Wild card selections: Pegan, Garcia to stay at home

I want inform you that today (few minutes ago) died one of basic Olympic rule – LET THE BEST SPORTSMAN WIN

On our National TV (TV Slovenia) we got the information that the last wild card for Olympics games (for artistic gymnastics) goes to one citizen of Yemen.

I dont know what thinking about this decision [Aljaz] Pegan, Yuri van Gelder, [Krisztian] Berki and other great gymnasts all over the world and other normal people…

And what do you think? Is that fair?

So wrote webmaster of www.pegan.si, a website dedicated to Slovenian veteran Aljaz Pegan, a two-time world high bar champion who has competed at every world championships since 1989 but has never been to an Olympic Games.

Pegan, second on high bar at the 2007 World Championships, was said to be in the thick of the wildcard race for an Olympic berth. His closest rival was likely Dutch strongman Yuri van Gelder, who won silver on his specialty, rings, in Stuttgart.

It was reported on message boards earlier today that the much-anticipated wild card slots went to Nashwan Al-Hazari from Yemen for men’s artistic gymnastics, and Thuong Do Thi Ngan from Vietnam for women. Both are respectable elite gymnasts, but neither have made much of an impact on the world scene.

International Gymnast Magazine ran an interview with Pagan a few months ago, and IG editor Dwight Normile posted a perspective on why the women’s wildcard should go to Mexico’s Elsa Garcia last week.

So, to repeat the webmaster’s words, is it fair? And what do you think?

Men’s artistic gymnastics: 12 to watch in ’08

For men’s gymnastics, the 2008 Olympic Games seem to loom as a competition where old scores are literally to be settled. The judging scandals that plauged the men’s events in Athens in 2004 — in the all-around, on high bar, parallel bars and still rings — seem to have kept many athletes in the gym and training for redemption in Beijing.