Nina Derwael has made an excellent start to her hunt for an Olympic ticket. She won gold on the beam at the World Cup in Cairo. If she can repeat that twice more in the coming heats, she can go to Paris.
Things went wrong in the qualifications on Friday – Nina Derwael (23) made a mistake during her jump – but when it comes to the marbles, the Olympic champion on bars is always there. She was the penultimate in Egypt on Sunday. Her jump went well this time and she also completed the rest of the exercise neatly.
Both with her difficulty score (5.6) and with her performance, she jumped over the gymnast who was in the lead at the time: her clubmate, 16-year-old Erika Pinxten from Hasselt, who had remained clear. In total, Derwael collected 13,630 points (compared to 13,170 for Pinxten).
Competition from your own country
The last gymnast fell from the beam in Cairo, meaning that our country took home both gold and silver. An excellent result for Team Belgym, which entails a luxury problem: we now have two candidates for one Olympic ticket. On each apparatus, the two gymnasts highest placed after the four World Cup events can go to Paris, but there is one restriction: they cannot be from the same country.
Derwael has an advantage: if she can match this result twice more in Cottbus (22-25 February), Baku (7-10 March) or Doha (17-20 April), then the Olympic ticket has been secured.
