World Championships

Just the Good Stuff: Event Finals Day 2

22 Comments

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

MAN VAULT

  • Everybody lived
  • Not even a single death
  • Not one
  • Well, perhaps the death of form
  • Ri Se Gwang won another world vault title, once again successfully showing all the different shapes in a single position on his first vault, followed by a very successful second showing that was just the one shape, tucked
  • His insane difficulty put him in first, but once again the execution difference between him and the other competitors (or even between his two identically scored vaults) was not large enough to reflect reality
  • The most impressive vault of the competition belonged to Dalaloyan, who performed another excellent double front pike and probably should have won on execution
  • Kenzo took third place, going for execution over difficulty (particularly on his stuck Kas 1.5 second vault), which was enough to get him a medal but not enough to challenge the beasts
  • Dom Cunningham performed very well to place 4th, with his TTY scoring among the best vaults of the day and just outpacing another medal contender in Nagornyy—who struggled to complete his Kas 2/1 and dropped down the standings as a result

WOMAN BEAM

  • Ooooof
  • Yeeeeerrrrrr
  • Erglgru
  • So it wasn’t an ideal beam final, featuring just two exceptional routines
  • On the rough side, we had two falls from likely medalists—Kara Eaker fell instantly on her mount, Sacramone-tribute style, and Sanne Wevers missed her side aerial to bhs series, dropping them both out of the medals and instantly canceling the final
  • Oh there’s more: Zhang Jin had a multi-fall showing, and Ellie Black wobbled in the middle of her leap series and appears to have lost some difficulty to put her at just 4.8, I presume as a result of not getting her 0.5 CR for a combination of dance elements.
  • That brings us to Simone, who did not fall but was fighting it the entire routine, breaking several of her connections and wobbling on most of her acro elements. The result was a 7.4 E score and a total of 13.600, so if you only looked at the score, you would assume she fell
  • That result was still good enough for a bronze medal for Simone since, even though Nina Derwael went through mostly cleanly, she too had more wobbles than in her previous routines and had far lower difficulty
  • So, the two exceptional routines belonged to Liu Tingting and Ana Padurariu. You know, just like you expected
  • Padurariu hit a composed routine with no significant issues, which in this final was enough for silver, only behind Tingting, who had more difficulty—much of which is built up from smart mixed series like her excellent aerial, split ring, Korbut—and no major balance checks. Hence, the gold
  • Tingting is your world beam champion

MAN PARALLELS

  • For what seemed to be (and was) inevitable final, this one proved to be pretty compelling
  • We knew that Zou and his handstands and toes and crazy 7.0 D would win as long as he had something even in the vicinity of a hit
  • That happened
  • We also knew that Oleg boasted the second-best difficulty of the final, was the best in the world before Zou came along, and would get silver as long as he had something even in the vicinity of a hit
  • That happened
  • Bronze was the free-for-all, and for most of the competition, it looked as though the 15.233 that Sam Mikulak recorded in the first position would hold up
  • And it did, through the strong but slightly messier work of Lin Chaopan and Jossimar Calvo, but not through the routine from Artur Dalaloyan in the final position, which earned him bronze and took Mikulak to 4th
  • I thought Mikulak’s score was going to hold up because he was a little cleaner and a little higher, but it was not to be. Yet.

WOMAN FLOOR

  • Simone
  • I mean, she went OOB again, but still won by a casual point because Simone
  • The drama, of course, surrounded the remaining positions
  • Morgan Hurd received an execution bump to put her in silver medal position despite having a lower D than some of the other contenders, quite significantly not attempting the difficult turns that got a few of her colleagues into trouble
  • Bronze went to Murakami, who once again struggled on her attempted quad twist by falling out of it wildly, but nonetheless looked characteristically comfortable and controlled in tumbling
  • The heartbreak of the final was a 4th-place result Melnikova, who was phenomenal on her early passes, the best she has ever been, but sort of lost it at the end, presumably not getting her double Y spin and landing short on her double pike
  • There’s nonetheless a very good argument to be made regarding Melnikova, that performance, and a medal
  • As it turns out, the rest of the group was bunched so closely that an OOB for Flavia Saraiva because of her rubber legs was enough to take her off the medal stand
  • But, as we learned in the AA final, any event in which Brooklyn Moors finishes last is automatically rendered invalid, so this floor final is automatically rendered invalid

