Eleftherios Petrounias
The final of four apparatus world cups wraps up in Cairo this weekend, but while the finale will determine the overall series champions on each event, athletes hoping to qualify to world championships as specialists will have to wait until all continental championships are complete before they’ll find out if they’re getting a ticket to Antwerp.
Six athletes currently leading in the series are expected to compete in Cairo, including Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan (vault) and Anna Lashchevska of Ukraine (beam) on the women’s side, and Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan (floor), Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan (pommel horse), Artur Davtyan of Armenia (vault), and Illia Kovtun of Ukraine (parallel bars) on the men’s, and there are a number of athletes poised to take over the top spots on several events, especially in the men’s competition.
One of the most crucial performances here will come from Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece, who has only attended one world cup so far, and while he could be pretty well-positioned to stay within the top eight with his current total of 30 points, another win here boosting him to 60 points will guarantee him a spot at worlds. After missing the entirety of the world cup season in 2022, Petrounias wasn’t eligible to compete in Liverpool despite winning the rings title at Euros, so I’m glad he’s back on track for world domination once again…and as an added adorable bonus, he’ll get to compete in Cairo alongside his wife, the legendary Vasiliki Millousi, who make her return to international competition at Euros after nearly five years – and two children! – away.
Also exciting here will be the world cup debut of Joscelyn Roberson of the United States. Roberson finally made her international debut at the DTB Pokal Team Challenge in March, where she posted the top all-around score in addition to winning the gold medal on vault and the silver on floor. Roberson will compete all four events in Cairo, and while she won’t need this meet to make it to worlds the way others competing here will, a strong showing could make an impression on the national team staff and will be great experience as she works toward earning a spot on the U.S. worlds team.
Qualifications begin tomorrow, April 27, and continue on Friday the 28th, with finals taking place over the weekend. Start lists and live scoring links are available here, and any potential streams will likely show up on Sport Lens TV, though nothing is confirmed as of right now.
A full list of competitors expected is below.
| ALGERIA | |
| Ahmed Riadh Aliouat Houssem Eddine Hamadouche Hillal Metidji |
Sihem Hamidi Malek Rezagui Rihab Sidra Sedhane |
| ARMENIA | |
| Artur Avetisyan Artur Davtyan Gagik Khachikyan Harutyun Merdinyan |
|
| AUSTRIA | |
| Ricardo Rudy | Jasmin Mader Charlize Mörz |
| AZERBAIJAN | |
| Nikita Simonov Ivan Tikhonov |
Samira Gahramanova Nazanin Teymurova |
| BELGIUM | |
| Glen Cuyle Nicola Cuyle Maxime Gentges Luka van den Keybus Noah Kuavita |
Margaux Dandois Alice Francoy Erika Pinxten |
| CANADA | |
| Jessica Dowling Ava Stewart |
|
| CROATIA | |
| Aurel Benovic Marko Jovicic Marko Sambolec Filip Ude |
|
| CYPRUS | |
| Michalis Chari Marios Georgiou Neofytos Kyriakou Sokratis Pilakouris |
|
| CZECHIA | |
| Ondrej Kalny Radomir Sliz |
Sabina Halova Patricie Makovickova Lucie Trnkova |
| DENMARK | |
| Camille Rasmussen | |
| EGYPT | |
| Abdelrahman Abdelhaleem Ahmed Abdelrahman Mohamed Afify Ahmed El Maraghy Zaid Khater Omar Mohamed Ali Zahran |
Jana Abdelsalam Nada Awad Farida Dabour Jasmin Salama Nancy Taman |
| FINLAND | |
| Viivi Nieminen | |
| GERMANY | |
| Carlo Hörr Dario Sissakis |
|
| GREAT BRITAIN | |
| Sam Mostowfi Hayden Skinner |
|
| GREECE | |
| Konstantinos Konstantinidis Eleftherios Petrounias Antonios Tantalidis |
Vasiliki Kyrlidou Athanasia Mesiri Vasiliki Millousi |
| INDONESIA | |
| Ameera Hariadi Rifda Irfanaluthfi |
|
| IRELAND | |
| Dominick Cunningham Eamon Montgomery |
|
| ITALY | |
| Ares Federici Mario Macchiati Salvatore Maresca Nicolo Mozzato |
Alice D’Amato Asia D’Amato Giorgia Villa |
| JORDAN | |
| Ruba Al Daoud | |
| KAZAKHSTAN | |
| Ilyas Azizov Milad Karimi Nariman Kurbanov Diyas Toishybek |
Aida Bauyrzhanova Ayazhan Shamshitdinova Darya Yassinskaya |
| LATVIA | |
| Dmitrijs Mickevics Ricards Plate |
