• The star: nobody shines like Simone Biles

The Spanish team of men's artistic gymnastics has qualified on Monday to play the Tokyo 2020 Games, two days after the women's reached the same goal, a full that Spanish gymnastics had not achieved since Athens 2004 . Spain, which competed on Sunday at the Stuttgart World Cups, had to wait until the last of the eight subdivisions, on Monday night, to secure one of the 12 Olympic places with its eleventh position in the qualifying round.

Before starting the day the Spanish team was fourth and before starting the last subdivision it was tenth, with three countries to compete, Holland, Romania and Switzerland, and only two more seats at stake. I needed the failure of at least one of those teams to receive a passport to Tokyo. And the Netherlands and Romania failed, which left Spain in the eleventh final position. What Spain could not reach is the team final of these Stuttgart World Cups , with a place for only eight countries. It will be played by Russia, China, Japan, Ukraine, Great Britain, Switzerland, the United States and China Taipei. Together with these eight, they complete the list of teams classified for the Tokyo 2020 Games South Korea, Brazil, Spain and Germany.

None of the Spanish artistic teams, neither male nor female, participated in the Rio 2016 edition , where only three individual gymnasts competed: Néstor Abad, Ray Zapata and Ana Pérez. For men the absence was an anomaly now resolved. But women do not come as a team since Athens 2004, when they finished in fifth place.

Néstor Abad, at the end of the complete contest

Néstor Abad, Joel Plata, Nicolau Mir, Thierno Diallo and Adriá Vera, with Ray Zapata as substitute, formed the Spanish team that, selected and directed by Fernando Siscar , added 246,727 points in Stuttgart on Sunday with their exercises. Abad, nineteenth in the individual classification, obtained the pass for the final of the complete contest next Friday with 81,932 points. Individually the Russians Nikita Nagornyy (87,333) and Artur Dalaloyan (86,531), title defender, were the best.

Next to the jump, usually the apparatus with the highest notes (added 43,065), the best rotation of the Spaniards was that of parallels (42,499), followed by the ground (42,466), a specialty in which Nicolau Mir will be first substitute in the final . The total sum of the team completed the 39,932 points accumulated in bar, the 39,866 in rings and the very correct 38,899 in horse with bows, the device that has traditionally weighed the Spanish options.

Russia took the lead in the leaderboard thanks to its 259,928 points, 258,354 from China and 258,026 from Japan. These three countries were already qualified for Tokyo 2020 since the 2018 World Cup.

Regarding the Rio 2016 Games, the teams from China, the United States, Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, Ukraine, South Korea, Germany and Switzerland will repeat in Tokyo. France (14 places in Stuttgart) and Holland (19) stay outside and Spain and China Tapei enter. In the team final on Wednesday everyone will start from scratch.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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