The current European champion Tin Srbić was second in qualifications, Tina Zelčić did the best in the balance beam qualifications, while in the same final on Sunday will also be the third-placed Christina Zwicker.
Croatia will have a total of 5 finalists at the 14th edition of the FIG World Challenge Cup – DOBRO World Cup Osijek! Tin Srbić on horizontal bar, Tina Zelčić and Christina Zwicker on balance beam won Sunday’s finals and thus joined tomorrow’s finalists in Gradski vrt sports hall – Aurel Benović (floor) and Tijana Korent (vault).
The current Olympic silver medalist and the newly minted European champion on the horizontal bar today took the 2nd place in the qualification, or rather shared it with two other competitors – the Ukrainian Illia Kovtun and the Israeli Alexander Myakinin (all the same starting score 5.7 and the same final score 13.950). And the first-placed, world champion from 2019, Brazilian Arthur Mariano also got 13,950, but due to his lower initial score (5.6) he was ahead of this trio.
“A new final for me in Osijek. Out of eight performances, I have seven finals. This is my seventh in a row. I’m glad that I made it to the final, because it’s the end of this first part of the season, I feel tired in my body, not in my head. I did a really good practice in qualifying, not the way I can, not the best, but as we say – qualifying practice. I made it to the final and that’s the most important thing. I already did a stronger exercise today, with the ‘Stalder-Rybalko’ element, which I usually do only in the finals and only in the finals of the biggest competitions, Olympic, world, European, but I really wanted to try it here to see how I can withstand the nervousness and adrenaline because it’s quite a precise element and it went well. The rest of the exercise was a bit tight, I know I can do it much better and more relaxed and I will try to do that in the final”, announced Tin Srbič.
In Osijek, Croatia reached the 446th final at the World Cups in men’s and women’s sports gymnastics (men 307, women 139). For Tin Srbić, Sunday’s final will be the 29th in World Cups in his career.
“In the final, I will do an even stronger exercise, starting today I will add the element Kolman, which is still a new element. I’m going to the finals with everything I know and I hope that I will provide a gymnastic spectacle to everyone who will come to watch the finals”, said Tin, who will defend two consecutive gold medals on the bars, and in his collection there are as many as 4 from Osijek (2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022)
Two more members of his club ZTD Hrvatski sokol will fight in the final on Sunday. Tina Zelčić, who received the best score of the balance beam qualification today, 12.866 (start 4.6) and third-placed Christina Zwicker (12.700; start 4.6).
“I am very happy that I entered the final as the first. It has always been my dream to enter the Osijek final and perform in front of the home crowd, and this time it came true. I can’t wait for Sunday and I hope that people will come to support us in as many numbers as possible”, wished Tina Zelčić, who two weeks ago won her first medal, a silver on balance beam, at the Wolrd Cup in Varna.
“I showed today that Varna was no accident,” said Tina on the eve of her 5th career final.
“I got a high grade and the exercise was nice, clean, although I can do better. Last year I was not in Osijek because of the operation, but two years ago I was in the balance beam final here and it was one of my favorite competitions in my life and one of my favorite performances. I hope that, as always in Osijek, the hall will be full this weekend, because it means a lot to all of us. I am very proud that I will be in the final together with my club colleague Tina. 5 years ago we had our first big performance here, the first big senior competition and here we are now five years later together in the final. I can’t wait for Sunday”, said Christina Zwicker after securing her 9th World Cup final.
Aurel Benović, who won the floor final yesterday, did not succeed today in the vault. He took 11th place and is the 3rd reserve for Sunday’s final of this apparatus after he was rated 13.650 (14.300 and 13.000) with an excellent first jump and a fall on the second.
“Considering that I had a bit more problems with my wrist injury today, I’m satisfied with how I performed my two jumps. I did a great job on the first one, but a little luck was lacking in the second one. Unfortunately, I fell down. Nothing, I turn to tomorrow’s floor final where I hope to be in the fight for a medal. I hereby invite all gymnastics lovers to join us tomorrow and the day after tomorrow in the Gradski vrt sports hall to support all our national team members”, said Aurel Benović.
Tomorrow’s first final day starts at 14:50, and Croatia will have Aurel Benović on floor and Tijana Korent on vault in the hunt for medals.
Videos and qualification results: Elevien app – app.elevien.com/download
Results: https://dwcosijek.gymscoring.com/live/1/results.html
