Osaka’s WTA Finals debut ends in tears due to injury SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2018 PAGE 14 Al Gharafa rout Al Khor by half a dozen WORLD GYMNASTICS PAGE 15 goals in QNB Stars League ASPIRE DOME Biles to hit Doha Worlds stage at Aspire Dome today world team title. US teen Morgan Also competing in Sat- urday’s qualifications will be Hurd, Japan’s the Japanese women’s team. Murakami and Leading Japan’s challenge will be the strong legged Mai Mu- Uzbek Oksana to rakami, who won gold on floor exercise and placed fourth all- light up women’s around at the 2017 Worlds in qualifications Montreal (Canada). What the Uzbekistan’s 43-year-old Oksana Chusovitina of Uz- VINAY NAYUDU experts say bekistan, a seven-time Olym- DOHA Simone Biles already was pian, will also be in action on considered the GOAT Saturday. Women’s qualifica- EVEN if you aren’t an avid (Greatest of All Time) of tions will consist of six subdi- gymnastics follower but a women’s gymnastics after the visions on Saturday and five sports enthusiast, there’s a subdivisions on Sunday. solid reason for you to be at Rio Olympics, and now she’s Meanwhile, the men’s the Aspire Dome on Saturday back ... and somehow better qualifications concluded on evening. Be assured you won’t than she was in 2016. The Friday. Based on their per- be disappointed. sport has never seen a formances in qualifications, For superstar Simone gymnast as good as Biles, competitors will advance to Biles shall swing into action and if all goes as it should in team, individual all-around at the 48th FIG Artistic Gym- Doha, she will win a record and individual apparatus fi- nastics World Championships fourth world all-around title, nals. Doha 2018 and she’s among unveil a new vault that no The competition will deter- those few who can make you woman has ever performed, mine the winners of eight sets get goose pimples by the of medals for men (Team, All- sheer delight of her sizzling earn up to four individual around, Floor Exercise, Pom- performances. event medals – and lead the mel Horse, Still Rings, Vault, The 21-year-old Biles, who team to gold as well. Don’t Parallel Bars, and Horizontal took a break from the sport miss a single routine of hers. Bar) and six for women (Team, since the 2016 Rio Olympic (SOURCED FROM ESPNW.COM). All-around, Vault, Uneven Games and recently been bat- Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor tling an abuse scandal within Exercise). USA Gymnastics, will hit in- Simone Biles leads the US women’s team at the 48th FIG Artistic Gymmastics World Championships 2018 and is expected to win a record-breaking fourth world all-around title The three medal-winning ternational competition for the in Doha. She will be in action in the women’s qualifications at 6pm. nations in the Team finals for first time in what is incidental- both men and women will earn ly also the first World Champi- to regain the all-around title champion. But being a sport Also someone who tweets ships starting tomorrow!” and hopefully we’ll bring back team berths directly to the onships of the Middle East in she won at the 2013, 2014 and that she is, Biles has been play- to speak, Biles expressed her Earlier this week after one some medals.” 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo Doha. It will be the first of two 2015 Worlds. To do so she will ing down any suggestion of eagerness to be back in the of her podium training ses- Hurd is growing as a seri- while the others will have fur- days of women’s qualifications. need to overtake her 17-year- her challenging Hurd though thick of action saying, “Can’t sions, she had said, “I think ous contender, and she with ther chances to qualify in 2019 Biles, who won four golds old team-mate Morgan Hurd, she perhaps would once in the wait to compete with Team our team as a whole will shine Biles is expected to lead USA and 2020. at the Rio Games, will attempt the 2017 world all-around competition. USA for World Champion- a lot of light at this competition to their fourth consecutive (Inputs Worldgymdoha2018.com) Qatar’s Dayani, Mosa draw cheers from home crowd TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK DOHA TEAM Qatar’s male gymnasts Ahmed al Dayani and Ahmed Nabil Mosa, who were in action in men’s sub-division five, com- peting in all the six apparatus, at the Doha World Gymnastics on Thursday evening couldn’t progress ahead but were appre- ciated by a strong home sup- port for their performance. While Nabil Mosa came up with his best in the Horizontal Bar returning a score of 12.500, to finish 48th, Dayani’s best Qatar’s Ahmed Nabil Mosa (left) greets his senior Ahmed al Dayani came on Vault where he tallied during the