Beijing Line-up Finalized, Favorites Sit Out

The IOC Tripartite Commission, via the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), announced the final Beijing Olympic participants today with the determination of three wild card berths for men, women and rhythmic gymnastics. Yemen's Nashwan Al-Hazari (men), Vietnam's Thuong Do Thi Ngan (women) and Cape Verde rhythmic gymnast Wania Monteiro received bids to the Games from the Commission.

Al-Hazari and Thuong were 176th and 110th, respectively, at the 2007 World Championships. Monteiro also received a wild card berth to the 2004 Games.

Thoung, who just turned 19, originally planned to retire after last year's Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, where she finished third. The 2005 SEA Games all-around and beam champ, Vietnam's first-ever gymnastics gold at the Games, Thoung has spent most of her life training in China, leaving her family at age seven. "I felt sad and I missed home," she told the Vietnam News Agency last year, "However, I passed through the difficult times by focusing on my training."

Because no athletes met the criteria for the available men's and women's trampoline IOC wild card spots, the alternate qualifying nations--the USA (men) and the Czech Republic (women)--will now be eligible to send an athlete of their choice to the Games. This will be the first men's trampoline participant for the USA since the sport entered the Games in 2000. (That year, Ryan Weston was the alternate for an Olympic spot.)

The wild card announcement confirms that three silver medalists from Stuttgart--Aljaz Pegan (high bar, Slovenia), Yuri Van Gelder (rings, Netherlands) and Krisztian Berki (pommel horse, Hungary)--will not be in Beijing. Pegan, the 2005 high bar world champ, has never made it to a Games, despite more than a decade as a superstar on his best event.

"The primary objective of the Tripartite process is to prioritize NOCs (National Olympic Committees) which have traditionally sent small delegations to the Olympic Games," the FIG release notes, "or that have yet to qualify [any] athletes for Beijing." The FIG has three wild cards of its own in each discipline to, "ensure the representation of the host nation by one athlete per gender and the representation of all continents" in gymnastics. Though none of the wild card criteria apply to Pegan, Van Gelder or Berki, it's hard to argue against the fact that all three deserve to be in Beijing.

With that in mind, both Pegan and Van Gelder's federations launched intensive campaigns for them to be given the lone IOC wild card berth, all to no avail. Slovenia, in particular, championed Pegan's cause, with the prime minister taking Pegan's Olympic shut out straight to the source during an official state visit to China. "I have discussed this with the Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, while the Minister of Health, Zofija Mazej Kukovi, met separately with representatives of the Chinese Olympic Committee," Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa said after his December state visit. "Our position was appreciated. When our request for the performance of Aljaz Pegan at this greatest sport event is discussed, China will provide its support." More than 42,000 signatures were collected by Pegan supporters on his website: http://www.pegan.si/engforum.

The FIG actually amended its qualification procedures for these Games with specialist superstars like Pegan in mind, guaranteeing, for the first time, Olympic berths to gold-medal-winning athletes on each event, if their country had not already qualified any athletes by team placement. By that standard, 2005 world champ Van Gelder missed the Olympic cut, and a fantastic chance at an Olympic medal, by less than a tenth, finishing just .75 behind world rings champ Chen Yibing of China (16.7 to 16.625).

Benefiting from the new rule: Leszek Blanik of Poland, who earned his spot with vault gold in Stuttgart, and Pegan's Slovenian teammate, Mitja Petkovsek, the p-bar champ.

All told, 11 men, all of whom were/are either event finalists at the 2007 World Championships or currently ranked in the top ten of the World Cup standings (as of 2/15/08), will NOT be in Beijing. That number includes three former world champions, four 2007 world medalists and one defending Athens medalist. That's almost a dozen legitimate medal threats shut out of what is supposed to be the sport's preeminent event.

In addition to Pegan, Van Gelder and Berki, also MIA in Beijing will be...

• Regulo Carmon (Venezuela): Fifth on rings in Stuttgart and currently ranked 2nd in the World Cup standings.
• Vlasios Maras (Greece): The 2001 World Champ and silver medalist in 2006, he's currently ranked 2nd in the World Cup standings and was a finalist in Stuttgart.
• Ri Se Gwang (North Korea): The bronze medalist on vault in Stuttgart.
• Ri Jong Song (North Korea): Fourth on vault in Stuttgart.
• Philippe Rizzo (Australia): Currently ranked fourth in the high bar World Cup standings.
• Yevgeny Sapronenko (Latvia): The current Olympic silver medalist on vault and 3rd in the current World Cup rankings.
• Robert Seligman (Croatia): Currently ranked 6th on horse in the World Cup standings.
• Jeffery Wammes (Netherlands): Stuttgart high bar finalist, currently ranked 4th on vault and 9th on floor in the World Cup standings.
• Yernar Yerimbetov (Kazakhstan): Eighth on vault in the current World Cup standings.
• Filip Yanev (Bulgaria): Tenth on vault in the current World Cup standings.

