Three U.S. gymnasts will hit the international stage this week in Switzerland. Ciena Alipio of Maplewood, Minn./Midwest Gymnastics Center and 2020 Olympian Yul Moldauer of Wellington, Colo./5280 Gymnastics will take on a select, invitation-only field at the 2021 Memorial Arthur Gander competition in Morges November 3. Later in the week, Moldauer will be joined by Olivia Greaves of Staten Island, N.Y./World Champions Centre at the 2021 Swiss Cup Zurich.
Alipio and Moldauer will compete against 16 other gymnasts representing seven countries, including reigning Olympic all-around bronze medalists Angelina Melnikova, who took the top all-around spot at the recent Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, and Nikita Nagornyy – both of the Russian Gymnastics Federation. World men’s all-around bronze medalist Illia Kovtun of Ukraine is also in the field. Each men’s gymnast will compete on four apparatus of their choosing, while the women will select three. The men’s and women’s gymnasts with the highest cumulative point totals will be crowned their division’s respective winners.
At the Swiss Cup Zurich on November 7, Greaves and Moldauer will compete as one of ten participating teams, and each rotation will serve as a knock-out round. After the first rotation, the bottom two teams will be eliminated. Following the second rotation, only four teams will be left standing based on their combined two-apparatus scores. Round three will kick off a tournament style finish, with each remaining team seeded and pitted against one another in direct competition. The top seed and fourth seed will face off, while the second and third seeds will also go head to head to determine who will compete in the finals. The last team standing will be named the winner. The losing teams from the semifinal matches will compete for the third and fourth positions.