The Bulgarian national all-around group performed great in the qualification of the Olympic gymnastics tournament in Paris and entered the final with the best result.

The girls of Vesela Dimitrova, Magdalena Minevska, Sofia Ivanova, Kamelia Petrova, Rachel Stoyanov and Margarita Vassileva, were excellent in both performances and confirmed their status as favourites for the title.

They received a score of 37.700 for the five-hoop composition (21.700 difficulty, 8.500 artistry, 7.500 execution), which was second only to Italy’s 38.200. The golden girls of Bulgaria were also almost faultless in the 3 ribbons and 2 balls combination, where they were evaluated with 32.700 (17.800 difficulty, 8.300 artistry, 6.600 performance), in this case they were overtaken only by the ensemble of Ukraine (33.500), while the Italian girls made mistakes and recorded 31.150.

Bulgaria’s total was thus the highest of all 14 qualifiers at 70.400, while Italy finished second with 69.350.

The battle for the medals in the discipline will take place on Saturday at 15:00 BST. Bulgaria is defending its title from the Tokyo Olympics.