Katrina Jurevica Valerija Ratobilska |
| LITHUANIA | |
| Gytis Charazyrovas Tomas Kuzmickas Robert Tvorogal |
|
| MALAYSIA | |
| Zarith Imaan Khalid Rachel Yeoh Li Wen |
|
| MEXICO | |
| Fabian de Luna Isaac Nuñez Javier Rojo |
Louise López |
| NETHERLANDS | |
| Loran de Munck Casimir Schmidt |
|
| NORWAY | |
| Julie Erichsen Marie Rønbeck Maria Tronrud |
|
| PANAMA | |
| Hillary Heron Lana Herrera |
|
| POLAND | |
| Sebastian Gawronski Filip Sasnal |
|
| PORTUGAL | |
| Guilherme Campos Jose Nogueira |
|
| QATAR | |
| Al Harith Rakan | |
| SERBIA | |
| Ivan Dejanovic Dusan Djordjevic Petar Vefic |
|
| SLOVENIA | |
| Luka Bojanc Kevin Buckley Anze Hribar |
Lucija Hribar Zala Trtnik |
| TAIWAN | |
| Lee Chih-Kai Lin Guan-Yi Shiao Yu-Jan Tseng Wei-Sheng |
Lai Pin-Ju |
| TÜRKIYE | |
| Hasan Bulut Mert Efe Kilicer |
|
| UKRAINE | |
| Nazar Chepurnyi Illia Kovtun |
Yelizaveta Hubareva Anna Lashchevska |
| UNITED STATES | |
| Kameron Nelson Ian Skirkey Donnell Whittenburg |
Joscelyn Roberson |
| UZBEKISTAN | |
| Khabibullo Ergashev Utkirbek Juraev Abdulaziz Mirvaliev |
Dildora Aripova Oksana Chusovitina |
| VIETNAM | |
| Dang Ngoc Xuan Thien Nguyen Van Khanh Phong Trinh Hai Khang |
Pham Nhu Phuong Tran Doan Quynh Nam |
Article by Lauren Hopkins
The Gymternet 
Is CARLOS YULO of the Philippines participating the last of 4 CUPs? His country is not even included in the list.
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He just competed last Friday at All-Japan Championships.
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What’s the difference between World Cup and Challenge Cup?
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World Cup is for Worlds qualification and was formerly used for Olympic Qualification.
Challenger Cup is a gymnastics circuit with no ties to World qualification.
Usually the World Cup is hosted by top tier countries and is attended by some of the best athletes in the World.
The Challenger Cup is usually hosted by tier 2 and tier 3 gymnastics countries and usually the roster is made up of lesser known gymnasts from lesser known gymnastics countries. The medal winning performances are generally far below what you would see medal at World Cup and continentals.
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The bit about the Challenge Cups is partly accurate but I’d say some of them get more traction than the world cups due to the timing and locations. Paris hosts a Challenge Cup, for example, and because it’s usually in September just a month or so before worlds, it tends to get far more top-level athletes than nearly all of the World Cups (especially Doha now, or when Melbourne was hosting…no one outside of AUS, NZL, and a few Asian countries went to Melbourne). I’d say the Paris Challenge Cup is probably more prestigious right now than any of the World Cups even though the Challenge Cups themselves are “second tier” in that they offer lower prize money.
The World Cups being qualifiers for world championships now are getting a greater number of athletes in attendance than they have previously, but I think they should swap the timing for the two series and have the Challenge Cups in the early part of the year as like a “warm up” and then put the World Cups as worlds qualifiers in the summer/early fall so they’ll have more top-tier athletes competing in close-to-peak condition. Having them start in February/March is SO early, and it’s requiring specialists to peak multiple times throughout the year, which is really hard physically. I’ve talked to a few athletes about this and they said they’d much rather have the World Cups in July-September when they’re working up to peak condition for world championships.
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Off topic, but you all need to check out Kaylia Nemour’s bar routine. She did combinations I didn’t even think was possible including an in-bar 1/1 to dblo dismount. Insane.
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I guess Donnell Whittenburg just went to see the sites of Cairo…
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Regarding ranking lists, shouldn’t Teymurova’s name also be in italics? Wasn’ t she the last 23rd from Europe to qualify to Antwerp Worlds as an AA gymnast, considering the 2 per NF rule (TR Art 5.1.1 in the end of page 5)? I wonder why didn’t the FIG publish individual AA qualifiers when they published qualified teams on 18.04.23.
