Gymnastics Canada  – TAIPEI CITY, TPE (August 21, 2017) – René Cournoyer of Repentigny, QC has qualified for the men’s all-around final at the 2017 Summer Universiade (FISU) Games in Taipei City, TPE.
 
Cournoyer was the only Canadian athlete who competed on every apparatus and finished with 81.575 points to qualify for the top 18 final in 11th place. This was Cournoyer’s best all-around meet of this season, hitting five of six apparatus. His best results came on the parallel bars with a score of 14.125 and the rings, scoring 14.050 points.
 
In the team final, Cournoyer was joined by teammates Joel Gagnon (Saskatoon, SK), Justin Karstadt (Toronto, ON), Aaron Mah (Vancouver, BC), and Sam Zakutney (Ottawa, ON), finishing in 8th place with 241.050, just behind the Unites States.
 
“It’s always an honour to represent Canada internationally,” said Cournoyer. “This is really an incredible team, with so much energy. We’ve been training together for years so we know each other well. The encouragement was great and we supported each other throughout the competition, during every great and rocky routine and really came together as a team.”
 
Tony Smith, national team director for men’s artistic gymnastics at Gymnastics Canada was pleased with the team results: “This team had a marvellous day, they competed with great energy and heart, it was a privilege to be out on the floor with them. Each guy hit when we needed it and everyone took their turn at stepping up when required.”
 
“We feel really good as a team; our goals coming in were to have fun and do good gymnastics. We also hit our target score of 241 points, so we’re all smiles,” said Karstadt. “Personally, I’m really proud of my pommel horse routine. The team struggled on pommel before me, so I was really happy that I had a great routine to have a strong final push for the team score.”
 
Cournoyer will compete in the all-around final on Tuesday. Live scoring for that event can be found here.
 
For full results from the men’s competition, click here.
 
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