The bronze medal won by Yesenia Ferrera at the Gymnastics World Cup in Cottbus, Germany, has fans dreaming of another Cuban athlete in Tokyo 2020.
For the first time, gymnasts will be able to qualify directly for the Olympic Games through the World Cup series, which began a year ago in this German city, and continued with stops in Melbourne, Australia; Baku, Azerbaijan; and Doha, Qatar, in the spring of 2019. The circuit was resumed with this edition of the tournament in Germany and will conclude in March of 2020, in Doha.
Each individual apparatus competition awards between 30 and five points to the first 12 gymnasts during the eight meets, with the three best scores of each competitor taken into account. In this way, the winner in each event will qualify, making for a total of ten, six men and four women.
Athletes who contributed to their country's team's qualification for Tokyo 2020 at the world championships in Doha 2018 and Stuttgart 2019, as well as those who qualified individually, are not eligible for this alternative option.
To date, Yesenia Ferrera is sixteenth in the vault with 20 points awarded for her recent bronze metal; while Randy Lerú is eighth with 32 points in the horizontal bar, won in Doha (20) and Cottbus (12).
Manrique Larduet and Marcia Videaux secured their Olympic spots at the World Championship in Stuttgart, occupying twelfth and fourth place, respectively. The summer event will host 98 athletes in both sexes, with a maximum of six competitors per nation, of which only four will be able to participate in the team event. The remaining spots are won at continental tournaments.
The qualified teams in the women's division are the United States, Russia, China, France, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Japan, and Spain; and in the men's: Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the United States, Chinese Taipei, South Korea, Brazil, Spain, and Germany.
The World Cup series continues with stops in Melbourne (20-23 February), Baku (12-15 March) and Doha (18-21 March).
