Diorges Escobar

Havana, April 18 (JIT) - Cuban Diorges Escobar said goodbye to the Olympic dream after an imprecise performance that left him out of the final of the free hand exercises at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup in Doha 2024, in Qatar.

The spirituano arrived with all hopes pinned on what had been so far his best routine, and which led him to win a silver medal at the Cairo stop that triggered expectations, but again fell short of expectations.

"She failed in the first line, fell and did not qualify for the final," Pedro Pablo Barrios, the national commissioner of this discipline, told JIT from the headquarters, aware that the slip sentenced any aspiration to reach the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The initial challenge was immense and became more complicated after Escobar failed to perform well in the Cottbus phase in Germany. That situation obliged him to finish the qualifying round among the top eight and then get on the podium, the higher the better.

However, the Cuban received a score of only 12.066 points, which sent him to 26th place. Although he still has to perform this Thursday on the fixed beam, his previous performances on that apparatus left him without options to make the grade for the Parisian event.

This time, Kazakhstan's Milad Karimi (14.533 units) led the elimination segment, followed by Great Britain's Luke Whitehouse (14.300) and Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Patanin (14.200).

The all-around champion at the XXIV Central American and Caribbean Games of San Salvador 2023 only started to face the world elite last season. She clearly needs more competitive maturity to go along with her undeniable talent to reach the top of her potential.

The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) scheduled four phases of World Cups in order to distribute the individual places for Paris 2024. According to the regulations, the sum of the three best performances in this circuit would determine the ranking order that would award tickets to the top two in each apparatus.

Previously, individual tickets were distributed at the world championships of Liverpool 2022 and Antwerp 2023, where the 12 teams of each gender were also completed.