Just the Good Stuff: Women’s Team Final

What you need to know, in quick, easily digestible bullet points.

  • Just as we all expected, the medals in the women’s team final went to the US, Russia, and China in that order
  • Probably nothing to report, right?
  • Nothing interesting happened?
  • Yeah
  • Ah ha. Ha.
  • So actually, everyone on every team turned inside out and died at every possible moment
  • Even the US team scored three points lower than its qualification performance en route to its now-traditional comically easy romp—and historic 8.766 margin of victory
  • The US did have Simone putting her hand down on beam and both Simone and Morgan looking a little “US Classic podium training” on floor, which don’t actually count as mistakes in this meet given what happened to everyone else, but count as mistakes by US standards
  • No falls for the US still, which puts the streak at 8 years (and 77 routines) since the US women fell in a world/Olympic team final
  • I only had to tweet that information three times until I got it right. FML. I smrt.
  • Also, Riley McCusker hit beam, so you’re going to be fine
  • Now, to the other teams
  • In the touch warmup for the first rotation, we saw Lilia Akhaimova fall to earth on a full-twisting handspring layout crumple (in order to honor Simakova), which pretty much set the tone for the day
  • Akhaimova also fell on her competition rudi spurring us all to join together in a warranted recitation of the heart attack chorus from the famous aria “Here We Go Again Russia
  • But because the world is upside down, Russia then went through both bars and beam…easily?
  • Seriously, they had the 2nd-best scores of the competition on those events
  • On BEAM
  • Aliya was perfect. Don’t worry about it
  • She did go overtime on beam, and the judges (and me) were like, “That was the most beautiful overtime in the whole wide world. 999.999”
  • It looked at this point as if Russia was safe for silver, but then Melnikova went to floor and was like “Hold my bitchface,” landing on the north pole on her DLO 1/1 and then really jonesing for some sweet, sweet meldonium as she struggled to get through her final pass.
  • Melnikova’s lower-than-expected floor score made the margin between Russia and Japan too close for comfort, but Russia nonetheless held on for silver because it took advantage of the mistakes from…every other team
  • China. Oh. Dear, sweet China.
  • The opportunity was there for silver, but China threw in far too many early mistakes—Liu Tingting casting into a brick wall on bars and both Zhang and Chen falling on beam
  • When floor and vault are the solid events for China…
  • In fact, China looked to be in serious trouble, sitting 7th after the third rotation
  • This was misleading because China still had to vault and was sure to move up a lot, but nonetheless the opportunity existed for other nations to snatch a medal
  • Brazil. SIGH. Brazil went to bars in the final rotation, and if the Brazilians had only repeated the qualification total on bars, they would have won SILVER.
  • Silver, people. Silver.
  • Alas, the wheels fell off the pumpkin in all three Brazilian bars routines and Brazil ended up in 7th
  • But still, Brazil kind of almost won a team medal
  • Also in WHEEEE/OOOOHH purgatory of emotional contradictions will be Canada, making history with a 4th-place result
  • And yet, Canada finished less than a point behind China, even with two more falls from Padurariu on bars and beam than it had in qualification
  • So close!
  • I would have more to say about Canada but the world feed only showed like 1.5 Canadian routines because Canada was in last place for a while—which was (largely) a product of the rotation order with the Canadians ending on vault
  • Get it together, broadcast
  • Also, your weird roller-coaster diagonal arty camera angle on floor is appreciated by 0% of humans
  • Like most of the other teams, France threw in exactly two falls too many (DJDS on beam, Vanhille on floor) that ended up dashing what could have been quite realistic hopes of a medal
  • The French TF performance was quite reminiscent of qualification in that it was…fine. But not quite crisp enough to fulfill the prophecy of Euros
  • Japan! Bizarrely, vault is where things fell apart for Japan with a miss from Asuka Teramoto, even though Japan could have/should have been the #2 vaulting team today.
  • It’s a shame because through beam and floor, Japan looked solid (Mai nailed beam) and in serious contention for a medal as well
  • It’s not an exaggeration to say the 2-7 teams could have ended up in any order
  • But the same old story. All the close teams had about two falls too many and couldn’t make Russia or China face consequences for not being as dominant as they were supposed to be
  • So the podium is just…samesies
  • Germany made the team final
  • Bars was awesome, as was Sarah Voss’s beam, but mostly GERMANY MADE THE TEAM FINAL
  • After that Euros beam rotation from hell
  • Anyway, the leotard looked like bumblebees infiltrated a 1993 wetsuit factory
  • The end

3 thoughts on “Just the Good Stuff: Women’s Team Final”

  1. well, better luck to everyone else except the us….. next time…..

    just glad riley hit her routines!

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