Greece’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Eleftherios Petrounias is currently in Melbourne, Australia, to compete in the World Cup Gymnastics 2020 event, as he fights for a spot to represent Greece at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The 29-year-old gymnast arrived in Melbourne on Saturday night and will be competing on Thursday the 20th of February in the rings apparatus.
Petrounias is the 2016 Olympic champion, 2018, 2017 and 2015 World champion, and a five-time European medalist on the still rings.
Due to an injury, Petrounios was unable to compete in many World Cup events last year and he missed 11 months of competition due to surgery.
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With only three World Cup events remaining before the Olympics, Petrounias must win in Melbourne, as only the first-placed gymnast in the standings will qualify for the Olympics. This means that Petrounias will have to win each of the three remaining World Cup events in order to stand a chance of making it to Tokyo.
Should Petrounias win all three remaining events, he would be tied with China’s Liu Yang. Then, Petrounias would need better scores than Yang in order to overtake him via a tiebreaker and get the last spot for Tokyo.
Petrounias took to his social media pages saying, “I’m ready,” and has been training with the Greek team as he prepares to give it his all tomorrow in Melbourne.
Good luck Eleftherios!