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What you need to know, in quick, easily digestible bullet points.
- The Doha Pearl: That’s what Simone nicknamed her kidney stone
- That’s literally all you need to know
- About this, or anything
- Ever
- Anyway, Simone is fine because she scored 60.965 in the AA
- For comparison, she won worlds in 2015 with 60.333, under the previous code
- Morgan Hurd is second all-around with 56.465, so she will advance to the all-around final with Simone after putting up her own fab day
- Riley McCusker struggled, falling on beam, not getting her full difficulty on bars, going OOB on floor, and landing short on vault, so she will miss out on all individual finals
- Biles will advance to all four event finals, while Hurd looks likely for floor and is a possibility on bars. Eaker is a lock for beam
- Grace McCallum currently sits in 5th on vault but with some major vault contenders still to come, so she’s going to need some help to make that final
- Also the US is in first place as a team by 12 points, but like duh
- Nina Derwael is the only non-Simone to be leading an event at this point after breaking the 15 mark on bars. She also sits 4th AA after nearly outscoring major medal contender Murakami
- Speaking of, Japan had a bit of pre-meet drama with Aiko Sugihara’s injury withdrawal so ended up competing just four gymnasts, all doing AA
- Still, Japan met expectations and is currently 2nd in the team standings
- Mai Murakami is third AA and likely to make it back to the floor final
- Germany sits 3rd as a team after a crucial exorcism of the Euros demons, hitting three beam routines and counting three 13s there. A far cry from the 9s this summer
- Seitz is in fairly good shape for the bars final, but few others in the temporary top 8 on bars are (Adlerteg, Bui, etc) with RUS, GBR, and CHN still to go tomorrow
- The Netherlands sits in 4th, ahead of Belgium (which had to count falls on bars and beam) but both teams are still in a rough position for TF with so many good teams left to go. There will be some nervous watching tomorrow
- Wevers will make the beam final, currently in 3rd, and Naomi Visser had an excellent day in the all-around, sitting 6th once you take into account 2-per country. 6th! Visser!
- Volleman is currently 4th on floor and will have to see how tomorrow goes because of her borderline position
- As for the performances of Italy and Australia, sitting 6th and 8th, I feel similarly about both. Based on our general, traditional expectations for these countries, these are not strong results as both will finish clearly short of TF, but given the injury situations and the rosters available, both met expectations and live to fight another (better) year
- A rough day for Hungary and Ukraine has them 10th and 11th respectively as teams, both behind North Korea who competed in the same subdivision. They’re not in danger of missing the top 24, but they would have expected better
- North Korea looks like it will have Pyon Rye Yong in the vault final, but Kim Su Jong will miss the AA final after throwing in a couple 11s on beam and floor. I thought she would make it
- South Korea will put Yeo Seojeong in the vault final and is currently a very impressive 7th in the team standings. Yeo is the power option they’ve been missing lo these many years
- Chusovitina is third on vault and should make that final as well
- The new skills went well, Biles competing the Biles, Jurkowska-Kowalska getting her beam dismount, Volleman doing her floor (it was floor) hop, Olafsdottir getting her beam dismount, and Tienna Nguyen competing her new turn. Because of the judgment-call nature of turns, we’ll have to see whether she got credit for it
- Poland finished a whisker ahead of Argentina, both teams hovering around what should be the cutoff point for the top 24 advancing to next year’s worlds