Australia's Emily Little crowned World Cup Series Champion on Floor

Australia’s Emily Little has capped off a tumultuous 2016-2018 season by being Floor Champion in the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) Individual Apparatus World Cup Series.

GYMNASTICS: Australia’s Emily Little has capped off a tumultuous 2016-2018 season by being Floor Champion in the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) Individual Apparatus World Cup Series.

The 2012 Olympian reached the podium in the first four events of the series – including taking out the Gold Medal in front of an adoring home crowd at the 2017 World Cup Gymnastics in Melbourne – to secure the title by a massive 30-point margin, ahead of Croatia’s Ana Derek and China’s Liu Tingting.

There were eight events in the 2016-2018 Individual Apparatus World Cup Series – including two hosted at Melbourne’s Hisense Arena - where athletes receive points in accordance with their final ranking on each apparatus, with their top three rankings counting towards their final score. Despite missing the entire second year of the Series after suffering an injury at the 2017 Australian Gymnastics Championships, remarkably Little held onto the top spot in the Floor competition for an incredible 13 months. Little also finished ranked second on Vault (behind legendary seven-time Olympian, Oksana Chusovitina), and third on Balance Beam in the 2016-2018 Series.

The reigning 2017 Australian Champion said that winning the World Cup Series Floor Title felt like a just award after the difficult year she has had.

“I’m extremely happy and honoured to win the World Cup Series for Floor,” Little said. “It hasn’t been the easiest year for me as I have been dealing with an injury, so to come out with a win feels really special to me.

“I have met some amazing athletes during my travels to the World Cup Series competitions and so I would like to congratulate them all on a successful series,” she added.

In the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics competition, 2018 Commonwealth Games team members Chris Remkes and Mitchell Morgans were leading the rankings on Vault and Horizontal Bar respectively heading into the final competition in Doha last weekend. Remkes finished on equal points with Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov, however was relegated to second position, with Radivilov totalling higher scores overall.

Morgans was also just pipped at the post for the Horizontal Bar title by 2017 World Champion on this apparatus, Croatia’s Tin Srbic, who finished ranked just one point ahead of Morgans after topping the podium in Doha.

In total, nine Australians finished inside the top ten in the 2016-2018 World Cup Series, with both Little and Remkes achieving this across three apparatus. View the full list below:

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics
Floor Exercise
4. Christopher Remkes (42 points)

Pommel Horse
9. Christopher Remkes (38 points)

Still Rings
=9. Michael Tone (31 points)

Vault
=1. Christopher Remkes (85 points)

Horizontal Bar
2. Mitchell Morgans (68 points)

Women’s Artistic Gymnastics
Vault
2. Emily Little (80 points)
=9. Emily Whitehead (25 points)

Uneven Bars
2. Rianna Mizzen (61 points)
3. Georgia-Rose Brown (60 points)

Balance Beam
3. Emily Little (58 points)
6. Emma Nedov (42 points)

Floor Exercise
1. Emily Little (80 points)
=8. Georgia Godwin (33 points)

Gymnastics Australia