FIG World Cup kicks off in Baku
The first day of the new Olympic cycle’s first FIG Artistic Gymnastics Individual Apparatus World Cup kicked off at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku on March 16, with brilliant performances of world-class athletes.
In total, 85 men and 35 women from 23 countries are joining the Cup that Baku is hosting for the second time in the sporting history of the nation.
The qualifications in men’s floor exercises, as well as exercises in parallel bars and rings took place on the first day of the competitions. Women qualified for the finals by performing exercises in vault and uneven bars.
In the men’s artistic gymnastics competitions, Azerbaijan was represented by Bence Talas and Murad Agharzayev, while Marina Nekrasova and Mariia Smirnova represented the country in women’s vault, Yulia Inshina and Ekaterina Tishkova on parallel bars.
On the first day Nekrasova showed excellent performance thus advanced to the vault finals. Agharzayev reached the parallel bars finals scoring 13.433 points in the qualifications.
Then the solemn opening ceremony was held.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports of Azerbaijan Ismayil Ismayilov greeted the participants, who joined from different parts of the world to another prestigious competition – the FIG World Cup in Men’s and Women’s Artistic Gymnastics, AGF Trophy.
"First of all, I would like to mention that we experienced thrilling events of the FIG World Cup in Trampoline Gymnastics and Tumbling a month ago. Today, we are sharing a festivity of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup and we will get an opportunity to watch the marvelous performances of our gymnasts in this kind of events in Rhythmic Gymnastics again next month," he noted.
Ismayilov highlighted that Azerbaijan has organized all the sporting events at the highest level - the First European Games, the World Chess Olympiad, the UEFA European Under17 Championship, the European Formula 1 Grand Prix, the World and European Championships and other international tournaments.
He said that these events are of great of importance in terms of recognition and promotion of Azerbaijan on the international arena.
"Although some time has passed since the organization of these competitions in our country, the sports society still shares its impressions. Taking into account this high organizational level, the international sports organizations regularly entrust our country to host sports events," Ismayilov noted.