MAN HIGH

  • Man bar turned out to be the Epke show, as we mostly expected it to be
  • He performed his 6.8 D score, hit all of his crazy releases, and sailed past the 15 mark to record what would prove to be an unreachable score
  • Because Epke
  • Uchimura did give him a run, ending up just three tenths behind solely as a result of his lower difficulty
  • There is some controversy about the finish because Kohei is considerably cleaner and the E scores were only 0.1 apart
  • OK, I know he’s Kohei and I also know that Epke and his legs don’t always agree on which direction to go, BUT I did not think Kohei’s finishing positions on his pirouetting skills were particularly free from deduction either, so I’m not up in arms about the E difference
  • Sam Mikulak got his bronze! So we can stop talking about his lack of individual medals now
  • Mikulak received the highest E score of the entire final, and he needed it because it was sure a tight one
  • Tin Srbic finished just a third of a tenth behind Mikulak, showing excellent releases but also finding himself short of vertical on his late-routine pirouettes
  • The lesson of this final: don’t pirouette. That’s what destroyed the scores of the Chinese athletes Deng and Xiao who both could have contended for that bronze
  • IT’S OVER
  • YOU GUYS IT’S OVER

22 thoughts on “Just the Good Stuff: Event Finals Day 2”

  1. I am DELIGHTED for Liu Tingting. She was my favorite contender. Hooray for classy beam. I liked Kara Eaker too, but not her ring positions.
    Simone definitely has to ditch her Barani.

    Sad for Melnikova, she cried in her Insta story. I sent her a message of support in Russian and she replied. Yeah she should work to improve her stamina, but I was sad for her because she’s so sweet!

    1. I’ve seen Simone have more consistent trouble with her front flips than her barani in general. I don’t know if she’s ever fallen on it except this Worlds. But she’s regularly had wobbles, and both hand touches on the regular front flips. I say keep the barani. She’ll get it under control like she did last quad.

    1. Who was disappointed?!! She won medals on every event! I’m just disappointed in fate for giving her a KIDNEY STONE AT WORLDS

      1. THIS! Kidney stones leave you with debilitating pain, yet she won six medals, four of them gold, and got a medal in EVERY event. With a kidney stone. While in pain. Undisputed QUEEN OF GYMNASTICS in my opinion!!!!

    2. I mostly agree. I’m a huge football fan and if my team loses by a last second TD or FG by the opposing team, I would be disappointed. Not crazy disappointed, I mean it’s a freaking sport that has no actual impact on my life, but still sad for the athletes. I think the same is true of gymnasts. I feel badly when my favorites lose and I suspect most athletes are disappointed on some level when they don’t meet their own expectations. It may be missing out on gold, a super bowl, World Cup, or NCAA title, but the disappointment is still there.

      As far as analysts/journalists/professional commentators go, it’s their job to critique routines and they’ll discuss the wins and losses or the triumphs and disappointments, if you will.

    3. Anyone is allowed to comment that an athlete had a disappointing competition, so yes she’s technically wrong on that, but can we stop putting major emphasis on tweets? You don’t know what and how many comments she got and who she was responding to. She’s tired and for all we know, she was flooded with people telling her her performance was disappointing. Or she got a few extremely negative and ill-informed ones that set her off. That tweet doesn’t sound directed towards the general public. It sounds like she’s standing up for herself to people who are being jerks to her. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

    4. I think it may have been in response to a lot of people saying that SHE was disappointed. I know NBC said it over and over again. She wasn’t in the end and I think she wanted to take that narrative back a little bit.

    5. I interpret wat she is saying as I read all the bad stuff about me and it hurts my feelings. In that context, her response is correct for her emotional health

    6. well, i am guessing too many people asking her or telling her the same thing. after a while, it really get to you and you start to say things that might not be the best thing to say.

