Jennifer Lukas, CTVOlympics.ca Staff
Canada’s women’s artistic gymnastics team has booked a ticket to London 2012 after a phenomenal performance at the Artistic Gymnastic Olympic Games Test Event in London on Wednesday.
With four remaining Olympic berths up for grabs, Canada’s Peng Peng Lee, Kristina Vaculik, Victoria Moors, Talia Chiarelli, Brittany Rogers and Madeline Gardiner finished second overall with a combined 221.913 score.
The competition was won by Italy with a combined score of 224.621 thanks to the performances of Vanessa Ferrari, Erika Fasana and Carlotta Ferlito, who finished first, second and third overall.
For Canada’s Lee, who finished sixth overall, it was a dream come true.
“It kind of just hit me right now that this is going to be the Olympics and I’m so excited,” a smiling Lee told CTVOlympics.ca. “I’m so pumped to just go home and work.”
It was a bounce back performance by Canada after failing to qualify at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Tokyo last fall. The team needed a top-eight score in Japan, but an 11th-place finish relegated the women to this week’s second-chance competition. It was an opportunity the team made the most of.
“Our score today was so much more improved than at Worlds,” said Lee, adding that she and her teammates worked hard on cleaning up their landings after their Tokyo disappointment. “Some of us were just focusing on the execution part of it because that’s where a lot of us were getting our deductions from.”
Canada and Italy will be joined at next summer’s Olympic Games by France and Brazil who also earned Olympic berths Wednesday. They will be joined in the 12-team Olympic field by the United States, China, Great Britain, Russia, Romania, Japan, Australia and Germany.
While the other nations must await the final results, for the Canadian women it was time to celebrate.
“I’m really happy with how my team did today,” said Vaculik. “I’m just so amazed with them and how we’ve been building up to this competition, how we’ve been building as a team, gaining confidence and I think it really shows.”
Canada’s women’s team was able to succeed where, on Tuesday, Canada’s men did not. The men’s team failed to qualify as a full team for the Olympics with a heartbreaking fifth-place finish. As a result, the team is likely to only be able to send only one athlete to the men’s competition at London 2012. Gymnastics Canada will not name the gymnast until later this year.
“It’s really the best guy from Canada who should be there,” Canadian team member Jackson Payne told CTVOlympics.ca. “We all are good friends but we all know we’ll be pushing each other, which will be better for Canada in the end to have a really good gymnast (in London).”