men’s qualifications of Doha World Gymnastics at the 13.066 to be placed 78th. Aspire Dome late on Thursday. Their overall scores aside, it was a step forward for both the gymnasts given the expe- rience they gained competing with the world’s best. “We are pleased with the Ten-time World and two-time Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan works on the pommel horse during the 48th FIG Artistic Gymmastics performances though we have World Championships Doha 2018 at the Aspire Dome on Friday. not qualified for the final stage,” said the 25-year-old Dayani. “I think, I performed well to some extent. There were some Kohei helps Japan thrive, mistakes, but the last time I performed on all six apparatus was in Glasgow three years ago (2015 Worlds). On some ap- Turkey top team standings paratus I performed much bet- ter than in the previous world Qatar Gymnastics Federation President & Executive Director Worlds championships. Organising Committee Ali al Hitmi also wtinessed the performance. TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK pan, three of his team-mates Scheduled for shoulder Great Britain’s performance Dayani admitted that the DOHA missed routines on pommel surgery in two weeks, defend- was not its greatest, but good home crowd made him nervous. pearance at the world champi- 2017 Worlds in Montreal).” horse in the fifth rotation. In ing rings champion Eleftherios enough to top the team stand- “Many of my friends and family onships and there was a little Team Qatar’s other mem- AS many as 127 male gymnasts the process of helping move Petrounias of Greece put his lack ings in the ninth subdivision. members were there. That made bit more pressure, with the ber, Jana al Kiki, will com- from 34 countries took part in USA to third place in team of preparation aside to highlight “We are quite pleased over- me a little bit nervous, but the home crowd and the fact that pete in the women’s qualifi- the 48th FIG Artistics Gym- standings at that point in qual- the eighth subdivision. all, but I still think there is a lot experience that I gained from I was competing at the same cations on Saturday. Jana, nastics World Championships ifications, Mikulak assumed Petrounias’s rings score of improvements to be made,” previous international events place I train. I had expected who took the ceremonial oath Doha 2018 men’s qualifica- second place in the all-around of 15.266 points was, by a said British team veteran Max helped me,” he said. to perform better that this. I for gymnasts at the opening tions on Friday with Subdivi- standings. substantial margin of 0.400 Whitlock, who ranked first on His teammate, the 18-year- made some mistakes, but I ceremony, said she felt hon- sions 6-10 at the Aspire Dome Turkey led the team stand- points, the highest score on pommel horse after nine of 10 old Ahmed Nabil Mosa said. still performed better than I oured and that it has been a deciding who will go through ings, and simultaneously that apparatus thus far in subdivisions. “It’s just about “It was my only second ap- did last year in Canada (at the great morale boost. to the finals. moved into a provisional ninth qualifications. cleaning up and really trying Six-time world all-around place, in the seventh sub- “It was a good perform- to work on the small details.” champion Kohei Uchimura division of men’s qualifica- ance if you think that I haven’t China dominated to top was in action and was also tions. Placed 25th at the 2014 done anything since Europe- the subdivision and the overall one of Japan’s three pommel- Worlds and thereby did not ans,” said Petrounias, refer- Team standards after all quali- horse casualties, but his squad advance as a team to the 2015 ring to his gold medal-winning fications. Ruoteng Xiao also handily earned the top team Worlds, led the subdivision performances at the European topped the All-Around results score of the sixth subdivision with 240.196 points. Championships in August, thanks to his efforts for the of men’s qualifications. “It was not the best per- when he last performed a full team, knocking Nikita Nagorny “We were tired, and we formance, but we are happy. rings routine. “I used all my off the top stop he held for felt kind of bad,” said Kazuma We are writing history. We experience, and everything nearly all of the qualification. Kaya of his team’s woes on were 25th at the 2014 World was good.” The competition will de- pommel horse “So, we tried Championships, and today we Germany suffered errors termine the winners of eight to stop it, but we just put too are in the top 10 and might on pommel horse and high bar sets of medals for men (Team, much energy into it, and that’s finish among the top 15.