MANILA, Philippines: Displaying skill, grace, and confidence in a silver medal finish performance, Filipino-American gymnast Levi Ruivivar made her way to the Paris Olympics.

The 17-year-old Ruivivar, who placed eighth in the qualification round, scored a second best 13.633 points in the Doha leg of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup Series women's uneven bars final early Saturday, April 20 (Manila time).

Her silver medal finish came with 30 Olympic qualifying points that bumped her total to 62 which is second highest among eligible athletes.

Per apparatus, the top two gymnasts with the highest three-meet point total in the World Cup series will advance to the Olympics.

The Doha tournament is the last of the four Word Cup legs that offered Olympic qualifying points.

Ruivivar had 14 points in the Cairo leg, 12 in Cottbus, and 18 in Baku. Her highest three of 14, 18, and 30 in this Doha leg summed up to 62 points, good for second place behind Georgia-Rose Brown of New Zealand who totalled 70.

Ruivivar would have gotten 25 points only since second place finish in this Doha leg merits, well, 25 only, and 30 for the champion who is Kaylia Nemour of Algeria.

Nemour, however, is not eligible to gain the 30 points since she already made the Paris Games through the World Artistics Gymnastics last year. Thus, the highest eligible athlete -- Ruivivar – claimed it instead.

Even if Ruivivar was awarded with 25 points only, she would still make the Paris Games with a total of 57 Olympic qualifying points, two more than third placer Nathalie Westlund of Sweden.

The highest eligible top-ranked athlete in the uneven bars is Brown, who totalled 70 Olympic qualifying points, claiming 13.366 points in this Doha leg to finish fifth which merits 20 points.

Ruivivar thus joined Carlos Yulo and Aleah Finnegan in the Philippine roster of gymnasts for the Paris Olympics, with another Fil-Am in Emma Malabuyo also hoping to join the team.

Malabuyo competed in the floor exercise of this Doha leg and finished 10th with a score of 12.533 on 4.6 difficulty and 7.933 in execution.

The 21-year-old, who entered this Doha leg with 69 Olympic qualifying points, now has to wait for the championship round results on Sunday if she is going to stay in top two of the floor exercise which merits an Olympic berth.

Yulo, meanwhile, advanced to the parallel bars and vault finale on Sunday after placing second in each apparatus during the qualification round.

Read The Rest at :