      We should leave her ALONE! she’s still the greatest…. They know they have a lot of things to work on…

  3. i thought sam was not cleaner than chaopan and artur on pbars and deeefinitely not three whole tenths cleaner than tin on high bar but i also didn’t want him to have three 4th places because that would be beyond brutal so it’s a wash. GOOD FOR SAM

    1. With you. Sam deserved bronze on Pbars and by the code, Srbic probably should’ve gotten bronze on Hbar, even though not by the code, I think Sam’s high bar was better. Wash for Sam, so glad he got his medal because he deserved a bronze. But should’ve been on Pbars ’cause it wasn’t a wash for Srbic.

      1. Immediately after watching the high bar final I thought Srbic should have been higher than Mikulak, but after rewatching it, I see why Srbic didn’t get it. Srbic had two piourettes late in the routine that had clear 0.3 deductions. Additionally, the difficulty he earned for connecting those 4 release skills was far lower than you’d think. He had two Cs and two Ds and only got 0.4 in connection for all that work (C+C = 0.1, C+D = 0.1 and D+D = 0.2).

  4. Fave podium finishes – Mai Murakami AA, Alexa Moreno VT, Liu Tingting BB, Nina Derwael UB, Eli Seitz UB, Morgan Hurd AA, Sam Mikulak HB, Marco Lodadio SR, Carlos Yulo FX, Simone’s kidney stone

    Most painful misses – Brazil WAG TF, Russia MAG TF (missing gold), Sam Mikulak AA/PH/PB, Yul Moldauer FX, Angelina Melnikova FX, Flavia Saraiva FX, Melanie DJDS AA, Kara Eaker BB, Rhys McClenaghan PH, Dom Cunningham VT

    Best routines – Zou Jingyuan PB, Eleftherios Petrounias SR, Nina Derwael UB.

    What about you guys?

    1. I’ll give it a whirl, thedohawhirl. (See what I did there? ;-))

      Favorite podium finishes: Mine are mostly the same as yours. Mai Murakami AA, Alexa Moreno VT, Liu Tingting BB, Nina Derwael UB, Eli Seitz UB, Morgan Hurd AA, Sam Mikulak HB, Marco Lodadio SR, as well as Simone’s kidney stone.

      I would add Ana Padurariu BB because she was lovely to watch. I would also add Zou Jingyuan on PB because he is ridiculously amazing and a pleasure to watch on that event, and King Kohei Uchimura on HB, who has had a rough couple years with injury. Good to see the men’s GOAT back on the medal stand. Arthur Zanetti on SR because he came closer to Lord of the Rings Petrounias than expected. Lastly, Simone Biles on UB because she has now conquered UB, her double twisting double tuck dismount nearly hits the roof of the arena, and she did it all with a kidney stone. Mad respect.

      I’d delete Yulo on FX because he should NOT have been given full credit for one of his passes due to under-rotation. Yul Muldauer should have had bronze.

      1. Love this and agree. Lots of happy tears and equal amount of sad ones too, unfortunately.

  5. Well, that was fun.

    Now I’m ready for NCAA and the new post-season format!

    (Dear LSU, please put it all together and win a title while you have Finnegan, Priessman, and Kelley.)

    1. Yes, I agree. This is the best chance LSU has to win – at least looking forward.

      UCLA has to be the favourite though with their depth, being defending champs and the fact they have the motivation to send Miss Val out in winning style.

      Second is a tie between OU and UF – I can’t separate them and it’s super close.

      Next I would slide in LSU… But MANY of the teams behind them are closing in and could win on a good day (falls not included).

      Among the pack (in no particular order): Utah, Michigan, Alabama, Cal, Kentucky and I’ll throw in UGA (though I’m concerned about the fact they’re depending on NINE freshmen and don’t have many upperclassmen).

  7. Nitpicking but it seems a bit rude not to consider Zhang Jin a likely medalist when she qualified in a medal position.

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