Paris-bound Fil-Am gymnast to vie in Asian Championships
THE 11th Asian Senior Gymnastics Championships is up next for LeVi Jung-Ruivivar as she gets ready for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Levelling up her routine in the uneven bars will get the 17-year-old Ruivivar in competitive shape when the Paris games come.
The Fil-American gymnast went right back to training, as soon as she has fully rested after leaving Doha, Qatar, where she delivered her finest 2024 World Cup Series performance, following stops in Cairo, Cottbus and Baku.
In the final leg, Ruivivar earned the silver medal in the women’s uneven bars following a great routine, beating close rival Alena Tsitavets of Belarus, a contender for the slot to the Paris Olympics in the four-leg series.
“I’m training in Dallas for the next 4 to 5 weeks before the Asian Championships. This will get me ready for the Olympics,” said Ruivivar, who is now in the Richardson area, the location of the training center for gymnastics in Texas.
Ruivivar will compete with a team, which includes Emma Malabuyo and Aleah Finnegan, who also made it to the quadrennial meet with Carlos Yulo.
Malabuyo missed the cut in the Paris Olympics when she competed in World Cup series, but won the silver last year in the floor exercises of the Asian Championships.
Finnegan settled for the bronze medal in the vault also last year.
Jung-Ruivivar, an incoming freshman at Stanford University, utilized two rotuines during the finals that she has never done before, thereby impressing the judges with the difficulty that went with it. This led to JungRuivivar’s Olympic qualification.
Debuting for the Philippines last March in the Cairo leg, Jung-Ruivivar did a Stalder full inbar move, done with legs tucked on either side, while doing a forward swing.
With online instructions from coach Ivan Goriatchkine, she did a pak salto, where she does her handstand a bit longer, before swinging down, and dismounting with a double back flip.
“These are the two things that I have never done before,” said JungRuivivar, in an interview with the Manila Standard.