bogatyreva received an incredibly high score for her Ball routine with 17.250 while Iakovleva also impressed with 16.550. 

Day three welcomed Gill to the competition floor for the first time with her Clubs routine, Gill received a score of 13.350. While Kiroi-Bogatyreva received a spectacular score of 17.450 impressing many in the crowd. The final day of competition for Australia involved all three athletes performing their Ribbon routines. Kiroi-Bogatyreva (16.050), Gill (13.650) and Iakovleva (11.700).

With the 2019 competition season finished for these gymnasts, they are all looking on towards what’s next for them.

“Number one task is catching up on school work as I have year 12 final exams to prepare for,” Kiroi-Bogatyreva said.

“In the gym it will be work, work and more work. Of course a little rest to recharge mentally and physically, but in reality we never stop working towards our goals if you want to achieve them. Entering a final year of Olympic cycle, my key priority will be to prepare for the Continental Championship and Olympics qualification.”

After these fantastic results at the World Championships it was announced by the International Federation of Gymnastics that Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva qualified for the World Games in 2021 and in addition to this Lidiia Iakovleva was named the reserve. 

With no World Championships in 2020, the Australian Rhythmic gymnasts now switch their focus onto the Road to Tokyo. 

Gymnastics Australia