Nina Derwael in Cairo. — © AFP
Gymnastics WB in Cairo
Nina Derwael has made an excellent start to her hunt for an Olympic ticket. At the World Cup in Cairo she won gold on the beam. Erika Pinxten made it a Limburg double with silver. If Derwael can repeat this twice, she will win her Olympic ticket.
Erika Pinxten had to open the final, which no one likes to do on beam, the most capricious apparatus. But the 16-year-old from Hasselt got through her exercise neatly. Not a very high difficulty level (5.2) but a nice performance. Good for a total score of 13,166. Just a little less than in the qualifications (13,230), but the bar was high for the others. Too high for the next five, even for the Dutch star Eythora Thorsdottir, who fell from the beam.
Nina Derwael (23) was the next to last. Her jump went well this time and she also completed the rest of the exercise neatly. She surpassed Pinxten with both her difficulty score (5.6) and her performance: 13.630 in total. Things went wrong in the qualifications, but when it comes to the marbles, Derwael is always ready.
Erika Pinxten. — © AFP
The last gymnast fell from the beam, meaning both gold and silver went to Belgium. An excellent result for Team Belgym, which entails a luxury problem: we now have two candidates for one Olympic ticket. Derwael has an advantage: if she can match this result twice more in Cottbus, Baku or Doha, then she will win the Olympic ticket.
Later in the day, Erika Pinxten took action again on the floor exercise. She had finished third in the qualifications, but in the final she was stuck in fifth place with 12.470. Last year, the Hasselt native made her World Cup debut in the same Cairo. Then she won bronze twice on beam and bars, now she returns home with silver.
The next World Cup will take place next week in Cottbus, East Germany.