2017 EYOF: all you need to know!

The 2017 European Youth Olympic Festival starts tonight with the Opening Ceremony in Györ, Hungary. This Festival, which gathers Europe's best Juniors athletes has been an amazing experience for our young gymnasts in the past and an occasion to test themselves against some of Europe's talents.

Credit: GymFed

This competition has always been a good one for Belgium, as gymnasts such as Thomas Neuteleers, Maxime Gentges, Nina Derwael or Axelle Klinckaert brought medals home.

Team Belgium will be represented by Julie Vandamme, Kay-Li De Neef and Margaux Daveloose in the WAG competition, and by Ward Claeys, Justin Pesesse and Mattis Bouchet in the MAG competition.

The boys will start their competition on Tuesday and will compete in the 3rd subdivision on still rings, along with Georgia. At then end of this qualifying round, the team medals will be awarded, and the qualifiers for the all-around and event finals will be known.

Credit: UEG

Ward Claeys and Justin Pesesse have been the top 2 gymnasts for the past few month, Justin taking the gold at the Belgian Championships, while Ward won the all-around at the two friendly meets organised as a selection process for this EYOF. Mattis Bouchet placed 8th at Nationals, and then won a bronze medal at a friendly meet, behind Ward and Justin.

The Federations have set goals for our boys: a top 8 as a team, as well as at least an all-around and an event final. Given their recent results, I think our boys can achieve that. 

Schedule:

July 25th: qualifications and team final (10h-21h)

July 27th: all-around final (12h-14h15)

July 28th: event finals Day 1 (floor, pommels and rings, 14h-16h)

July 29th: event finals Day 2 (vault, parallel bars and high bar, 14h-16h)

On the women's side, the girls will start their competition on Wednesday and will compete in the 1st subdivision, starting on bars, along with the team from France. As for the men, that day will serve as a qualifying round for the all-around and event finals, the team medals being awarded on Wednesday.

Credit: UEG

Julie Vandamme, Kay-Li De Neef and Margaux Daveloose have been the top 3 gymnasts in their age category in the past few months. Julie won the all-around at Belgian Championships and was also the top Belgian Junior at the FIT Challenge back in June. Kay-Li took silver in Libramont and was 12th in Ghent, while Margaux placed 3rd at Nationals and was 10th at the FIT Challenge. 

The goals for the girls are to place in the top 8 as a team and in an event final, and to qualify two of them to the all-around final.

Schedule:

July 26th: qualifications and team final (10h-21h)

July 27th: all-around final (16h-18h15)

July 28th: event finals Day 1 (vault and bars, 14h-16h)

July 29th: event finals Day 2 (beam and floor, 14h-16h)

How to follow?

As for now, no livestream has been found yet. Rumor has it that Europsort 2 will broadcast the event but I couldn't find any confirmation of that. We'll of course update you on scores and rankings as soon as we have the infos, on the Facebook page and on Twitter.

Competition format (both WAG and MAG):

The competition format in qualification is 3-3-2: 3 gymnasts compete on each apparatus and the two best scores will count towards the team total. The all-around final will gather the top 24 from qualifications (2 per country max.) and the 8 best gymnasts fromp qualifications will compete in the event finals, with a maximum of two gymnasts per country.

Official website here