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The Dutch gymnasts delivered a historic feat by qualifying for the Qatar World Cup team final. The Orange-men found Friday, in the second day of qualifying, that only five teams had managed to improve their score compared to yesterday. Epke Zonderland is in the final.
Zonderland, Bart Deurloo, Bram Louwije, Frank Richen and Casimir Schmidt came out Thursday on the first day of qualifying with an excellent score of 245,663 points, at that time good for second place behind Europe. Russian champion (258.402).
Friday, however, eight of the ten sub-divisions came into play, so the Dutch could only watch if their score was enough to rank in the top eight.
China (257,836) The world champion, Japan (253,312), United States (250,362), Great Britain (249,836) and Brazil (246,961) have overtaken the Dutch team, but seventh place was enough to reach the team final next Monday.
"I did not dare to consider that"
This means that the gymnasts are already some of the best results ever achieved in the World Cup. Glasgow's eleventh place finish in 2015 was the best result so far in a final world tour.
"It's incredibly cool, I certainly did not have to consider it in advance, so everything had to be in the right place at the right time, we did it," said the national coach. Bram van Bokhoven on the KNGU website.
The gymnasts were targeting one of the top twelve in the country rankings. The Orange team also wanted to return to the disappointing ninth place at the European Championships in August, which was not enough to qualify for the team final.
Van Bokhoven: "Our result in EK may have been beneficial: after Glasgow, our strategy for the World Championship was occupied."
Zonderland qualifies for the final on a stretch
Zonderland qualifies with the fourth score (14,400) for the end of the line, only final battle for the Dutch. training. The legend of Japanese gymnast Kohei Uchimura (14,600), American Samuel Mikulak (14,566) and Chinese Xiao Ruoteng (14,433) earned higher points from the jury on Friday.
The 32-year-old Frisian, who became a father for the first time earlier this month, hopes to become world champion at the horizontal bar in Doha for the third time in his career. In 2013 and 2014, he claimed gold for himself and won silver in 2009, 2010 and 2017.
Deurloo, good last year for rack bronze, finished 12th in qualifying with a score of 14.033. Only the first eight can reach the final scheduled for Saturday, November 3, the last day of the World Cup.
The Dutch women's team (Sanne Wevers, Vera van Pol, Kirsten Polderman, Naomi Visser and Tisha Volleman)) goes into action Saturday for its qualification.
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