Turns out the Final Five will not be the final five, in at least one respect.
Olympic gymnastics team event sizes will increase by one man and one woman each for the 2024 Paris Games, subject to IOC approval. That’s in line with the team sizes in 2012 and 2016, before the International Gymnastics Federation cut them to four for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
That change for 2020, announced in May 2015, led the 2016 U.S. Olympic women’s gymnasts to dub themselves the “Final Five.” The team name was also in reference to it being Martha Karolyi‘s last Olympics as national team coordinator.
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) directed to this press release when asked Saturday how the team event size change will impact each nation’s ability to qualify up to two more gymnasts for the Olympics in individual events only. That change was also announced in 2015 for the 2020 Olympics.
“It will mark a return to the formula of a maximum of five gymnasts, compared to four per team and two individuals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” the release stated. The FIG hasn’t responded to a request to confirm that means a nation that qualifies a five-person team cannot qualify any more gymnasts as individuals.
OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!
MORE: How Stacey Ervin went from gymnastics to WWE, and why he left