The World Cup circuit kicks off a pre-Olympic year for gymnastics heading to Paris 2024

The World Cup circuit of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has established itself over the years as a stage for gymnasts to regularly face each other. Especially used by athletes from countries without much internal competition, these competitions became the ideal context for gaining experience, refining performances, testing new elements and, in general, measuring themselves among the world’s elite. Great gymnasts have made a name for themselves through their performances at World Cups, such as the Olympic champion on the ground, the Israeli Artem Dolgopyat, and the world champion in balance beam in 2021, the Japanese Ashikawa Urara.

The World Cup series of trampoline gymnastics, the latest variant of gymnastics added to the Olympic program, launches this weekend in Baku with the first of its five events. Then it will be the turn of artistic gymnastics, which will have the first of the four World Cups by Apparatus in Cottbus, Germany, from February 23 to 26. For its part, rhythmic gymnastics will continue its path to Paris 2024 from March at Palacio Faliro, Greece.

In addition to competitive shooting, gymnasts accumulate points for a ranking that, although it has international prestige, does not accurately represent the ranking of the best in the discipline, since it depends a lot on who chooses to participate in the Cups or on which gymnasts each country sends according to its planning. Those who lead that ranking, generally based on their three best performances and four in the case of springboard, obtain the title of circuit champion.

In the case of artistic gymnastics, its device circuit offers an opportunity for specialists in each event to qualify for the 2023 World Championship in Antwerp, where they can compete for an Olympic place in the finals of their favorite device. And for springboard gymnastics, the 2023 and 2024 World Cup seasons are part of the Olympic qualification route for Paris 2024.

The first Artistic Gymnastics World Cup of the year will be in Cottbus, Germany, and begins next week. Its list of confirmed participants combines some of the sports legends with younger and growing competitors. In the men’s category, the 2022 world champion of pommel horse, the Irish Rhys McClenaghan, will be one of the figures of the event along with the three jumping medalists of the last Liverpool World Cup, the Armenian Artur Davtyan, the Filipino Carlos Yulo and the Ukrainian Igor Radivilov. There are also several confirmed Olympians on the list, including Tokyo 2020 medalists Artem Dologpyat, Lee Chih-Kai, Kaya Kazuma, Shin Jeahwan, Ferhat Arican and Eleftherios Petrounias.

On the women’s side, the big figure will be the eight-time Olympian Oksana Chusovitina, currently representing Uzbekistan, who needs to gain a foothold in jumping, her strongest device, to reach her ninth Olympic Games in Paris 2024. Italy will send an excellent team and it will also be interesting to see the return of the world champion of balance beam in 2021, Ashikawa Urara, who did not compete internationally last year. After Cottbus, the circuit will move to Doha, pass through Baku and end in Cairo.

Around 60 gymnasts from 16 countries are already in Baku for the real kick-off of the season, which will be the springboard gymnastics competition this weekend. As is often the case in this discipline, the tournament involves all types of competition -individual, synchronized, tumbling and double mini Trump-, but only the individual springboard is the one that appears in the Olympic program. After being world runner-up in 2022, Frenchman Allan Morante will be one of the figures in Baku, focused on reaching the Olympic Games in his best version, where he will be local. Among the confirmed women are world finalists Melania Rodríguez, Jessica Stevens and Camilla Gomes; and it will be an excellent opportunity for 19-year-old Azerbaijani Seljan Mahsudova, the only participant from the host country, who has Olympic aspirations after being a semifinalist in her first World Championship last year.

The rhythmic gymnastics World Cup circuit will be the last to start. The first date is scheduled for March 17 at Palacio Faliro, Greece. With stops in Sofia, Tashkent and Baku, the season will end in Milan at the end of July and then give way to the World Championship in Valencia, where 14 individual Olympic places and five for teams will be awarded.