FRANK BAINES, the 2012 European junior all-around champion, will be the only Scot to contest the 2014 Glasgow World Cup at the Emirates Arena on December 6.
The 19-year-old, a member of Scotland's silver medal-winning men's team at Glasgow 2014 this summer, has had an incredible journey over the past 15 months. He suffered four fractured vertebrae in his neck and back after he fell while dismounting from the high bar in training and landed on his head in August last year and was in a back brace for six weeks before battling to regain full fitness and defy the odds to compete at the Games.
The Liverpool-born competitor, who has a Scottish father and English mother, had both nations vying for his allegiance but plumped for the ranks of Team Scotland at Glasgow 2014. "I'm really looking forward to being back in Glasgow and competing in front of the home crowd," said Baines. "The experience at the Commonwealth Games in the summer is one I'll never forget and I know the fans at the World Cup will be just as supportive. To test myself against the world's best is a big challenge and definitely one I'm up for; I can't wait."
Baines is in an eight-strong line-up of the world's leading men's gymnasts which includes the German powerhouse Fabian Hambuechen, a six-time European champion and Olympic silver medallist whose dominance among the sport's upper echelons stretches back almost a decade. Also named are Oleg Verniaiev, of Ukraine, the reigning world champion on parallel bars, and the 2014 World Championships all-around bronze medallist Yusuke Tanaka from Japan.
On the women's side, the 2014 British senior all-around champion Rebecca Tunney will take on a field that includes the former world champion and two-time Olympian Vanessa Ferrari of Italy and Romania's 2014 world all-around silver medallist Larisa Andreea Iordache.
The one-day event, which sold out in record time this year, will serve as a warm-up for the 2015 World Championships at the SSE Hydro next October.
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