4th Trampoline World Cup in Spain

For the first time, gymnasts are able to qualify directly to the Olympic Games though their results from the FIG Trampoline World Cup series. This series runs until April 2020 and results from the first six of its eight events will count towards qualification for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.

♦ Hancharou’s reversal of fortune

♦  Olympic champion Hancharou is the top of the World Cup ranking in the Men’s Individual Trampoline after he earned his second gold of the series with a score of 61.445, pipping three-time world champion Gao Lei by 0.065 of a point. Again there was so little to separate the pair, a fortnight after Gao had overcome Hancharou by 0.035 of a point in Khabarovsk. Russia’s Andrey Yudin took bronze.

♦ After her bronze medal in Khabarovsk, former world champion Liu stepped up a level in Valladolid, earning her second World Cup victory of 2019 in the Women’s Individual Trampoline with a score of 56.890. Zhu Xueying, a gold medallist in Minsk in April, made it a one-two for China, finishing 0.28 points behind her compatriot, with Japan’s Hikaru Mori completing the podium.

Like Hancharou and Liu, Japan’s Daiki Kishi and Ryosuke Sakai won their second World Cup gold of the year too, their success in Men’s Synchro coming with a score of 52.380. Canada’s Jason Burnett and Jérémy Chartier delivered their best-ever World Cup performance to claim silver with 51.020 and there was not even the consolation of a bronze for the United States’ Jeffrey Gluckstein and Aliaksei Shostak, winners in Khabarovsk, as Belarus duo Mikita Fomchanka and Ivan Litvinovich edged past them by 0.06 of a point.

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♦♦ The Ukraine SYNCHRO Pair of Maryna Kyiko and Svitlana Malkova won the Women’s Synchro gold – their first at a World Cup – with a score of 49.270. Australia’s Lauren Sampson and Jessica Pickering and Canada’s Samantha Smith and Rachel Si Min Tam followed them on to the podium, meaning first World Cup medals for all but the experienced Smith.
Belgium’s Tachina Peeters, 22, produced the first victory of her career in a major international competition by winning the Women’s Tumbling final, scoring 70.000 to finish clear of Britain’s Shanice Davidson and Megan Kealy.

♦♦ The Men’s Tumbling gold, meanwhile, went to a more familiar face in world champion Vadim Afanasev. With a score of 78.200, the Russian left his fellow medallists, Denmark's Rasmus Steffensen and Australia's Blake Grainger, trailing in his wake.

♦♦ Finally to the Double-Mini Trampoline where, with a score of 70.300, Aleksandra Bonartseva went one better than her silver-medal placing in Khabarovsk, turning the tables on Sweden’s Lina Sjoeberg by winning the mini-trampoline final. Tristan van Natta of the USA finished third.

♦ How qualifying works

Each gymnast will be ranked according to their best four finishes in the first six World Cup of this eight-event series (there is a top score of 60 points available for winning a World Cup Series individual title), with up to the top nine earning a quota place for their National Olympic Committee (Ns OC) at Tokyo 2020 and each NOC eligible to earn just one spot.Gymnasts can also earn their NOCs a second spot via finishing as one of the top four-ranked nations by April 2020, as long as the NOC has already won a place at Tokyo 2020 thanks to performances at the 2019 World Championships.
* source: f i g