Gymnast: Baku brought Israeli team luck at World Championships

The Israeli team ranked second in the team standings scoring 174.750 points at the 37th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Baku, Trend reports.

"We have always ranked fourth or fifth in the competitions throughout Israel’s history,” Israeli gymnast Nicol Zelikman said. "We grabbed silver at this championship. We won’t celebrate today. We must thoroughly train for today’s competition. But after performing in the finals of the all-around competitions, we will probably celebrate.”

"Baku has brought us luck,” she said. "Today is the most important day, I hope that everything will be well."

The 37th Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships will last until Sept. 22.

The Championships is the qualification competition for the Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo in 2020. As such, the first 16 individual gymnasts (max. two gymnasts per country) in the all-around ranking will qualify for the Games.

As for the gymnasts within group exercises, Bulgaria, Russia and Italy have already qualified according to the results of the last World Championships. At this year’s Championships, the best five teams will qualify for the Tokyo-2020 Olympic Games according to the all-around scores.

More than 300 gymnasts from 61 countries are competing for nine sets of medals. "Fairy Tales will come to life" is the motto of the championships.

Nine gymnasts are representing Azerbaijan at the World Championship, which is being held at the National Gymnastics Arena. Zohra Agamirova, Veronika Hudis, Yelyzaveta Luzan and Maryam Safarova perform in individual competitions. Ayshan Bayramova, Diana Ahmadbayli, Aliya Pashayeva, Zeynab Hummatova and Darya Sorokina participate in group exercises as part of the Azerbaijani team.