Britain's men's trampoliners failed to secure an Olympic place at the World Championships.
GB men fail to secure Olympic spot
British Gymnastics Olympic performance director Tim Jones admitted tough decisions have to be made after the men's trampolining team failed to secure an Olympic place at the World Championships in Birmingham.
World number one Kat Driscoll earned a place for the women's team after she finished seventh in qualifying and booked her place in the individual final on Sunday but there was disappointment for the British men with Luke Strong posting the team's highest finish in 31st place.
Jack Helme, who, like Strong and Nathan Bailey, was competing in his first World Championships, finished in 39th place while Britain's strongest hope, James Higgins, ended up in 90th place out of 106 competitors after he pulled up in the middle of his voluntary routine.
One British man will now compete in the Olympic test event in January in a bid to claim one place at the London Games and Jones admitted selecting the gymnast who will challenge for that place will be difficult.
Only the top five-ranked men and women from the test event will secure a place for their country at the Olympics with Britain earning the chance to compete after Strong was boosted into the top 24 in line with tournament rules regarding qualifications.
"We're going to have to go back and think about how we select for that event," Jones said.
"It's Luke that's earned us a place at this event. He's come back from a really serious injury a few years ago and he's done terrifically well to get where he is.
"Luke has got some really strong cards to play in terms of his selection but we also can't overlook the other guys that were at the event.
"I think we know that Nathan is a prospect for the future but Jack had a good day and of course in James Higgins we know we've got someone who is a seasoned performer although it really didn't work out for him at this event.
"It's going to be tough. The plan for the next couple of months is going to be hard graft and whoever we end up sending to the test event will be one of 16 athletes that's out there, and to secure a place for the Games they've got to be in the top five so it's going to be a tough ask.
"We really need to go back and talk to my programme director and the coaches as well and we'll make the right choices about who competes in London."
Jones also revealed that even though British champion Driscoll secured the place for the women's team she is not a certainty to represent Britain in the Olympics.
"We're going to leave it pretty late to select our girl for the Games next year," Jones said.
"While Kat qualified the place, the policy that we'll put out doesn't guarantee that Kat will be the person that goes.
"We're going to keep them all fighting it out as long as we can and hopefully we'll get a good result in London."
Following the disappointment of the men's team's failure to qualify, Jones denied he was worried that funding for trampolining might be cut in the next Olympic cycle.
"I'm not concerned about funding being cut at all," he said.
"We're very clear on the process that UK Sport will go through in allocating funding for the next cycle and we have to start writing our plans in the next few months to make our case against that.
"I'm sure they'll look at the progress we've made in the sport, particularly on the girls' side, and see that we're a pretty solid investment."
Boost
The British women provided a boost for Team GB by winning silver in the non-Olympic trampolining team final.
Defending champions China claimed gold after impressive routines by Wenna He, Shanshan Huang and Dan Li gave them an overall score of 164.485, ahead of Britain on 159.585. Canada took bronze with 159.085.
Britain's top three individual qualifiers, Driscoll, Laura Gallagher and Emma Smith took part with all three scores counting towards the overall team total with each only performing one routine.
Smith started her routine with three triple somersaults on the way to scoring 53.325, before Gallagher substituted a skill in her routine to ensure she completed all 10 moves to score 51.935.
Driscoll performed last for the GB team and coped well with the pressure to produce a solid routine that scored an impressive 54.325 before Li posted 54.480 to help China retain the title.
Driscoll said after the event: "We've still got improvements we can make to our routines.
"We've got a strong team coming through without the experience (of China), so to be able to come out, compete against them and come second to them is fantastic."
Japan claimed gold in the men's team final after double World Champion Dong Dong fell to leave China in silver medal position ahead of Russian in bronze.
In other non-Olympic events, Britain's Robyn Osborne and Adeva Bryan qualified for the double mini-trampoline (DMT) final and helped GB's women into tomorrow's team final, while Gloucester's Kristoff Willerton qualified for the final of the men's tumbling event.
Britain's men and women also made it through to the tumbling team finals with Rachel Letsche and Zara Mclean reaching the final of the individual competition for Britain.
