2019 FIG Artistic Gymnastics Junior World Championships

Clara Raposo & Felix Dolci Lead Canada's Junior Worlds Teams

Clara Raposo and Felix Dolci lead the Canadian women's and men's teams for the first FIG Artistic Gymnastics Junior World Championships.

Jun 24, 2019 by Amanda Wijangco

Clara Raposo & Felix Dolci Lead Canada's Junior Worlds Teams

The inaugural Junior World Championships begins June 27, and the top junior artistic gymnastics will be competing in Gyor, Hungary. Like the senior World Championships, the meet includes team, all-around, and apparatus competitions, but the team sizes for Junior Worlds are smaller. Women's teams consist of three gymnasts, while men's consist of four.

Gymnastics fans in Canada can watch the FIG feed of the first Junior World Championships right here on FloGymnastics.

Canada has been a rising gymnastics power for a few years now, especially on the women's side, and its Junior Worlds teams certainly show that. Clara Raposo headlines the women's team, while Felix Dolci, a 2018 Youth Olympian, headlines the men's team.

Women's Team

Okeri Katjivari

Gym: Brandon Eagles
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 3rd AA
2019 Elite Canada: 1st UB

Katjivari is coming off a bronze-medal performance at Canadian Championships and will be making her international debut at Junior Worlds. She is solid on all four events but has some great potential on bars and floor. On bars, she does a Hindorff, a Weiler kip 1/1, and a double front dismount. She has some good skills on bars and just needs to work on consistency and polishing her routines to maximize her score.

On beam, she's a bit shaky but has a pretty jam-packed routine, starting with a side aerial to layout stepout series, moving on to a front aerial to split leap to Korbut, a sissone to wolf jump, and finishing with a double full dismount. Her tumbling is quite strong on floor, including a double pike, a 2.5 twist, and a front tuck through to full twist.

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Cassie Lee

Gym: Manjak's Gymnastics
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 4th AA, 3rd UB, 3rd FX
2019 Elite Canada: 4th AA, 3rd FX

After moving up to the junior level this year from Gymnastics Canada's novice level, Lee is also making her international debut. Her vault and bars are simpler—she vaults a Yurchenko layout and her notable bars skills are a Tkatchev and a Pak salto—but she has a lot to offer on beam and floor.

On beam, she does a 1.5 wolf turn, a side aerial to back handspring, a wolf jump to straddle jump, and a 1.5 dismount. Her beam is a bit shaky as well, but she has some good combinations in addition to some lone skills that balance out. On floor, she does a double wolf turn and a double Y turn, and her passes include a double pike, a 1.5 to full, and a double tuck. She has good tumbling that has potential to grow and just needs to work on controlling her landings.

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Clara Raposo

Gym: Manjak's Gymnastics
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 2nd AA, 2nd VT, 2nd FX, 3rd BB
2019 Elite Canada: 2nd AA, 1st FX, 4th BB

Raposo is a rising star for Team Canada who's strong on all four events and capable of putting together a good all-around performance. She vaults a clean Yurchenko full. Her bars routine from Canadian Championships didn't have a single bar release move, but she executes her Pak salto, Weiler kip 1/1, and double layout dismount well. Raposo does an excellent job at keeping her legs together and pointing her toes to hit straight handstands and keep her routine clean.

On beam she has potential and room to grow but is visibly poised on the apparatus with some solid connections, including a side aerial to layout stepout and a switch leap to front aerial. She shines on floor where she not only executes her skills well but does a good job at performing her floor routine. Her tumbling passes included a tucked full-in, a double Arabian, and a double tuck.

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Men's Team

Ioannis (Yanni) Chronopoulos

Gym: Futures Gymnastics
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 5th SR, 4th VT
2019 University of Calgary International Cup: 2nd PH, 5th SR

Chronopoulos is the only member of the Canadian Junior Worlds team who didn't compete in the all-around finals at the 2019 Canadian Championships, therefore taking him out of the all-around competition. However, he did compete all six events the first day and sat in fourth behind his three Junior Worlds teammates. On the final day of competition at the 2019 Canadian Championships, he competed on pommel horse, still rings, vault, and parallel bars.

On floor, his passes include a double Arabian, a 2.5 twist, a 1.5 to layout 1/2, a roundoff layout, and a double full. He can get a good rhythm going on pommel horse and is solid on rings where he can minimize swinging too much on his holds. His vault isn't as difficult as his teammates but is still solid with a Tsukahara 1.5.

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Felix Dolci

Gym: Laval Excellence
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 1st AA, 1st FX, 1st SR, 1st PB, 1st HB, 2nd VT, 4th PH
2019 University of Calgary International Cup: 1st PH, 1st SR, 1st PB

Dolci is perhaps Team Canada's top male junior gymnast. He competed in the Youth Olympic Games, Junior Pan American Championships, and Pacific Rim Championships last year where he earned at least one medal at each meet. He's a two-time reigning junior all-around champion and can provide great scores on any event.

For his floor routine, he competes a front double pike, a double double, a front layout to 1.5 twist, and a triple full. Dolci is pretty clean and solid on pommel horse, but the event isn't his best, and he doesn't have a lot of difficulty. His holds on rings are pretty steady, and he has a solid Tsukahara double on vault. Dolci's parallel bars routine is highlighted by a double front 1/2 out dismount. On high bar, he has a few release moves, including a Kovacs, a Tkatchev, and Tkatchev 1/2, and dismounts with a full twisting double layout.

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Evgeny Siminiuc

Gym: Gold Medal Gymnastics
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 2nd AA, 2nd FX, 2nd SR, 2nd PB, 3rd PH, 4th HB
2019 University of Calgary International Cup: 1st VT, 2nd AA, 2nd SR, 2nd PB, 4th HB

Siminiuc is a good all-around gymnast whose best events are parallel bars and still rings. His p-bars work is very clean, and he has excellent holds and handstands on the apparatus. On rings, he's clean and steady, not swinging a lot. As for the rest of the events, his pommel routine is solid, and his high bar is clean. His high bar routine has no big releases, but he dismounts with a full-twisting double layout. On floor, his tumbling includes a half-in half-out, a double full to punch front, a 1.5 twist to back layout 1/2, a punch front 1.5, and a double full.

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Nathan Yvars

Gym: Dynamix
Notable Recent Results:

2019 Canadian Championships: 3rd AA, 1st VT, 4th FX, 4th SR
2019 University of Calgary International Cup: 5th HB

While Yvars is a solid all-around gymnast, he definitely excels on the power events. His floor routine is full of dynamic, clean tumbling, including a triple twist, a nice high double tuck, and a double full. On vault, he has a clean Amanar, which adds nice variety to Team Canada as his teammates do Tsukaharas. Rings is another stronger event of his where he does a good job at minimizing movement of the rings on holds. His pommel horse, parallel bars, and high bar are simpler but are still solid routines for Canada to have in a team competition if needed.