Kevric Set for Much-Anticipated Senior Debut in Cottbus

Helen Kevric

One of the most exciting senior debuts of the 2024 season will take place at the Cottbus World Cup, where Helen Kevric has registered to compete on bars, beam, and floor as she hopes to prove herself for the country’s single open Olympic berth.

Kevric, the reigning junior European and two-time European Youth Olympic Festival all-around champion who also won the silver medal on bars at last year’s junior world championships, is one of the most talented German juniors to come through the pipeline in recent years, and has the talent and skills to make her transition to the senior level a success and she should likely be a lock for any of the program’s international teams this year.

The heartbreaker is that with Germany not qualifying a full team to the Olympic Games at worlds last year, it’s going to be devastating when it comes time to choose the athlete who should fill the program’s non-nominative berth, which the team earned by finishing 13th in qualifications. Both Sarah Voss and Pauline Schäfer earned nominative berths for Paris, so they won’t be part of the chase for this third spot, but with Kevric coming in as one of the hottest new seniors in the world and Elisabeth Seitz returning as a three-time Olympic veteran, I do not want to be in the shoes of the person who has to choose between these two incredibly deserving athletes.

Seitz, who made the uneven bars final at worlds in 2022 and at the Olympic Games the year prior, has clearly proven herself this quad as someone who needs to be in Paris. But with Kevric capable of similar scores on bars along with a generally stronger all-around program, meets like this world cup will be incredibly important for her to prove why she should get the nod over her teammate.

The other German ladies competing here include fellow new senior Marlene Gotthardt and Meolie Jauch, who made her world championships debut as a first-year senior last year. On the men’s side, we’ll see Nils Dunkel and Lucas Kochan, both members of the 2023 worlds team that qualified the program to Paris, along with Milan Hosseini, Maxim Kovalenko, Daniel Mousichidis, and Andreas Toba.

Outside of the German contingent, there are a couple hundred gymnasts expected to compete here, with most of the athletes also on the list for Cairo a week earlier as they attempt to build on their rankings to earn individual Olympic berths. The action in Cottbus will begin with the first day of qualifications on February 22, and we’ve included the full list of athletes is below.

*Competing as Authorized Neutral Athletes

Article by Lauren Hopkins