Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The World Challenge Cup AGF Trophy 2016, a major FIG event with a broader participation, will be held in Baku for the first time.

The first Men’s and Women’s World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics of the year is scheduled for February 19-21.

The capital is going to host 146 participants within the delegations representing 19 countries.

Being held at the National Gymnastics Arena, which hosted six gymnastics disciplines during the 1st European Games, the competition will include 46 men and 22 women athletes to compete for medals.

World-known gymnasts, including three-time World Champion (Floor & Team Competition) Kenzo Shirai from Japan, bronze medalist of the World Championships on Pommel Horse Kaya Kazuma from Japan, two-time silver medalist (All-Around, Parallel Bars) of the Olympic Games Marcel Nguyen from Germany, European Floor Champion Alexander Shatilov from Israel and others, will exhilarate the fans with their thrilling performances.

Famous female athletes such as European Champion Oksana Chusovitina from Uzbekistan, Youth Olympic Games Floor Champion Flavia Lopes Saraiva from Brazil and tree-time gold medalist of the World Cup series Dorina Boeczoego from Hungary will also compete at the event.

The favorites of the Azerbaijani fans will certainly be Oleg Stepko, the bronze medalist of the World Championships on Parallel Bars, and the only Azerbaijani athlete, who won five medals at the 1st European Games, as well as his team-mate Petro Pakhnyuk, who became a bronze medalist in team competition together with Stepko at the Baku 2015 Games.

In Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Competitions, Azerbaijan is represented by silver medalist of the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics Kristina Pravdina, as well as by Marina Nekrasova, Yuliya Inshina and Mariia Smirnova.

This year Azerbaijan will also welcome World Cup series in Trampoline Gymnastics on March 5-6.

Baku was recently entrusted to host the European Championships in Trampoline Gymnastics in 2018.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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