Sam Offord will be the sole men's all-around competitior from Australia at the 2009 World Championships in London, Gymnastics Australia announced Monday.
Offord, the 2009 Australian national champion, will be joined Philippe Rizzo, Prashanth Sellathurai, Sam Simpson, Joshua Jefferis and Luke Wiwatowski. All have previous World or Olympic experience. Rizzo won Australia's only world title to date -- gold on high bar in 2006 -- and Sellathurai won silver on pommel horse at the same World Championship.
Simpson was Australia's sole male gymnastics competitior at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, after the Australian men failed to qualify as a team to the Games. Jefferis and Wiwatowski were both part of the 2007 World team.
In London, Sellathurai will compete on pommel horse and rings, Rizzo on high bar and parallel bars, Simpson on floor and pommel horse, Jefferis on rings and parallel bars, and Wiwatowski on floor and high bar. Offord is the only Australian man scheduled to compete on vault.
The men's world team was finalized after Saturday's World Trials in Canberra. The women's world team of Georgia Bonora, Larrissa Miller, Shona Morgan and Lauren Mitchell was finalized last week.
Philippe Rizzo, 2006 World Championships Event Finals, High Bar:
Prashanth Sellathurai, 2009 Moscow World Cup, Pommel Horse:
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