Germany, The Netherlands, France and Ukraine secured their places in the men’s artistic gymnastics team competition at Rio 2016 on the opening day of the Olympic test event today.
The German side, led by double London 2012 silver medallist Marco Nguyen and which also included Andreas Bretschneider, Lukas Dauser, Philipp Herder, Ivan Rittschik and Andreas Toba, topped the standings on a total of 350.609 at the Rio Olympic Arena.
Their score proved enough to beat Ukraine, whose top scorer was world parallel bars champion Oleg Verniaiev as he amassed 92.107 of his nation’s 350.160 tally.
Maksym Semiankiv, Andrii Sienichkin, Illia Yehorov, Igor Radivlov and Vladyslav Hryko were also part of the Ukrainian outfit.
The Dutch team of Frank Rijken, Michel Bletterman, Casimir Schmidt, Bart Deurloo, Jeffrey Wammes and London 2012 high bar champion Epke Zonderland made history by taking third as they became the first gymnastics team from their country to reach the Olympic event with a points total of 347.444.
The French side, comprised of Samir Ait Said, Kevin Antoniotti, Axel Augis, Guillaume Augugliaro, Julien Gobaux and Cyril Tommasone, recorded 346.583 to seal the fourth and final available spot for this August’s Games in the Brazilian city.
Romania, Canada, Spain and Belgium, who had finished between 9th and 16th at last year’s World Championships along with the qualified quartet, failed to reach Rio 2016 as they all fell outside the top four places.
Beijing 2008 Olympic pommel horse silver medallist Filip Ude of Croatia was among the individual qualifiers as he scored 85.599 to book his place at the Games in Rio.
France, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Australia, South Korea and Switzerland will compete in the women’s competition tomorrow, with another four Olympic slots up for grabs.
Trampoline competition is scheduled to take place next Tuesday (April 19), with rhythmic gymnastics individual events set to take place on April 21.
The rhythmic gymnastics group event competition will bring the test event to a close on April 22.
