Canada takes on the world at artistic gymnastics championships

Canada's Ellie Black will be looking to build on her multi-medal performance from the Pan Am Games and secure a spot at the 2016 Olympics as the world artistic gymnastics championships get underway Saturday in Glasgow.

Black's stellar Pan Am performance included five medals: gold in the floor, beam and all around disciplines; a bronze in the vault and silver in the team competition. At just 19, she was the most decorated Canadian at the Games, and is looked to by Gymnastics Canada as a team leader.

"To have our best outcome at the worlds, our team just has to focus on the process," national team director for women's artistic gymnastics Dave Brubaker said in September. "We're strengthening the whole team as we head into Rio.

"We have great leadership from Ellie ... and it's really nice to be able to select from a larger pool of athletes," he said. "We seem to have more depth built into the program which is great for the future of gymnastics in Canada."

In Scotland, Black will face stiff competition from Simone Biles of the United States, herself a five-medal winner at the 2015 world championships in Nanning, China. One of those medals was in the team competition, where the U.S. is always a strong threat to win the title.

On the men's side, Scott Morgan is the Canadian to watch. 

Though Morgan didn't have a great showing at the Pan Am Games, he was the gold medalist in the rings and the vault at the 2014 Commonwealth Games (which were also in Glasgow). His teammate Kevin Lytwyn had a surprise silver medal in the horizontal bars at the Pan Am Games, and will be looking for some hardware at the world championships.

To make it to the podium, however, Morgan will have to beat Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev, who won gold medals at the 2015 European championships in both the all-around and vault competitions, as well as gold in the parallel bars in the 2014 world championships.

The hometown favourite will be Great Britain's Max Whitlock, who graced Glasgow with three golds — plus a silver and a bronze — at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. But he too will face a strong challenger in Japan's Kohei Uchimura. The all-around 2014 world champion also had a two silvers in the horizontal and team competition. 

Olympic qualification at stake

The event is Canada's first chance to qualify for the 2016 Olympics.

The top eight teams in both the men's and women's competition will directly qualify for Rio, while teams ranked ninth to 16th will advance to the Olympic test event in Rio de Janeiro in April. The top four teams at that event will advance to the Olympics.

On an individual basis, medal winners in Glasgow who are not already part of a qualified team for the Olympics will qualify directly for Rio. Those gymnasts on teams that advance to the test event will also contend for individual spots at that event, with a maximum of two male gymnasts and two female gymnasts per country qualifying.