BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 10. I won the gold medal last year in Baku, therefore, I am aiming for nothing less than a gold medal, a participant in the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Baku, an athlete from Kazakhstan Nariman Kurbanov told Trend.
In qualification, Nariman Kurbanov performed an exercise on a pommel horse, scoring 15.066 points. At the moment the gymnast occupies the first intermediate place.
Everything went quite well, although I made a few mistakes. It happens to me in qualifications. The score is not bad, and I'd even say it is quite good, especially for an exercise on a pommel horse. So, I'm qualified for the finals. I won the gold medal last year in Baku, therefore, I am aiming for nothing less than a gold medal," the Kazakh gymnast said.
Nariman Kurbanov noted that it is psychologically difficult to be one of the first to perform in a competition.
"But I am an experienced gymnast, so it doesn't really matter to me whether I am the first one or the last one; I only think about my performance," he said.
The athlete said that the men's national team of Kazakhstan includes 4 gymnasts: Kurbanov himself, Milad Karimi, Ilyas Azizov and Dmitriy Potanin.
"We are all preparing for the Asian, and the World Championships, so the Cup is a good preparation for these competitions. I first arrived in Baku in 2018, and since then I have been participating here every time. The organization here is always at a good level. Certainly, there is an excellent arena here as well as good conditions" he added.
The FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup is held on March 9-12 at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku. Some 173 gymnasts from 48 countries around the world will take part in the competition, which is a record number of participating countries in the history of the World Cups in gymnastic disciplines in Azerbaijan.
In the first two days of the four-day World Cup competitions in Baku, qualifying stages will be held, and in the remaining days, finals, will determine the winners in exercises on individual equipment. Following the results of the four-day competition, the gymnasts with the highest score will also be awarded the traditional AGF Trophy.
Azerbaijan will be represented at the competitions by Nikita Simonov and Ivan Tikhonov (men's artistic gymnastics), Samira Gahramanova, and Nazanin Teymurova (women's artistic gymnastics). Following the results of the first day of the competition, Nikita Simonov made it to the finals on the ring exercise.