HER appetite whetted by her national women’s artistic gymnastics squad debut in the Asian championships in Singapore last year, Emma Malabuyo will be gunning for an Olympic ticket when she sees action in three FIG World Cup series legs starting next week.
A floor exercise silver medalist in the last Asian meet, Malabuyo, also a UCLA Bruins varsity mainstay, will vie in three FIG World Cup series legs starting with the second stop set Feb. 22 to 25 in Cottbus, Germany, the Olympics.com website reported over the weekend.
She will be joined by Filipino-American teener Levi Jung-Ruivivar in the same leg. They also compete in the third leg set Mar. 7-10 in Baku, Azerbaijan, and the last together with Ancilla Lucia Mari Manzano from April 17-20 in Doha, Qatar, according to gymnastics deputy secretary general Rowena Eusuya.
Organized by the International Gymnastics Federation, known by its French acronym FIG, the series serves as a qualifying process for individual apparatus events by earning Olympic ranking points based on the outcome of the performances of the individual entries in each leg.
Vying in at least three of the four legs, the overall gold and silver medalists in the women’s floor exercise, uneven bars, vault and balance beam events, respectively, will be eligible to compete in these individual events in the Paris Olympics in July.
“It’s definitely overwhelming and a little bit chaotic, but I’m doing my best to just prepare for all these trips,” Malabuyo was quoted as saying. “I think I can handle it. I’ve had a lot of experience. I’m just mainly very excited for this opportunity.”
Aside from the floor exercise, she also plans to compete in the balance beam event in all three legs, the report said.
Malabuyo and Ruivivar are hoping to join Aleah Finnegan, who became the first Pinay gymnast to qualify for the Olympic Games after finishing fifth overall out of 14 individual entries with a score of 51.366 in individual all-around qualifiers of the world meet in Antwerp, Belgium last October.
