MELBOURNE, 9 November 2005 — Triple Athens Olympic gold medalist Catalina Ponor heads the list of competitors confirmed for this month’s world gymnastics championships, organizers said yesterday.
Romania’s Ponor, who struck gold in the team, floor exercise and balance beam in Athens last year, will be joined in Melbourne by compatriot and Olympic vault champion Monica Rosu and France’s Emilie Lepennec, the asymmetric bars winner. South Korea’s Yang Tae-young will be hoping to make up for his Olympic disappointment after he was denied the men’s all-round gold medal in the Greek capital due to a judging error.
In one of the biggest controversies of the Athens Olympics, the governing body of gymnastics (FIG) ruled bronze medalist Yang should have been awarded the gold instead of American Paul Hamm as the South Korean was incorrectly docked a 10th of a point from his parallel bars routine.
After the FIG refused to redistribute the medals, Yang took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but lost his appeal.
Hamm has chosen to sit out all competition this year. Four of the six individual gold medalists from Athens will compete in the men’s competition, with rings champion Dimosthenis Tampakos likely to draw Melbourne’s large Greek community to Rod Laver Arena.
Igor Cassina, who captured gold in the horizontal bar and is set to battle it out with in-form Australian Philippe Rizzo for the title, should also attract a large crowd from the Italian expatriate community in Melbourne.
Olympics gold medalist Valeri Goncharov of Ukraine heads a strong men’s parallel bars competition with Japan’s Hiroyuki Tomita (silver) and China’s Li Xiaopeng (bronze) also being confirmed.
Spain’s Athens vault champion Gervasio Deferr will head the start list that contains all three medalists in that event.
The event from Nov. 22-27 will feature 301 gymnasts.