Also not currently on the roster, Wajdji Bouallegue of Tunisia, currently fourth in the World Cup floor rankings. (Bouallegue is a wild card alternate to the Games.)

Though much has been made of Mexican favorite Elsa Garcia's absence on the women's side (Garcia was injured in Stuttgart and performed below expectations, missing the qualifying cut), none of the female event finalists from Stuttgart, nor any women currently ranked in the top ten of the World Cup standings on any event, is shut out of Beijing.

QUALIFIERS TO BEIJING

MEN

• FULL TEAMS (top 12 at 2007 Worlds): China, Japan, Germany, United States, Russia, Romania, Spain, Korea, France, Italy, Canada and Belarus
• TWO ATHLETES PER COUNTRY (teams 13-15): Ukraine, Switzerland and Great Britain
• ONE ATHLETE (16-18): Puerto Rico, Brazil and Greece
• INDIVIDUAL QUALIFIERS (based on 2007 Worlds performance, maximum of one athlete per country; Named, can NOT be replaced by another athlete from their country): Jordan Jovtchev (Bulgaria), Anton Fokin (Uzbekistan, Filip Ude (Croatia), Jose Luis Fuentes (Venezuela), Epke Zonderland (Netherlands), Martin Konecny (Czech Republic), Ilya Giorgadze (Georgia), Leszek Blanik (Poland), Mitja Petkovsek (Slovenia), Robert Gal (Hungary), Koen Van Damme (Belgium), Sascha Palgen (Luxembourg) and Samuel Simpson (Australia)
• FIG WILD CARDS (3, based on continental /host nation representation): Alexander Shatilov (Israel), Mohamed Serour (Egypt) and Jorge Giraldo (Colombia)
• IOC WILD CARD: Nashwan Al-Hazari (Yemen)
• INDIVIDUAL ALTERNATES (in rank order): Sami Aalto (Finland), Timur Kurbanbayev (Kazakhstan), Dmitri Trefilovs (Latvia), Manuel Campos (Portugal) And Luis Sosa (Mexico)
• WILD CARD ALTERNATE: Wajdji Bouallegue (Tunisia)

WOMEN

• FULL TEAMS: USA, China, Romania, Russia, Italy, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Ukraine, Germany, Australia and Japan
• TWO ATHLETES: North Korea, Canada and Spain
• ONE ATHLETE: Czech Republic, Netherlands and Switzerland
• INDIVIDUALS: Stefani Bismpikou (Greece), Nastassia Marachkouiskaya (Belarus), Veronica Wagner (Sweden), Dorina Boczogo (Hungary), Natalia Sanchez (Colombia), Marisela Cantu (Mexico), Jop Hyun Joo (Korea), Marta Pihan (Poland), Gaelle Mys (Belgium), Tina Erceg (Croatia), Annamari Maaranen (Finland), Jessica Lopez (Venezuela) And Nikolina Tankoucheva (Bulgaria)
• FIG WILD CARDS: Vered Finkel (Israel), Sherine El Zeiny (Egypt) and Jelena Zanevskaja (Lithuania)
• IOC WILD CARD: Thuong Do Thi Ngan (Vietnam)
• INDIVIDUAL ALTERNATES: Ivana Kovacova (Slovakia), Adela Sajn (Slovenia), Luisa Galiulina (Uzbekistan) and Sidney Sanabria (Puerto Rico)
• WILD CARD ALTERNATE: Ursula Botha (South Africa)

RHYTHMIC INDIVIDUALS

• TWO ATHLETES PER COUNTRY: Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Israel
• ONE ATHLETE: Kazakhstan, Canada, Spain, Greece, Austria, Poland, Korea and Estonia
• FIG WILD CARDS: Xiao Yiming (China), Odette Richard (South Africa) and Naazmi Johnston (Australia)
• IOC WILD CARD: Wania Monteiro (Cape Verde)
• ALTERNATES (one athlete): Uzbekistan, Italy and Georgia

RHYTHMIC GROUPS

• QUALIFIED: Russia, Italy, Belarus, Belarus, Bulgaria, Spain, Israel, Japan, Ukraine, China and Azerbaijan
• FIG WILD CARDS: Brazil and Greece
• ALTERNATES: Poland and Switzerland
• WILD CARD ALTERNATE: Canada

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