Doha Marks 5th Stop of 2025 World Cup Series
The fifth stop of the 2025 FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Cup brought specialists, veterans, and rising seniors to Doha’s Aspire Dome. In this second to last stop of the World Cup series, gymnasts competed across four days, testing targeted upgrades and looking to bank WC ranking points, as the calendar progresses toward October’s World Championships in Jakarta.
Highlights
- Slovenia's Belak and Kysselef go 1-2 on vaultef
- Paris Olympian Kate McDonald wins bars, Australia’s first 2025 World Cup title
- Greta Mayer adds another World Cup medal, this time beam gold
- Gold vs. silver difficulty advantage: +0.6 UB (McDonald vs. Hribar) and +0.8 (Maneca-Voinea vs. Rousseau)
Belak Wins Vault
Slovenia's Teja Belak secured vault gold (13.116). The 30- year old, who returned to competition following the birth of her second child in summer 2023, is now in her fifteenth international season. She led the final on combined difficulty (9.0D: 4.4 VT1, 4.6VT2), +.2 higher than silver medalist Tjasa Kysselef (8.8 D: 4.6, 4.2) and +.4 above bronze medalist Greta Mayer (8.6D: 4.2, 4.4). Belak has advanced to three straight World Cup vault finals in 2025. She extended her medal run, which includes Cottbus gold and Baku silver, with Doha vault gold delivering 1-2 finish for Slovenia.
McDonald Delivers Bars Gold For Australia
Kate McDonald qualified in the number one spot (13.066), and went on to secure the bars title in finals, with Australia’s first World Cup apparatus gold of 2025. In finals, her 5.6 difficulty score was the highest of the day, and a sizable +0.6 from the next highest gymnast, Slovenia's Lucija Hribar (5.0D). Hribar’s 8.033 execution score trimmed the gap by more than 0.5 points against McDonald (7.500E), but the difficulty edge (0.67) held for a 13.100 vs. 13.033 victory for McDonald.
Mayer Adds Another Medal, And This Time It Is Gold
After a multiseason run of podium finishes, Greta Mayer’s beam routine in Doha produced a career first, World Cup gold. She combined 5.3 difficulty with 7.833 execution for 13.133. Silver medalist Tina Zelcic scored 12.766 from 4.8 difficulty and 7.966 execution. No rival paired both higher difficulty and higher execution than Mayer, who won gold by a .367 margin.
Maneca-Voinea Returns For Gold
Two years after winning in her senior debut at the Aspire Dome, Sabrina Maneca-Voinea returned to claim the floor title with 13.600. She separated the field on difficulty with a 5.7 D, with +0.6 advantage vs. silver medalist Audrey Rousseau (4.9D), and paired it with the second best execution at 7.900, behind only Rousseau's 7.933E to win the gold.
Scoring Patterns
Finals lineups in Doha, generally speaking, saw higher difficulty provide the definitive winning edge on three of four events: vault: 0.2, bars: 0.6, and floor: 0.8, and that were supported by reliable execution.
Scoring trends
- Vault Combined difficulty set the order, 9.0 for Belak, 8.8 for Kysselef, 8.6 for Mayer, execution preserved the margins.
- Bars McDonald’s plus 0.6 difficulty over Hribar outweighed a minus 0.533 execution gap for a 0.067 win.
- Beam Winner paired the event’s number two difficulty and number two execution at 13.133, silver did not match both.
- Floor Plus 0.6 difficulty margin plus number two execution yielded an 0.800 gap to silver.
World Championships Implications
With Jakarta 2025 contested as an individual only championship, Doha underscored precise apparatus pathways. McDonald’s bars win reinforces Australia’s medal viability on uneven bars. Belak’s vaulting keeps Slovenia in podium range across multiple stops. Mayer’s first World Cup gold elevates Hungary’s beam prospects. Maneca-Voinea’s floor total shows title level difficulty with competitive execution. Cairo, the final stop, will clarify which routines can retain difficulty advantages while maintaining finals level hit rates.