World Championship Preview: All-Around

Let’s just cut to the chase here. No dilly dallying. Or “well, maybe if she basdkjfas;dlskfjas;ldkf.” Simone’s going to win the all-around title. After we get that out of the way, the subject always turns to [insert 2nd American here] who will win [insert silver or bronze here].

The performances of Sunisa Lee at US Nationals and the selection camp—where she just broke 58 AA—have established her as the odds-on favorite to win silver at worlds. It is not prohibitive and not a fall-resistant margin, but given the level that we’ve seen from her (and even accounting for home gifts), Lee has started to establish a clear advantage over the remainder of the mortals. At this point, we can’t say it’s a toss-up for silver. Lee has become the favorite for that position.

It’s also somewhat unusual to have a basically unanimous favorite for the second American spot in the all-around final. Usually we’re like, “WELP WHO KNOWS ALY GABBY JORDYN,” but this year it really should be Lee unless there are issues in qualification.

And then we move to the bronze medal. The non-American medalist of choice this year seems to be European champion Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos. What with that European championship and all. She’s the only non-US senior gymnast to have broken 57 in the AA this year (which she achieved at the semi-soft French nationals, but still), and DJDS is the most realistically high-scoring and well-rounded gymnast across four events among the rest of the field.

Part of me wants to just be like, “OK, end of preview.”

But there’s absolutely the opportunity for plenty of other people to medal, and I haven’t done any charts yet, so let’s get into it.

Here are my all-around top 25 rankings for the competitors at worlds. This uses average score on each event in 2019, dropping the low. For these rankings, I have included everyone appearing on worlds rosters, even if I don’t think they’ll actually do the AA in qualification, or if I think they’ll end up being the alternate, because we don’t actually know yet.

I didn’t round up in the actual calculations because I’m not a basic catfish, but I did round to three places in this chart for the purpose of display.

		VT	UB	BB	FX	TOTAL
1	Simone Biles	15.425	14.388	14.775	14.950	59.538
2	Sunisa Lee	14.200	14.767	14.183	14.158	57.308
3	Grace McCallum	14.692	14.050	13.946	13.967	56.654
4	Melanie DJDS	14.717	14.208	13.548	13.717	56.189
5	Kara Eaker	14.028	13.695	14.812	13.517	56.052
6	Liu Tingting	13.484	14.571	14.617	13.206	55.877
7	Ellie Black	14.506	14.074	13.688	13.553	55.823
8	Ana Padurariu	13.758	14.468	14.128	13.467	55.821
9	Jade Carey	14.994	13.175	13.300	14.286	55.755
10	MyKayla Skinner	14.867	13.425	13.650	13.800	55.742
11	Asuka Teramoto	14.783	13.912	13.416	13.333	55.444
12	Tang Xijing	13.675	14.233	14.306	13.125	55.339
13	Nina Derwael	13.566	14.978	13.673	13.066	55.283
14	Li Shijia	13.800	13.588	14.750	13.100	55.238
15	Angelina Melnikova	14.300	14.291	13.162	13.283	55.035
16	Giorgia Villa	14.567	13.853	13.544	12.860	54.823
17	Brooklyn Moors	13.600	13.192	14.050	13.789	54.630
18	Sarah Voss	14.433	13.200	13.667	13.250	54.550
19	Ellie Downie	14.513	13.840	12.800	13.390	54.543
20	Elisabeth Seitz	14.013	14.710	12.489	13.277	54.488
21	Hitomi Hatakeda	14.031	14.119	13.225	13.022	54.397
22	Giulia Steingruber	15.000	12.800	13.533	13.050	54.383
23	Flavia Saraiva	14.413	12.923	13.178	13.756	54.270
24	Alice Kinsella	14.283	13.900	13.133	12.953	54.270
25	Georgia Godwin	13.944	13.528	13.152	13.530	54.153

A number of things:

There are people who should be on this list but have enough misses this season to take their averages well down, like Diana Varinska. Using simply the eye test or the ambiguous-expectation test, she’d be on this list with people like Bachynska and Golgota, and I’d bump some others off.

Grace McCallum finds herself third here. I don’t have McCallum as part of the team of 5 right now because putting her in place of any of the others would lower the squad’s TF scoring potential and require some more Excel rage, but if she does make it on the team, she probably has the best chance among the Americans of unseating Lee for the second place in the AA.

De Jesus Dos Santos does rank as the highest non-American here, but her margin ahead of Liu Tingting and Ellie Black is not large. Liu Tingting has been working the DTY, but it has sounded, er, um, questionable. If that vault is together, then look out.

The DTY note should also be kept in mind regarding Li Shijia and Tang Xijing, who don’t have any real-life DTY scores to go off of yet. If they deliver those vaults at worlds, bump both of them up several places in the list above.

Nina Derwael has shown vault and floor in competition just once this year. Bars and beam can carry her far enough that VT/FX don’t have to be great, but we barely know where they are on the spectrum at all. Likewise, it’s easy to think of Ana Padurariu as just bars and beam, but those events are so good, that she can get away with an FTY and still be in this conversation. Note Canadian domestic scoring, though.

Angelina Melnikova is a more compelling contender than average score gives her credit for being, and I’d say that holds for Giorgia Villa as well. Both have suffered enough falls this year bring their averages down, but performing actual, solid meets (I know) should see them close to the top because they have some of the highest scoring ability of the entire class.

What, did you think I would abandon peak score of the year as a measure altogether? Bah.

		VT	UB	BB	FX	TOTAL
1	Simone Biles	15.650	14.750	14.950	15.100	60.450
2	Sunisa Lee	14.550	15.050	14.550	14.333	58.483
3	Grace McCallum	14.800	14.550	14.450	14.250	58.050
4	Kara Eaker	14.200	14.100	15.400	14.05	57.750
5	Melanie DJDS	15.000	14.650	14.100	13.966	57.716
6	Ana Padurariu	13.900	14.925	14.875	13.866	57.566
7	Ellie Black	14.700	14.550	14.033	14.150	57.433
8	Giorgia Villa	14.850	14.750	14.467	13.300	57.367
9	Angelina Melnikova	14.466	14.600	13.600	14.066	56.732
10	Liu Tingting	13.567	14.633	14.967	13.367	56.534
11	Jade Carey	15.066	13.300	13.500	14.600	56.466
12	Ellie Downie	14.500	14.600	13.333	14.000	56.433
13	Asuka Teramoto	14.933	14.066	13.700	13.633	56.332
14	Tang Xijing	13.800	14.350	14.667	13.350	56.167
15	MyKayla Skinner	15.050	13.500	13.750	13.850	56.150
16	Georgia-Mae Fenton	14.000	14.800	13.800	13.400	56.000
16	Li Shijia	13.800	14.050	15.050	13.100	56.000
18	Alice D’Amato	14.800	14.650	13.233	13.250	55.933
19	Nina Derwael	13.566	15.300	13.800	13.066	55.732
20	Diana Varinska	13.800	14.400	13.950	13.550	55.700
21	Asia D’Amato	14.900	14.050	13.433	13.300	55.683
22	Georgia Godwin	14.200	13.675	13.833	13.966	55.674
23	Elisabeth Seitz	14.500	14.900	12.700	13.500	55.600
24	Flavia Saraiva	14.600	13.266	13.833	13.900	55.599
25	Eythora Thorsdottir	14.200	13.850	13.800	13.666	55.516

Most tellingly, we see Villa and Melnikova move up the rankings when using peak score, and these positions are more representative of where I see them in the medal conversation. They should be considered in that Ellie Black group of contenders.