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Accounting for two-per-country, the last AA qualifier was Valerija Ratobilska, and then Celeste Mordenti behind her will get the reallocated host country spot. According to the technical regulations, the top 23 athletes qualify via AA QFs at Euros with a max of two per NF, which includes:
1. Maria Tronrud (Norway)
2. Barbora Mokosova (Slovakia)
3. Emma Slevin (Ireland)
4. Anna Lashchevska (Ukraine)
5. Lucija Hribar (Slovenia)
6. Camille Rasmussen (Denmark)
7. Caterina Cereghetti (Switzerland)
8. Lena Bickel (Switzerland)
9. Sevgi Kayisoglu (Türkiye)
10. Athanasia Mesiri (Greece)
11. Filipa Martins (Portugal)
12. Paloma Mintcheva (Bulgaria)
13. Zala Trtnik (Slovenia)
14. Thelma Adalsteinsdottir (Iceland)
15. Ilona Krupa (Ukraine)
16. Mafalda Costa (Portugal)
17. Halle Hilton (Ireland)
18. Lihie Raz (Israel)
19. Christina Zwicker (Croatia)
20. Mari Kanter (Norway)
21. Margret Kristinsdottir (Iceland)
22. Bengisu Yildiz (Türkiye)
23. Valerija Ratobilska (Latvia)
Host Allocation: Celeste Mordenti (Luxembourg)
R1. Kaja Skalska (Poland)
R2. Anastasija Ananjeva (Latvia)
R3. Nazanin Teymurova (Azerbaijan)
R4. Brygida Urbanska (Poland)
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Also I think the process of individuals qualifying is a bit more involved than teams, since the FIG reaches out with an invitation to the gymnasts who qualify, and then they have a period of time to decide if they want to accept or decline…and if they decline the invitation, then the FIG reaches out to the first reserve, and so on. I think they wait a bit to account for any injuries that would cause athletes to decline? Last year I believe they waited until after the final continental qualifier to send out invitations, so if that’s the case this year, I believe we won’t get official lists until June or July.
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Ah, somehow I missed the SUI and TUR girls when going down the list. The FIG cannot finalize the list of apparatus qualifiers until team and AA qualifiers from all continents are clear. Maybe they want to publish all individual qualifies together and therefore do not publish AA qualifiers after every continental championships. I can’t see why, since the AA qualifiers from each continent are independent and it would be much easier for the fans to follow apparatus lists, if they’d publish the already qualified AAers, but I guess we can consider this as room for improvement. Btw, it seems to me that in the end the FIG may not even be able to find 8 specialists on every event, if they really mean to redistribute points, but not to give points down the list to those gymnasts that originally did not get points, i.e. did not place among the 16. In the rules they even do not specify, what they mean by “did not get points”. Did not get points at this specific competition which points are currently redistributed or did not get points at any of the four? We shall see.
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Yes, I think they prefer to publish all AA qualifiers together…definitely annoying from a fan perspective which is why I go ahead and share those with people on Twitter when it happens, since people are curious!
Last year there were a couple of events in WAG where they were not able to find 8 specialists on every event once points were redistributed! They ended up opening the field even deeper, and this year they made a fix that could potentially help. Last year, they awarded points for rankings from 1st place to 12th place, but this year they’re awarding points from 1st place down to 16th place, so the overall rankings list is a bit longer with multiple random gymnasts getting 1 point for a single event they attended and finished 16th.
I’m actually in the process of writing an article about what I think we’ll see the apparatus field looking like on each event. I’m in the middle of writing about WAG vault, and I think we could potentially go down to something like 32-34th place out of 44 total ranked athletes. For MAG it’s a bit better with more actual specialists, but I feel like there are so few specialists in WAG, most of those who qualify as “specialists” are just AAers who missed out on qualifying through the AA and get in here as a back-up (like all of the Norwegians last year haha).
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By the way, I completely forgot to italicize the countries that qualified to worlds based on last year’s team final, which includes the U.S., Canada, Brazil, China, and Japan in addition to the three European teams that I’d already italicized. Right now the top eligible beam gymnast is in 6th place!
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See! Keeping the lists is tricky. Good luck!
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It’s a lot to remember! But I’ve got to stay ahead of the FIG hahaha.
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The FIG has now updated their Worlds qualification lists with the AAers. So they were just slow, not waiting for all continentals to end.
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Haha…figures.
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The FIG has now updated their lists as well. Their WAG list is not correct yet, as it sums ranking points from all four competitions instead of three best (I have notified them). However, they got VT points for Yassinskaya and Mörz from Cairo correctly. Official Cairo VT qualification protocol is incorrect though. Both gymnasts had 12.566 average, but tie-break rules for VT (art 7.1.3) then say, that the gymnast with the highest score of two vaults prevails. Mörz had 12.766 vs Yassinskaya’s 12.733, so Mörz is 10th (and R2) and Yassinskaya 11th and their ranking points are 7 and 6 respectively.
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