GB gymnasts under pressure as last chance for Olympics looms

Sports writer

Sunday 8 January 2012

It is, as coach Paul Hall concedes, a critical moment for British gymnastics.

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Richard Wilson

At the Visa International event in London's North Greenwich Arena this week, the men's artistic team will embark on their final chance to qualify for the 2012 Olympics, with failure denying all but one of the gymnasts a place at the London Games. "There is a lot of pressure on them," Hall says.

A poor display at last year's World Championships in Tokyo, when the team finished 10th, has left them in this precarious situation. Canada face the same scenario, while France, Spain, Brazil, Italy, Peru and Belarus are also competing as teams. It is the fate of the British line-up – the two Scots, Daniel Keatings and Daniel Purvis, Louis Smith, Kristian Thomas, Ruslan Panteyleymonov, Max Whitlock and the reserve, Sam Hunter – that hangs in the balance, with a top-four finish required to qualify.If the team fail, only one male British gymnast will compete at the 2012 Games, while qualification will see a five-man squad take part. With Keatings having won the All-Around event at the 2009 World Championships, Smith an Olympic bronze medallist, and Purvis, who won a bronze medal on the floor at the 2010 world championships, Britain has several Olympic medal contenders to call upon."They're all fired up, they've all made sacrifices between Christmas and the New Year," says Hall, who coaches Keatings and Smith. "They've been doing lots of routines and they missed lots of Christmas puddings so they can be ready in the peak of fitness. Daniel has worked very hard."Keatings, pictured, is attempting to recover the form and poise that made 2009 such a productive spell of his career. He suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury last year, then damaged his finger, and although he is now fully fit, he is still recovering psychologically, at least when it comes to competing on the world stage."It was a long, hard road back, but he's very fit at the moment," says Hall. "It was difficult for him to get back on a par from being second in the world to going out and working with his peers and the people he was competing against prior to his injury. He needs some experience of working at that level again. He had a difficult few competitions last year, but he's very motivated."Keatings made his return to elite competition at the World Championships last October, but he fell from the pommel horse and the high bar. The mistakes were uncharacteristic, and inadvertent rather than the result of poor technique, but he is still striving to find his old rhythm and conviction."Daniel's falls were inexplicable," Hall says. "The fact that he was back at that level having been out for a long time might have had an effect. But he's gained valuable experience. I've seen him in training every day and I've been very impressed. He's moved on, he's learned lots of new skills. They clearly need some consolidation, he needs to work on being able to perform them well in competition conditions, but everything is there for him to do very well."Even if the GB team do qualify – for the first time since the 1992 Barcelona Games – the line-up won't be selected until just before the London Olympics begin. For Keatings, and the rest of the gymnasts, the coming months are crucial, but particularly this week's event, which is also a test event for the Olympic venue. "I wouldn't like to contemplate the option of just having one gymnast there," says Hall.

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GB gymnasts under pressure as last chance for Olympics looms

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