Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18
By Jani Babayeva – Trend:
Excellent conditions have been created for training of gymnasts in Azerbaijan, head of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics Irina Viner-Usmanova told Trend on Sept. 18.
"Few countries have such conditions,” she said. “Everything has been done thanks to President of the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation Mehriban Aliyeva. Such an arena has been recently built in Russia. I saw this arena in Baku and liked it very much.”
Viner-Usmanova also thinks that the Azerbaijani team in group exercises will perform well at the World Championships.
“The most important thing now is to get a license to take part in the Olympic Games,” she said. “I think that the license may be obtained in the group exercises and perhaps the gymnast will be among 24 participants in the individual program (all-around exercises) and then among 16 participants.”
The third day of the competitions of the 37th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships kicked off at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku.
Today, on Sept. 18, qualifications are being held in an individual program, and gymnasts are performing in exercises with clubs and a ribbon.
Azerbaijan is being represented by three gymnasts: Zohra Aghamirova, Veronika Hudis and Maryam Safarova. They are performing in exercises with a ribbon.
The 37th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships will last until Sept. 22.
The Championships are the qualification competition for the Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo in 2020. So, the first 16 individual gymnasts (max. two gymnasts per country) in the all-around ranking will qualify for the Games.
More than 300 gymnasts from 61 countries are competing for nine sets of medals. “Fairy Tales will come to life" is the motto of the championships.