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Four days of competition have been completed at the 2022 World Surfing Games, marking the halfway point of these championships. The games are currently being held in Huntington Beach, United States. The event features a double elimination bracket where an athlete is only eliminated if they fail to finish in the top two in their heat twice. Currently, 12 men and 16 women remain in the main bracket while all other surfers have been placed into the repechage bracket. The World Surf League, the governing body for professional surfers is well represented on the men’s side where 9/12 athletes in the main bracket are part of the permanent roster for the 2022 season. On the women’s side only three permanent roster athletes are competing. Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons and United States’ Gabriela Bryan remain in the main bracket. The best performance on the men’s side so far was Griffin Colapinto of the United States who scored a 17.00 in the second repechage round, a statement performance after being eliminated from the main bracket in the second round. Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi, silver medalist at the 2020 Olympics has been the most consistent where he has so far finished first in all four main bracket rounds, including obtaining the second and third highest overall scores so far in the first and fourth rounds respectively. In the women’s event, the best performance so far came from Australia’s Sophie McCulloch who scored a 16.43 in the second round of the main bracket. This event offers one man’s and one woman’s quota to the 2024 Olympics. In a bit of twist from the other quotas, the place is awarded to the highest-ranking nation in the team points rankings. The team points are calculated based on the combined results from the three competing athletes. The quota is awarded to the nation and will allow a nation to potentially send three athletes should they qualify two individual quotas at future events. The World Surfing Games will continue until September 24th.

History was made today as Sofia Raffaeli became the first Italian to win gold in the women’s individual all-around at the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships. The event also doubled as the first Olympic qualification opportunity for the rhythmic individual all-around event where the top three athletes qualified their nation to the games. The 2022 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships are currently being held in Sofia, Bulgaria from September 14th to September 18th 2022. The qualification round was topped by Italy’s Sofia Raffaeli whom finished with a total of 98.850. In the qualification round only the three best apparatus scores are counted towards your overall total. Raffaeli was the top performer in the ball and ribbon. The top performer in the hoop and clubs was Bulgaria’s Stiliana Nikolova whom finished just behind Raffaeli with a score of 98.200. The pair had an over 2-point gap ahead of third place Darja Varfolomeev of Germany. In the final, all four apparatus performances are counted towards your total, meaning there was no room for error. The top three from the qualification round continue to be the best performers. After the first two rotations Varfolomeev held a 1.050 lead over Nikolova and Raffaeli. However, a poor ribbon by Nikolova essentially knocked her out of contention for gold leaving Varfolomeev and Raffaeli to battle for gold in the final rotation. Varfolomeev held a 1.000 lead and had to compete in the ribbon while Raffaeli’s final apparatus was the ball. Varfolomeev had a 32.450 performance in the ribbon, but Raffaeli was able to counter with a 34.250 on the ball, allowing her to win gold with a total score of 133.250. She finished first in the hoop, ball and ribbon. Varfolomeev finished in the silver medal position by winning the clubs and finishing with a total score of 132.450. Bronze and the final Olympic quota went to Nikolova who finished with a total of 128.800. Raffaeli had a breakout season in 2022 where she won gold in the individual all-around at 3/5 World Cup events. She also added many apparatus medals to her collection including three golds (hoop, ball & ribbon) and one bronze (clubs) at this World Championships. The next Olympic opportunity for nations to qualify in this event will be at the 2023 World Championships.

Bulgaria will get to defend its Olympic title after winning the Group All-Around title for the first time since 2014 at the World Championships. In terms of Olympic qualification, the top three nations in the group all-around final qualify a team of five athletes to the games. The 2022 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships are currently being held in Sofia, Bulgaria from September 14th to September 18th 2022. The host nation, performed consistently well in both apparatuses, scoring a 33.800 in the five hoops and a 32.800 in the three ribbons + two balls for an overall score of 66.600. The 3 ribbons + 2 balls performance was the difference maker as they finished two points clear over second place Israel and were the only two nations to finish with a score above 30. Israel finished with a total score of 64.650 while Spain grabbed the third and final quota thanks to a 63.200 performance. The Bulgarian team was made up of an entirely new group from the team which won gold in Tokyo. The team included Sofia Ivanova, Kamelia Petrova, Rachel Stoyanov, Radina Tomova, Zhenina Trashlieva and Margarita Vasileva. Pre-tournament favourites Italy had a relatively poor performance in the 3 ribbons + 2 balls and while they were the best team in the 5 hoops, it was not enough and they finished fourth. Italy and other nations will have other opportunities to qualify to the Olympics, with the next one being the 2023 World Championships.