Brown, Navas top qualifications at the Doha World Cup

Georgia-Rose Brown of New Zealand, who currently leads Olympic qualification ranking with 50 points despite not having scored in Baku, qualified for the women’s uneven bars final at the 16th Artistic Gymnastics World Cup Doha at the Women’s Sports Committee Hall on Wednesday.
As many as 95 male and 55 female gymnasts representing 55 countries are taking part in the event. The Doha stopover is the final qualifying round for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour has already qualified as an individual to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games by finishing in 13th place in the all-around during the qualification round in the Olympic cycle of World Cup Series. But the Algerian (15.400 points) showed that she still wants to make it big after topping the qualification chart.
Nathalie Westlund of Sweden, who also qualified, also stands to make big gains if she does better than in Baku. The Swede finished fourth in the qualification ranking (13.400). Compatriot Jennifer Williams, who left Cottbus without Olympic qualification points and presently tied with Vanesa Masova (Czech Republic) with 48 points, crashed out of the qualifiers. She finished 17th.
Eleven gymnasts could mathematically qualify for the Uneven Bars places, making it the most complex of the women’s qualification races.
Meanwhile, Panama’s Karla Navas showed grit and determination to top the qualification in a vault field that also featured seasoned Oksana Chusovitina. Total eight gymnasts event qualified for the final including Chusovitina and India’s Dipa Karmakar.
Karla, who won back-to-back bronze medals in Cottbus and Baku World Cups, accumulated 13.916 points ahead of Bulgaria’s Valentina Georgieva (13.316) and North Korea’s An Chang-Ok (13.166).
The performance at the qualifiers will boost her confidence to aim for a top finish, but it remains to be seen how the 2022 Pan American champion performs in the final today.
The 17-year-old Georgieva, who secured her berth in March for this summer’s Olympic Games, was docked -0.10 points during her effort which saw her finish behind Karla in the qualification.
She accumulated enough points on vault by the third of four 2024 World Cup events to qualify for the Paris Games, but it is crystal clear that the teenager won’t settle for less than a gold in the Qatari capital.
North Korea’s reigning Asian champion An Chang-ok looked super on the vault, but a sudden lapse of concentration saw her receive a penalty (-0.10).
The 20-year-old Pyongyang-born gymnast, who represented her country at the 2019 World Championships, will also be looking forward to a medal in the uneven bars, where she’s a reigning champion. Aida Bauyrzhanova of Kazakhstan and Nazanin Teymurova of Azerbaijan also made it to the final along with Patricie Makovickova of the Czech Republic.