Rounding Off: Ellie Black wins Canadian Championships, Olympic team will be announced in June

Two-time Olympian Ellie Black won her seventh Canadian Championships this week. Black, who finished runner-up in the all-around at the 2017 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, easily held off Ava Stewart, 112.200 to 107.700. Laurie Denommée posted a two-day total score of 102.950 for bronze. The Canadian Championships were held completely virtually, with athletes performing routines in the their home clubs under supervision of a judge.

Brooklyn Moors, who had been third after the first day of competition, dropped to eighth after a rough routine on the uneven bars. Still, she was the champion on the floor exercise.

Gymnastics Canada will name its women's team for the Tokyo Olympics on June 17.

African Championships punch four tickets to Tokyo

Egypt’s Zeina Ibrahim is headed to Tokyo after winning the all-around title Wednesday (26 May) at the African Championships in Cairo. She earned a 50.200 total for the title, followed by teammates Farah Hussein (48.400) and Jana Mahmoud (47.250). South Africa’s Naveen Daries, who posted a 43.850 total, also earned a quota spot to this summer’s Olympic Games.

Daries will be joined at the Games by Caitlin Rooskrantz, who qualified at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart.

On the men’s side, Omar Mohamed of Egypt and Uche Eke of Nigeria secured their spots to the Games. Mohamed was the all-around champion, followed by teammate Ziad Khater. Eke won the bronze.

Team USA’s Marvin Kimble announces retirement

2017 U.S. world team member Marvin Kimble announced his retirement from the sport this week, citing a nagging wrist injury.

“Dear gymnastics, the things you’ve showed me over these past 17yrs I don’t think any sport could give me,” he wrote on Instagram. “I wish I could recapture that moment when I walked into the gym for the first time. For me it was like a kid in a candy store.”

Kimble competed earlier this season, taking third place on the high bar at February’s Winter Cup. Other career highlights include two gold medals (team, pommel horse) at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto. He was the reserve athlete for Team USA at the 2018 World Championships in Doha.

Morgan Hurd takes on body shamers

2017 World all-around champion Morgan Hurd, who stars in the Olympic Channel original series All Around, has become an advocate for causes important to her in recent months, including addressing racial hate against Asian Americans and Black Lives Matters.

This week, she responded head on to bullying online.

A comment attached to her floor routine from the recent U.S. Classic event read, in part: “On one hand, we have a German female gymnast who didn’t want to be sexualized so she decided to wear a pants style leo. On the other hand, we have Morgan who opted to go the opposite and go for that really, really, REALLY high cut leo.”

Hurd wasn’t having it.

“Appreciate your input, but you see the problem here is why should I feel the need to cover more of my body in order to not be sexualized?” the 19-year-old wrote back. “Shouldn’t we all just be able to wear what we ourselves are comfortable in? Maybe instead we should teach people to not sexualize our bodies.”

From the vault…

This week, we look back at Team Canada on the floor exercise during qualifying at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. Kate Richardson led the team with a 9.562, advancing to the team final. Overall, the Canadian women finished tenth.