US star Simone Biles, four-time gold medallist at the Rio Olympics, will be among top contenders in Doha.
Doha: The gymnastics delegations of four countries – United States, Australia, Canada and Norway – will be arriving in Doha today to participate in the forthcoming 48th FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships to be held at the Aspire Dome from October 25 to November 3.
Many of the participating nations’ gymnasts and officials have already started arriving in Qatar.
The Local Organising Committee (LOC) is expecting almost all competing nations to complete the arrival list by tomorrow. October 19 would be the final day for arrival of all athletes.
The Chinese gymnasts and delegates were the first to arrive in Doha, last Friday.
According to the Local Organising Committee (LOC), China wanted to get acclimatised before the tournament and use their stay in a pre-event training camp.
A total of 78 countries with over 600 gymnasts have confirmed their participation for the Worlds, which will be held for the first time in the Arab region.
The LOC said this is the largest participation in terms of countries and athletes for a World Championships.
The Doha Worlds will also have six Arab nations -- Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Jordan besides hosts Qatar.
“The official training will start on October 20 and the Opening Ceremony will be held on October 25 at 8.30am with delegations of all participating countries in attendance,” said Deputy Competition Manager Anis Saoud.
The LOC is making all efforts to make the Doha event an extraordinary one.
“The LOC has received one of the FIG officials in order to contribute to the regulatory process. We’re expecting other officials before the official launch,” Saoud said.
Qatar will be the first Arab and third Asian nation to host the Worlds after Japan (1995 & 2011) and China (1999 & 2014).
The World Championships in Doha will be one of the fiercely contested editions in recent years as Simone Biles of the US, who took more than a year’s break, will return to action.
The tournament will be significant for the participating countries as medals won from the Team finals will earn an entry to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The nominative roster released last week includes 265 men and 244 women gymnasts from 78 nations.
Among the stars will be Japan’s 2016 Olympic All-Around champion Kohei Uchimura, who pulled out from last year’s edition in Montreal, Canada, following an injury during training session.
Meanwhile, 48 countries have entered for the men’s while 44 have been registered in the women’s category in the tournament -- first qualification event for the Tokyo Games.
The medal-winning nations in the Team Final competition will earn automatic berths for 2020 Olympics while top 24 nations from team qualification will advance full teams to the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
Other nations will have additional chances to qualify at competitions in 2019 and 2020.
